Former East Ridge Football Player, 19, Dies In Saint Paul

Jovanny Joel "JoJo" Garcia, who played football for East Ridge High School in Woodbury and was recruited by the Minnesota Gophers, died in his home Monday. He was 19.

Garcia played defensive tackle for Cretin-Derham Hall in 2013 before transferring to East Ridge for the 2014 season. He helped his team make it to the Class 6A state quarterfinals that year. However, East Ridge later had to forfeit its victories from that season because Garcia was declared ineligible to play due to a dispute over his residency.

Garcia's cause of death is pending toxicology tests, but Saint Paul police say his death appears to be a suicide, the Pioneer Press reported.

Garcia committed to playing for the Gophers in 2015 – before former head coach Jerry Kill resigned – but he later decommitted because of academic and personal issues.

According to John Griffin, assistant football coach at East Ridge, the dispute and subsequent punishment over the 2014 season hurt Garcia. "It affected him. I felt bad he had to go through that," Griffin told the Star Tribune. Garcia had a rocky home life and had to live in his car for a period during high school, Griffin said.

Two of Garcia’s former East Ridge teammates – redshirt freshman quarterback Seth Green and freshman running back Dominik London – are on the current Gophers team.

"One thing about this is any time you lose a student-athlete at some point, it’s very tragic and it affects people in different ways,” Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck, who was hired at the University of Minnesota in January, told the Pioneer Press. "When it’s in-house, at some point, whether I was here or not here, you have to make sure that you are very compassionate towards all of their needs, and we’ll definitely be on that."

A GoFundMe page was created to raise money for Garcia's burial.

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Image via GoFundMe