Ereck Plancher

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An autopsy conducted Wednesday failed to reveal a definitive cause in the death of Ereck Plancher, the former Lely High School football star who collapsed and died during a Tuesday morning football practice at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Further tests will be required, which will take several weeks to complete, the District 9 Medical Examiner’s Office in Orlando reported.

But while investigators in Orlando continue trying to determine how and why Plancher, 19, died, friends and family members in Collier County are in the early stages of planning funeral and memorial services.

A visitation is scheduled for 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on March 28, at the First Haitian Baptist Church, 14600 U.S. 41 E., the Naples Memorial Funeral Home reported. A two-hour funeral service is scheduled for 10 a.m. the next morning in the Lely High School auditorium.

Plancher’s family members said they’re expecting more than 1,000 people to attend the service.

“They asked if they could use our auditorium on the 29th of this month because it holds about 1,500 people,” Lely Principal Ken Fairbanks said. “They already heard there will be a contingent coming from UCF down. There will be their students, our students, staff.”

The fact that so many people are expected for the service says a lot about what Plancher meant to his friends, family members and teammates, said Plancher’s cousin, Gasnel Leo.

“I’m just proud of him. It shows the kind of person he was,” Leo said. “We all just loved him. Even people that didn’t know him fell for him.”

On Tuesday night, more than 100 friends and family members gathered outside Plancher’s purple house on Martin Street to reminisce. About a dozen cars still were parked in front of the house on Wednesday afternoon.

“We just talked about Ereck,” Leo said. “We lit the candles up. We cried. We prayed, just remembering him.”

The UCF football program also remembered Plancher during an hour-long, private memorial service on Wednesday afternoon, the UCF Athletics Association reported.

“I have been to a lot of memorial services, but I have never heard more positive things said about an individual than I heard today about Ereck,” UCF Head Coach George O’Leary said in a press release. “His teammates, coaches and support staff spoke highly of his character. He was a special young man and the sentiment I expressed to the team was the best way to honor Ereck is to emulate him.”

Lely students and staff also are planning ways to remember Plancher, an honor student and the football team’s offensive most valuable player during his senior year.

They are collecting donations for two scholarships in Plancher’s name and to help Plancher’s family with funeral costs, Fairbanks said. Lely is also planning a moment of silence for Plancher at the start of the next football season, as well as a sign at the entrance of the football field that will read “Plancher’s Place,” Fairbanks said.

“We know we have to leave Ereck’s mark here,” Fairbanks said. “It will become a permanent display at Lely for the rest of our tenure as Lely Trojans.”

As a senior at Lely in 2006, Plancher compiled 1,027 yards of total offense.

Because he had done so well academically, Plancher finished high school that December and enrolled at UCF in January to begin conditioning and preparing for his first season of college football, Fairbanks said.

He attended UCF on a football scholarship.

“He came back in May to get his diploma and walk,” Fairbanks said. “He was the first one in his family to graduate from high school and go to college. They had high expectations for Ereck and Ereck had them for himself.”

On Tuesday morning, football players lifted weights, ran for about 10 minutes and then huddled for a chat, UCF athletic director Keith Tribble said on Tuesday. As everyone was leaving, Plancher took a knee in obvious distress, Tribble said.

Trainers immediately provided CPR and Plancher was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he died at 11:51 a.m., reports said.

Back in Collier County, friends and family members are still scratching their heads trying to figure out why a seemingly healthy 19-year-old athlete, who had recently passed a physical, died after a routine practice.

“It was just conditioning drills,” Leo said. “He’s done worse than that.”

Lely staff also remembered Plancher as a student who took good care of himself.

“Ereck was a very healthy young man,” Fairbanks said. “The students were saying at lunch that if there was a beer party ... Ereck would not be there.”

Leo agreed.

“He didn’t care about partying,” Leo said. “He cared about school and work. He had three jobs when he was in high school.”

The Collier County School District sent six grief counselors to Lely High School on Wednesday to work with students still coming to grips with Plancher’s death, Fairbanks said. He estimated that about 125 of the school’s 1,400 students met with the counselors.

“They worked all the way through lunchtime,” Fairbanks said.

More than a year after Plancher last attended Lely, Fairbanks said he remained popular.

“Ereck’s heart and soul was something that everyone emulated,” Fairbanks said. “He left a true mark. Even when he was a senior last year, the freshmen would see his work ethic. ... They knew that he already had a scholarship and was going to UCF. They asked him, why do you work so hard. He said ‘because I give 125 percent every day.’”

Leo said the death of his cousin hasn’t hit home yet.

“When we see him in the casket,” he said, “that’s when it’s going to hit.”

Anyone interested in donating to the Plancher memorial fund at Lely High School can contact Principal Ken Fairbanks at (239) 377-2004 or at 1 Lely High School Blvd., Naples, Fla., 34113.