The mother of Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler said she will ask the NCAA to conduct its own investigation into the circumstances surrounding her son’s death.

Wheeler collapsed and died in August 2001 during an offseason team workout.

Linda Will said she and her attorney, Johnnie Cochran, will meet today with NCAA President Myles Brand in Indianapolis to ask him to authorize a second investigation into possible wrongdoing by Northwestern during and after the conditioning drill. The initial investigation of the incident was conducted internally by the university.

“We’re going directly to Myles Brand,” Will said. “We’re going straight to him and putting it in his lap.”

Will said she wants Brand to force the removal of head coach Randy Walker and other members of NU’s coaching staff.

“I’m hoping that Dr. Brand fires every one of them before they get the chance to resign,” she said.

Alan Cubbage, vice president for university relations, had no comment on Will’s meeting with Brand.

Wheeler collapsed on Aug. 3, 2001, while running a sprinting drill. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded that Wheeler died of exercise-induced bronchial asthma. The school contends that supplements, not asthma, caused Wheeler’s death.

Will brought a wrongful-death suit against the university, Athletic Director Rick Taylor, Walker — who was not present at the workout — and others.

In court papers filed March 21, 2003, the university said it no longer has the records of a physical Wheeler took three weeks before his death.

Cubbage said the university notified all parties of the missing records last July. He did not give a reason why the records are missing, saying only that the university believes they “are no longer in existence.”

Will said she and her lawyers have their own theory about what happened to the records.

“We feel they destroyed it,” she said. “Out of everybody’s physicals, why did Rashidi’s come up missing?”

Jeffrey Goldberg, a Chicago lawyer who handles wrongful-death cases, said it is uncommon for a party in this type of suit to deny having records they are supposed to maintain.

“They are charged with the responsibility for keeping those records,” Goldberg said.

Dr. Mark Gardner, the former Director of Student Health who performed the physical on Wheeler, no longer works for the university.

The university also asked on March 21 that Will no longer be allowed to attend depositions in the case. NU lawyers told Circuit Court Judge Kathy Flanagan that Will’s behavior in the depositions has been disruptive.

NU lawyers said Will has stood up and interrupted the hearings several times, once calling Walker a “murderer.”

Flanagan did not bar Will from the proceedings but said she would be barred if she did not behave herself in the future.

“I was relieved that the judge didn’t go along with (NU’s request),” Will said. “This is still a democracy. This is my case, and this is my son.”

Will believes an overly intense workout killed her asthmatic son. The university blames his death on the use of supplements containing ephedrine, a substance that has been linked to the death of several athletes in the last few years, most recently Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler in February. NU has pulled five companies associated with the production and distribution of the supplements into the suit.

The university forfeited six practices in 2001 after University President Henry Bienen announced the team had violated NCAA rules by recording results of the drill and reporting them to the coaching staff.

But Will said this penalty is “insulting.”

“When someone blatantly ignores (the rules), what reprisals do they suffer to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself?” she said. “My child’s already gone. But I’m not going to let his death be in vain.”