Bronchial asthma was the cause of NU football player Rashidi Wheeler’s death Friday, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said Saturday in a preliminary report.

Wheeler, a senior strong safety who started all 12 games for last year’s Big Ten champions, died at about 6 p.m. Friday after collapsing during preseason conditioning drills on the astroturf field on the Lakefill.

Wheeler’s aunt and uncle arrived from Detroit on Saturday and tearfully remembered their nephew at a press conference.

“He was a little taste of heaven on Earth for us and our family,” said uncle Anthony Will, shaking his head. “I’ve cried my eyes out already. I’m not sure how I’m going to grieve beyond this point.”

Will, a mechanical engineering visiting professor at Purdue University, and his wife, Kimberly, wearing purple, said they rooted for Purdue during the season, except when they faced Northwestern, when they supported their nephew.

They said Wheeler’s family, divorced parents George Wheeler and Linda Will, two brothers and a sister, were supposed to fly in from California Saturday night to make arrangements for Wheeler’s funeral.

Northwestern officials have yet to announce plans for a memorial for Wheeler, but the athletic department will post a link on www.nusports.com so students can send condolences to Wheeler’s family.

Wheeler, 22, collapsed with his inhaler in hand during a standard running drill at about 5 p.m. Friday. A sociology major, Wheeler and about 60 teammates had been working out for an hour before he went down.

NCAA regulations bar coaches from any workout that takes place before practices officially start in mid-August, but medical trainers were on hand. Teammates summoned head trainer Tory Aggeler because Wheeler could not continue the drill, which teammates described as a fast-paced jog.

At a press conference Friday with athletic officials and some players, Aggeler said Wheeler wanted to continue the drill he almost had completed but knew he probably couldn’t, as he had difficulty breathing in an asthma attack. Although Wheeler was alert and energetic, he took a turn for the worse about 10 minutes later and the paramedics were called. Aggeler administered CPR until two ambulances arrived each with five paramedics.

The vehicles were already nearby because of a call at the Technological Institute, said Alan Berkowsky, Evanston fire department division chief. Wheeler received treatment at the hospital for about 20 minutes before he died.

“Everything that could have been done was done,” Berkowsky said.

NU football coach Randy Walker compared the death to losing a member of the family.

“It’s exactly like they lost a brother. That’s exactly what it was,” Walker said. “Words can’t describe the grief that we all share together.

“(Telling the team) was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do in my life,” Walker said before choking up. On Saturday, Walker said he had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

Athletic Director Rick Taylor said he would be remiss not to see “if there was any possible way that we could have done something better.” An outside body would reevaluate what led up to Friday’s events, he said.

With approximately 10 asthmatics on the football team, Taylor said their participation in higher level athletics is not unusual.

Wheeler’s condition immediately after collapsing did not seem out of the ordinary either, Aggeler said, a situation he’s seen Wheeler in more than 30 times.

When Wheeler went down on all fours, he had less than a minute remaining on a drill that Bentley described as a fast jog at best, not the grueling regimen that comes later at training camp. The drill calls for 10 100-yard sprints, followed by eight 80-yarders, six 60-yarders and four 40-yarders, with progressively shorter rests in between each sprint. Wheeler still had to complete the 40-yard leg.

Taylor attributed Wheeler’s desire to finish the drill to the competitive attitude that can push football players to go beyond their limits.

“It’s called ‘men,'” Taylor said. “It’s in our genes, we want to prove ourself. … An elite class athlete like Rashidi, I’m sure that went through his mind.”

The drills are meant to give a base-line indicator of fitness going into training camp, and the players did not exercise with pads on, Walker said.

Wheeler’s death came two days after Minnesota Viking’s tackle Korey Stringer died of heat stroke suffered during a Tuesday afternoon practice in Mankato, Minn.

Just hours after Stringer died early Wednesday morning, a 17-year-old Indiana high school player died of a brain aneurysm after collapsing during practice Monday. Eighteen-year-old University of Florida freshman Eraste Autin died later that afternoon after complications from heat stroke during a practice left him in a coma for six days.

The initial report from the coroner indicates that heat was not a factor in Wheeler’s death. The temperature in Evanston was 82 degrees during the Friday afternoon practice.

“It wasn’t overly hot or humid,” said quarterback Zak Kustok. “It was actually cooler than a lot of other days that we’d been out drilling.”

But the recent rash of deaths had raised concerns among NU families about the health of the practicing players, said senior linebacker Kevin Bentley, a close friend of Wheeler’s.

“We were just getting all these calls from worried moms about dying,” Bentley said, but they took the warnings in stride, joking around while playing one of the week’s four or five Monopoly games.

Wheeler, Bentley, and fellow seniors cornerback Raheem Covington and running back Kevin Lawrence called themselves “the Cali boys” for their laid-back, care-free, almost surfer-like attitudes, Bentley said.

Bentley said Friday’s workout began as one of the best they’d had.

“When we started out, we were just so thankful that the weather had been great,” Bentley said.

Wheeler passed his annual physical July 12 with nothing unusual except for his chronic asthma, for which he always had an inhaler in hand at practice as a precaution, Aggeler said. No additional rules govern play for asthmatics, but as the team’s “safety net,” Aggeler would make sure Wheeler stayed hydrated. As an unwritten rule, players would quit practicing without resisting or debating if Aggeler said they shouldn’t continue.

Wheeler was one of only two returning starters in the secondary. He was expected to shoulder the leadership position vacated by the departures of Rashad Morton and Harold BlackMonday, who both graduated last year.

Wheeler’s death came just after his breakout junior year, in which he exploded for 88 tackles after having just three in his first two years. He recovered his first fumble during NU’s Oct. 7 victory over Indiana, and he made a career-high 14 tackles during the Wildcats’ 47-44 double overtime win at Wisconsin on Sept. 23.

“He was definitely a big part of our success last year and was definitely going to be a big part of this year,” Bentley said.

The 1995 Rose Bowl team also suffered similar losses when redshirt freshman Marcel Price was shot and killed in his hometown of Nashville over the summer, before the season started. Matt Hartl, a starting full back on the Rose Bowl team, died in 1999 of Hodgkin’s disease. That same summer defensive tackle Bobby Russ was shot and killed by police officers two weeks before graduation.

The entire university shares in a team’s grief in this situation, Walker said, although freshman don’t arrive at campus until Sept. 14, the weekend of the first home football game.

“Every student, not just football players, has to feel a great loss,” Walker said. “It teaches us as much as anything that this is a precious time we have.”

The Summer Northwestern’s Glenn Kasses contributed to this report.