Another tragedy has struck the prep sports world.
Rico Butler, Hilliard Davidson
File photo by Scott Seighman
Rico Butler, 17, considered one of the top 200 junior football players in Ohio, drowned while swimming near a quarry Tuesday night.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, the 5-foot-7, 170-pound running back, who helped Hilliard Davidson (Hilliard, Ohio) to a state Division I (large school) championship last season, was pulled from the quarry near the Scioto River at about 11 p.m.
He and four friends swam near some rocks and a waterfall at about 7 p.m. when Butler didn’t surface. His friends, who described Butler as a good swimmer, thought he was playing a joke.
For more than an hour they searched the waters, described as at least 10 feet deep, before calling authorities.
By midnight, more than 80 teens had gathered near the quarry and mourned Butler's death.
It was the second Hilliard Davidson player to perish suddenly in six months. Arthur Lane, 16, also in the football program, was struck by a train on Dec. 4 and died instantly.
“It doesn’t feel real that we’re not going to see him again,” Hilliard Davidson junior Cody Kistner told The Dispatch. “It’s unreal.”
Lane was honored at halftime of Hilliard Davidson’s 16-15 state-championship win over Glenville (Cleveland, Ohio). In that game, Butler opened the scoring with a 24-yard touchdown run.
According to several recruiting sites, Butler ran the 40-yard dash in under 4.5 seconds and bench-pressed more than 300 pounds. He had received a scholarship offer from Illinois and letters from dozens of other Division I programs.
Butler’s passing comes on the heels of recent accidental deaths of two national recruits from the Class of 2010.
Matt James, an offensive lineman at St. Xavier (Cincinnati, Ohio) who had signed to Notre Dame, died on April 2 after falling from a hotel balcony on a Gulf of Mexico beach.
Tobi Oyedeji, a top basketball recruit from Bellaire (Texas), perished in an early-morning car accident on May 16. He was bound for Texas A&M.
