Ole Miss Football Player Collapses, Dies After Team Workout

University of Mississippi football player Bennie F. Abram died after collapsing during the first day of team workouts, according to reports Saturday.

The team's trainers said Abram, 20, was having respiratory trouble during the training session Friday morning, the school's student newspaper The Daily Mississippian reported.

They administered first aid, called 911, and he was taken by ambulance to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford, according to reports. Abram died at the hospital several hours later.

What he was doing prior to collapsing and the cause of his death are under investigation, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., reported. "I believe that he was jogging," Lafayette County coroner Rocky Kennedy told the publication. "I don't know what the exact workout would've entailed."

Abram had not shown indications of having a prior condition and he had passed the required tests and physicals necessary to join the team, The Daily Mississippian reported.

Abram was a non-scholarship athlete who transferred to the school last fall and joined the football team as a safety in January, according to The University of Mississippi. He was a junior exercise science major.

"Bennie was a fine young man and a hard worker," Ole Miss Head Football Coach Houston Nutt said in a statement on the school’s Web site. "He was a great person to be around and a well-mannered young man. His loss is so tragic. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family and all who knew Bennie."