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GREENSBORO — The Page football team is as typical and nondescript as the high school itself. The grass around the field is a bit long, the scoreboard a trifle old. Whistles blew at practice Monday and crickets still sang in the sticky air.

This might have been any team in North Carolina — America even — except for the uneasy feeling that went unspoken among players.

Three nights earlier, those same players were on the field at Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem when, midway through the fourth quarter, a defensive opponent crumpled to the ground.

Sophomore Matt Gfeller did not get up. He died Sunday morning, leaving stunned and saddened coaches wondering Monday how to address such a tragedy with their own players.

"There's no easy way, but you have to talk about it," Page coach Kevin Gillespie said. "It's natural for kids to think, 'Can this happen to me?' We need to let them know this was a freak thing and while we can pray and keep that family in our thoughts, it's my job to move us forward."

And so Gillespie will try to do everything the same this week, from the opening calisthenics to reviewing scouting tapes of Northeast Guilford, the Pirates' opponent Friday night.

But nothing will be the same this week — not just at Page but across the Triad as coaches grapple with how to approach Gfeller's death with their players.

"I'm going to talk to them, but what I'm going to say I haven't a clue," said Western Guilford coach Chris Causey. "I don't want to make our kids apprehensive, but I also know it's on their minds. How could it not?"

Every autumn, millions of American parents face the question of whether to let their sons play high school football. And millions of boys, though they might not admit it, wonder if they really want to play, said Causey.

"As a parent, as a football player it's always in the back of your mind," he said. "But this could have easily happened in any sport. Look at soccer -- they hit headers and collide into each other without helmets. Basketball you can easily catch an elbow. And I've seen baseball players hit in the head by fastballs. There's a risk in all sports just as in life."

Coaches and medical experts agree that Gfeller's death is as rare as it is tragic. Since 1931, 665 high school athletes have died in the United States from a catastrophic head or spinal injury while playing football, according to research at the University of North Carolina.

That number has dropped considerably over the years including a huge drop since 1976 when spearing — head-first tackling — was banned by the National Federation of State High Schools Association.

Of the estimated 1.5 million boys who participated in high school football across the nation last season, three died from a catastrophic injury. Gfeller is the first to die this year.

Meanwhile, more information on the fatal injury was revealed Monday. Gfeller was the victim of an acute subdural hematoma, a blood clot caused by a ruptured vein between the skull and brain, according to the neurosurgeon who operated on him Friday night.

Dr. Charles Branch Jr. operated on Gfeller within 40 minutes of his arrival at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center to remove the blood clot and reduce the swelling pressure within the skull. But by then, Branch said, the damage was already done.

"My guess is the damage was irreversible within minutes after he went down," said Branch. "There was really nothing anybody could do, the hospitals, the paramedics, the trainers. It was just one of those rare things that happens in sports sometimes."

Contact Robert Bell at 373-7055 or robert.bell@news-record.com