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Community mourns loss of Ryan Gillyard, St. Joseph's Prep football player

Martin Moran estimated that 60 to 70 people, mostly from St. Denis Catholic School in Havertown, gathered Saturday at coach Bill Clinton's home to remember Ryan Gillyard.

(Photo courtesy of Ryan Gillyard's Instagram account)
(Photo courtesy of Ryan Gillyard's Instagram account)Read more

Martin Moran estimated that 60 to 70 people, mostly from St. Denis Catholic School in Havertown, gathered Saturday at coach Bill Clinton's home to remember Ryan Gillyard.

"He was a really good kid, a really good athlete," said Moran, who was Gillyard's basketball coach at St. Denis in fifth and sixth grades. "Everyone is so upset over losing him. I can't imagine how his family is getting through something like this."

Gillyard, a 15-year-old freshman football player at St. Joseph's Prep, died Saturday morning after collapsing briefly after warm-ups during a spring workout session at the team's practice field at 11th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

The Upper Darby teenager was rushed to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Family members say they believe he died of a heart attack, although they were awaiting autopsy results.

Funeral services had not been scheduled as of Sunday. St. Joseph's Prep spokesman Bill Avington said there might be separate services at St. Denis and the Prep.

Moran, of Havertown, said there was a big turnout Sunday morning at the Prep for a memorial mass in Gillyard's honor. "The church was full," he said.

Said Avington: "It was an opportunity for people to come together and support each other."

Moran said his mother-in-law attended mass at St. Denis, where the Rev. Kevin J. Gallagher asked parishioners to keep the Gillyard family in their prayers.

Clinton and his brother, Mike, coached Gillyard, who dreamed of being a Division I football player, in basketball when he was in seventh and eighth grades at St. Denis.

Moran said Bill Clinton was taking a Saturday morning tour of Temple with his son, Hank, a junior at the Prep, when he received a phone call from Gillyard's mother, Shannon, about Ryan's condition.

"He went to the hospital to be with the family," Moran said. "He's been [distraught] since this happened."

In 2011, Ryan Gillyard, who was a running back and linebacker at the Prep, helped St. Denis capture a CYO Region 32 basketball championship.

"He played center for us then," Moran said. "Later, he was a guard. He was a versatile athlete. . . .

"Ryan was just a great kid. This whole thing blows you away. What you think about is all the potential he had as an athlete and in his life in general. It's sad."