Family, friends, and teammates of Rylan Reece, the 16-year-old football player from tiny Rozel, Kansas, who died during practice last week, packed a church Wednesday for his funeral.
“He was an old soul,” said Pastor Ryan Webster from Valley Community Church in Burdett. “He liked old cars and liked old songs.”
Neither Reece’s family nor friends spoke during the hour-long service that was preceded by hundreds of photos of the teen playing the guitar, hunting and fishing.
“Rylan had a deep passion for the outdoors, especially hunting, where he enjoyed the peace and beauty of nature,” said Pastor Jerry Hickey. “He loved playing the guitar and he had a beautiful voice even though not many were not fortunate enough to hear him, he found countless ways to make people laugh.”
Reece died last Tuesday after collapsing during practice.
Little is known about the circumstances surrounding his death except that a 911 call was made at 8:30 that evening and he died on the field about 30 minutes later.
Hickey did say that Reece’s mother and father were both performing CPR when first responders arrived.
His mother was a longtime volunteer in the Pawnee Heights School District, and his father was a former county undersheriff, according to County Attorney Doug McNett.
The district has only two schools and 140 students. Pawnee Heights High is so small it plays six-man football and had only 17 boys on its roster last year.
Almost everyone had some connection to the Reece family.
Webster said everyone always said Rylan never said a bad word about anybody.
“He didn’t just care about what people thought, he cared about how people felt,” he said.
An autopsy was done last week but McNett said results may not be available for three months.
It was 90 degrees with 57% humidity the evening he died.
Reece is the fifth Kansas football player to die around conditioning in the past eight years.
All previous victims have been big linemen, whose bulk tends to make it harder for them to cool off quickly. Rylan, however, is listed as a 140-pound fullback and wide receiver, according to an online roster.
The first death in recent memory happened in August 2018 when 19-year-old Braeden Bradforth died after his first practice as a freshman at Garden City Community College. In August 2021, 19-year-old Tirrell Williams died at Fort Scott Community College after a grueling preseason workout when the head coach was punishing players because there was trash on the field.
And in August 2023, Myzelle Law, also 19, died after a workout at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe. The cause of his death has not been made public.
Most recently, in 2024, 15-year-old Ovet Gomez Regalado died of complications of heat stroke after an August workout at Shawnee Mission Northwest.
