Korey Stringer was an All-Pro tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. Eraste Autin and Rashidi Wheeler were collegians at, respectively, the University of Florida and Northwestern in Chicago.

Travis Stovey was 17 and played for Clinton Central High in Indianapolis. Leonard Carter was 14. He played for Lamar High School in Houston, while 13 year-old Jamarious Bennett played for Jasper County Middle School in Shady Dale, Georgia.

The aforementioned have at least three things in common: They all played football, they all participated in pre-season drills over the last few weeks, and they are all dead.

Although they all collapsed on the practice field, not one of them was injured in a contact drill. The causes of death were varied, but there seems little doubt if they hadn't been working out in the oppressive heat, they might all be alive today.

Because of his prominence, Stringer's death has received the most attention, and within days his agent had contacted an attorney specialising in wrongful-death suits. The Wheeler case also appears destined to wind up in a courtroom, particularly now that the Rev Jesse Jackson has jumped on the bandwagon and the late player's family has engaged the services of Johnnie Cochran's law firm.

Stringer was 27 when he died on August 3rd. According to medical testimony, the fatal heatstroke that killed him prevented his major organs from functioning when his body temperature reached at least 108 degrees. His body temperature was literally cooking him from the inside out.

The day before, Stringer had vomited several times at a practice session, and at a morning session the day he collapsed vomited at least three times before asking for help. He was rushed to a local hospital, but was unconscious by the time he arrived and died the next morning.

By all accounts an enormously popular figure among his team-mates, Stringer left behind a wife and a three-year-old son.

Now, a 335-lbs professional lineman practising twice a day in oppressive temperatures is understandably at risk, but NCAA rules purportedly recognise the perils of summertime football practices.

While workouts before school, even opens, aren't specifically banned, they are supposed to be "voluntary" conditioning activities, unsupervised by coaches. The Northwestern coaching staff was, in fact, videotaping the practice session in which Wheeler died, and the tape of the boot camp-style drill could yet wind up as Exhibit A for the plaintiffs.

The 109-second film clip has been made available to the media, and is a frightening chronicle indeed. As the 22-year-old Wheeler begins to stagger through his paces, an off-camera voice, presumably that of a coach, can be heard, shouting like a drill sergeant, "Let's go, 'Shidi! Come on, keep moving!"

As Wheeler collapsed, the camera continues to roll. Even as he was being helped off the field, the drill continues apace. As paramedics attempt to resuscitate the dying player, his team-mates swerve so as not to run him over as they run past the grim little scrum on the sideline.

Since Stringer had died just two days earlier, and Autin six days before that, you'd have thought common sense might have prevailed here, but you'd be wrong.

Now the medical experts are choosing sides. A few days after the release of the incriminating videotape, someone - from the other side of the lawsuit, presumably - leaked the information that the autopsy had revealed two types of the banned stimulant ephedrine in the player's system. Whether the substance was contained in Wheeler's asthma medication or in a dietary supplement remains at issue and is no doubt destined to be a bone of contention in subsequent litigation.

The medical examiner's report ruled "exercise-induced asthma," rather than heatstroke, as the cause of Wheeler's death. Bennett was discovered to have suffered from a "silent birth defect," an undetected heart defect, while Carter had an enlarged heart. Stovey? A brain aneurism.

Reflecting on this rash of football-related deaths, St Louis Rams lineman Grand Wistrom said: "I don't think this was anything more than a calamitous chain of coincidences." We can promise you this much: if boxing had sustained a similar chain of "coincidences" it would already have been banned outright.

To the best of our knowledge, not one team at any level has actually abandoned August practices, even when the temperatures soar well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The NFL quietly asked its member clubs to review their guidelines for practice sessions in oppressive heat, but even here you have to wonder whether the primary concern is safety, self-preservation, or, perhaps, both.

"We have to do something about safety," San Francisco 49ers coach Steve Mariucci told Sports Illustrated last week. "A mom who sends her son out to play football has to know he's not going to be in danger. I worry that the pool of players will go way down and we'll lose even more young kids to sports like soccer."