*~;( ;( Billy Gaines, My High Schools Greatest Football stars...Dead..;( ;(~**~SGG~*

The following is an article about the death of a great football player..he went to my school last year and helped our team to be one of the greatest ever! He died a few nights ago after a freak accident..;( ;( we will miss you soo much Billy!!(also...further down it talks about how they might have been drinking..i really do believe that they were drinking..;()

For the two University of Pittsburgh football players staying at the St. Anne's Church complex of the St. Maximilian Kolbe parish in Homestead, the temptation to explore was too great to resist. The search proved deadly. Sophomore wide receiver Billy Gaines, 19, died Thursday of spinal injuries and a fractured skull after he fell nearly 30 feet from a catwalk onto a pew at the church.

Gaines' death saddened and angered his parents, left his hometown in Maryland in grief, filled the church's Homestead community with questions, upset fellow Pitt players and caused the church pastor -- Rev. Henry R. Krawczyk -- to ask and be temporarily relieved of duty.

Gaines and David Abdul, 19, a Pitt placekicker and roommate of Gaines, set out to explore the church late Tuesday and into early Wednesday, while four of their teammates waited. The friends were hanging out after a cookout. Abdul told reporters yesterday the young men had not been drinking. Authorities are analyzing Gaines' blood for alcohol content.

Abdul said he and Gaines and Pitt players John Simonitis, Steve Buches, and Neal Tracey usually gathered on Tuesday nights after summer classes.

After this week's cookout, Abdul said he and Gaines climbed above the sanctuary's ceiling, onto a narrow catwalk and into the darkness. They snaked their way out several yards before nerves stopped them. Best to turn back, they decided.

Abdul said he turned and started back to the safety of a secure floor. Gaines turned, too, Abdul said, but lost his balance. The former high school football star crashed through a suspended tile ceiling and onto a pew. About 20 hours later, doctors pronounced him dead.

"Me and him went up," Abdul said. "We were out there pretty far and decided we should turn around."

Abdul calmly described what happened after his friend's fall.

"I went down there, and everybody was kind of scared to go near him," Abdul said. "But I ran up to him and Neal (Tracey) ran up there, too, and I was just holding his head. Neal tried to give him mouth-to-mouth. He was breathing."

Simonitis called for police.

Krawczyk was in his living quarters with Tracey and Buches when Gaines fell, Abdul said. Hearing the noise, they rushed into the church.

Gaines' parents visited the scene yesterday and picked up their son's belongings. They were accompanied by Gaines' fiancee, Natalie Augustine, and his two brothers, Michael, 16, and Nick, 14, and 25 high school friends and teammates.

Gaines' mother expressed rage at Krawczyk, a priest of 25 years.

"... maybe (Krawczyk's) afraid of an attack, a verbal attack, a physical attack," Kimberly Ann Gaines said. "I don't know. I don't know why he hasn't talked to us."

Gaines and Abdul met Krawczyk through Pitt freshman quarterback Luke Getsy, who was a member of St. Anne's. Gaines and Abdul moved into the church's former convent after a fire destroyed their on-campus home in Oakland.

"(Gaines) worked for Hank (Krawczyk) last year maintaining the grounds of the cemetery," Kimberly Ann Gaines said. "He liked Hank, and he liked the job he was doing. Then, his house burned about four weeks ago and Hank offered them these rooms, and I hadn't seen anything. I hadn't come up. And I just knew my son was in church and figured he'd be safe.

"He told me that Hank had told him lots and lots of ghost stories, and he did have nights where he heard things."

She complained that no one came out to speak with her when she stopped by the church yesterday to collect her son's belongings.

"They packed up all his stuff and put it out in the hall," she said. "Nobody has even welcomed us or apologized."

Police are saying little about Gaines' death. Gaines was an organ donor, and an autopsy hasn't been completed. The results of a blood test to determine whether Gaines had been drinking have not been released. The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh is saying little about Krawczyk's involvement with the young men, citing the police investigation.

Police initially said that Gaines slipped and fell, landing in front of his horrified teammates and pastor.

Parishioners say Krawczyk sometimes allowed immigrants to stay in the convent, which closed in 1988, while they looked for housing in their new country.

Detectives still were talking to the football players and Krawczyk about what they saw in the church. Krawczyk could not be reached for comment.

"He was an idol around here," said Danny Mulhern, 14, of Gaines' hometown, Ijamsville, Md. Mulhern, a friend of Gaines' younger brother, Nick, looked up to Gaines and once did a school project about the championship wide receiver.

More than 300 people held hands and stood in a circle around the football field Gaines once played on during his high school years at the Urbana Hawks stadium.

Pitt's football team also felt the loss.

For the team's head coach, one memory stands out. At only 5-foot-7 and 170 pounds, Gaines seemed an unlikely recruit for college ball. But he impressed the coaches at camp with his ability, drive and effort.

So they offered him a scholarship.

Amazed, Gaines started to cry. "And I said, 'Billy, what's the matter?' " coach Walt Harris said. "He said, 'I'm not big and I thought I'd have to walk on. ... This is a dream come true.'

"It was emotional," Harris said. "That really separated him from all the other kids we had over the years. Now what's happened makes it even more difficult."

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