By Calvin Palmer
The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search at 6:30 p.m. for two NFL players and another man whose boat capsized off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Capt. Timothy Close said: “We’re extremely confident that if there were any survivors on the surface of the water, we would have found them.”
The search today yielded a lifejacket and a cooler, both about 16 miles southeast of where the boat was found.
NFL players Victor “Marquis” Cooper and Corey Smith, former team mates with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2004, left for a fishing trip on Saturday in Cooper’s boat with former University of South Florida players Will Bleakley and Nick Schuyler.
They set off at about 6:30 a.m. from the Seminole boat ramp at Clearwater Pass and set anchor about 30 miles west of Clearwater in the afternoon, when the seas began to rise.
As they tried to pull the anchor in, a wave, possibly as tall as 14 feet, crashed over their 21-foot-long, single-engine, center-console boat and rolled the vessel over, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Rob Simpson said.
The men were pitched into the 65-degree Gulf, desperately clawing their way back to the overturned boat to grip the hull. All four clung to the boat until Cooper, Smith and Bleakley drifted away from the overturned vessel and disappeared.
Schuyler clung to the boat, and after more than 40 hours in the water was spotted yesterday afternoon and plucked to safety aboard a Coast Guard helicopter.
Clinging to the boat likely saved Schuyler’s life, officials said. His condition was upgraded to fair this morning at Tampa General Hospital, where he is being treated for dehydration and hypothermia.
After talking to Schuyler the Coast Guard was able to narrow its search but it still drew a blank.
Corey Smith, 29, played as a defensive end with the Detroit Lions for the past three seasons. Victor “Marquis” Cooper, 26, played eight games for the Oakland Raiders last season.
[Based on reports by The Tampa Tribune and Associated Press.]
3 Comments
March 4, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Why didn’t the waves bother the survivor? he stated on previous interview that all four men were hugging the boat and somewhere around 2am the other three men started drifting, then I heard another day he said that Cooper, whom was known to be a great swimmer took off his life jacket and started swimming away???? before that he stated and I quote that the other 3 were caught up in waves, none of the affore mentioned times, was it reported exactly his postion concerning these instances. Thank God for his survival but it’s something not adding up here with this…
March 4, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Good point with regard to your first comment, Brenda.
As to the second, steady on. That would cost the NFL teams money.
Sadly, I think it is a lost cause. I think the three men have gone to the deep.
March 4, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Why isn’t the NFL volunteering some of the team jets or furnish some from other means? Each team have planes…After all, 2 of the men were on NFL rosters…