Memorial on the Run: The Derek Sheely 4.0

Football cleats will be swapped for running shoes at Northwest High School’s 40-yard line this weekend in honor of a fallen Jaguar.

A charity race — the — is Saturday at Northwest. The event is a tribute to the late Derek Sheely, a college football player and Germantown native who died last year due to a head injury he suffered during practice.

His family formed the Derek Sheely Foundation after his death in order to raise awareness about head injuries and keep Derek’s spirit alive.

On Saturday, there will be plenty of traces of Derek.

For starters, it’s a 4.0-mile race, not a 4-mile race — a nod to his jersey number, 40. The course begins and ends on the 40-yard line of the Jaguar gridiron. He was a  graduate, after all.

“We don’t want him to be forgotten. He’s too good,” said Kristen Thomson Sheely, Derek’s mother.

The 22-year-old senior died Aug. 28, 2011, nearly a week after he collapsed at a practice at Frostburg State University, where he was a fullback.

It was later determined that a helmet-to-helmet hit contributed to Sheeley’s death, ESPN.com reported. His mother told Patch that he suffered from what is known as second impact syndrome. He already had a concussion before the helmet-to-helmet blow.

“In my heart I don’t think he played through a concussion,” Kristen Sheely said. “I don’t think he knew he had one.”

According to his mother, Derek Sheely was “in the best shape of his life.” He wanted to work for the CIA after he graduated. 

Kristen Sheely said her son was tough, but he wasn’t the type of athlete who’d play through a serious injury. She said he had never had any reported concussions.

The family got the call their son was in the hospital during breakfast the morning after they drove their daughter Keyton Sheely to Penn State to start her freshman year.

“This just isn’t supposed to happen,” his mother said. “We always hear that in time it will heal, but time makes it worse. The distance grows between now and the time we were with him.”

Kristen Sheely said the family has been working with researchers at Penn State and Frostburg to create a case study for what happened to Derek. Saturday’s race is part of a broader effort to raise awareness about concussions and other forms of traumatic brain injuries.

But it’s only a part of the work, she said.

Not only should athletes know the symptoms of brain injuries, she said, they’ve also got to recognize the consequences.

“Maybe there can be some lessons learned so that it won’t happen again,” Sheely said.