Tyrek Coger, an Oklahoma State University basketball player who recently transferred from a junior college, died Thursday after a team workout, according to a statement from the university’s athletic department.
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The Oklahoma State Medical Examiner’s Office said Friday afternoon that Coger died from an enlarged heart and that the manner of death was natural. It came a few hours after university officials held a news conference on Coger’s death, which happened Thursday evening just after the team held a workout at the football stadium in extreme heat.
Shutt said that Coger, who had only been on OSU’s campus since July 5 after transferring from Cape Fear Community College in North Carolina, had passed all the standard testing that is required of all athletes before practicing or playing at OSU. “I gotta think beyond basketball now”. If you want to be great at something, you have to push the envelope. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in our staff here”, Holder said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
A Raleigh, North Carolina, native, Coger was 17 days into living out his dream as an NCAA Division I college basketball player.
Oklahoma State basketball coach Brad Underwood broke down Friday, noting that he was in Las Vegas on a recruiting trip when he learned of Coger’s death.
OSU spokesman Gary Shutt said during a Friday news conference that the practice lasted about 40 minutes, part of which was spent running stairs in Boone Pickens Stadium.
The coach said Coger had an impact on his peers even in his short time at Oklahoma State. In 2011, women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke, assistant Miranda Serna and two others died in a plane crash in western Arkansas. Underwood said he was “devastated” to hear of Coger’s passing.
Tyrek Coger, 21, collapsed during a workout session Thursday afternoon. He could calm you down and bring you back to reality.
“That young man was sacked up to be a Cowboy”, Underwood said. “Despite that, nothing could bring him down”. He had severe headaches in high school which led to him being forced to have fluid removed from his brain.
Coger’s former Word of God Christian Academy (WOGCA) coach Brian Clifton said he was, “very shocked and saddened”, to hear the news late Thursday night. “We’ll take this tragedy and look at it and try to figure out if there was something that could’ve been done to prevent it, and if there’s changes that need to be made, we’ll make those”.
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“He was mild-mannered, easygoing and easy to manage”, Summerfield said.
