Michigan town remembers high school hero

FENNVILLE, Mich. - Days after Wes Leonard scored the winning shot in overtime, then collapsed and died of an enlarged heart, this town near Lake Michigan remembered an "all-American kid" whose athletic heroics had been local legend.

Leonard, 16, sent the ball through the hoop with less than 30 seconds left in overtime on Thursday. The shot gave Fennville High a 57-55 basketball victory over Bridgman High and a 20-0 regular season.

"He was a good kid, a good friend to have and a good person to hang around with," DeMarcus McGee, who played football and basketball with Leonard, said between sobs. "You never thought it could be him. He was so healthy. It shouldn't happen."

After Leonard's shot, celebrating teammates began scrambling to organize a team photo. That's when the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Leonard collapsed, with 1,400 fans watching.

"Thirty seconds earlier, he was laying in the winning bucket," said Ryan Klingler, basketball coach in Fennville, about 200 miles west of Detroit. "And then 10 seconds later . . . everything's pulled out from under you, from out of nowhere."

Paramedics performed CPR at Holland Hospital before he was pronounced dead. An autopsy showed he died of cardiac arrest due to an enlarged heart. Ottawa County Medical Examiner David Start said the stress Leonard placed on his heart through athletics could have played a role, but his death could not be easily explained.

Leonard was a top performer in baseball and football, too.

Vicki Lepior, who owns a roofing company, used to coach baseball against Leonard when he was a fourth-grader.

"When I saw him pitch, I told my boys, 'You better move back in the box just a little bit,' " Lepior said of the boy she called "Big Man Wes." "He was just the kid that everybody loved, and there isn't a mother on Earth who doesn't feel [what his mother] feels."

Chad VanHuis, who once umpired Leonard's middle-school baseball games, remembered opposing coaches asking to see his birth certificate.

"He was very courteous. He was the nicest kid. You'd think with his star potential, because he's so gifted, he'd be cocky, but he never really was that way," VanHuis said.

When he reached Fennville High, Leonard really took off, playing as a starter for three years on the football team, first as a receiver, then as a quarterback and defensive end.

The Fennville team decided after talking with Leonard's family that it will participate in a game today, in the first round of state playoffs. A funeral was scheduled tomorrow.