The DePaul men’s soccer locker room was quiet on a warm late September morning in Lincoln Park, the players and coaches out on Wish Field running through a light practice after playing a match a day earlier.
In the middle of a line of white lockers waiting for their owners to return sat one that won’t be disturbed. A blue No. 19 DePaul jersey hung over the locker doors, and a framed photo rested below it.
The player in the photo has his head turned to the left, his mouth open in a wide smile as if laughing with the person next to him.
That’s how Chase Stegall’s teammates remember him.
The DePaul midfielder knew there were times to be serious, but he always tried to make sure the mood was high, playing music, dancing, joking with his teammates, talking to anyone and everyone. Laughing and smiling so much.
The locker room wasn’t quiet when he was in it.
“Having him there, it just shows that he is still with us,” longtime friend and teammate Jordan Clagette said of the photo. “His joy is still with us.”
On June 2, Stegall died in his DePaul apartment building from what the Cook County medical examiner ruled was sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Stegall, 20, had only a handful of seizures in his life.
Along with devastating his parents, younger brother and other family and friends, the loss enveloped the DePaul community in grief. It crushed his teammates, who knew him as lightning fast on the field and gregarious off it — and his coaches, who had watched him blossom in his sophomore season and who appreciated his ability to treat them in the same joking manner as his teammates. It also hit the many people he connected with beyond the soccer team.
The day the athletic department’s announcement went out about Stegall’s death, men’s soccer coach Mark Plotkin walked onto the second floor of the Sullivan Athletic Center and saw about 70 athletes from all sports — soccer, volleyball, basketball, tennis, cross country — sitting together and crying.
“When I walked up and I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is way bigger than us,’” Plotkin said. “I think of just how outgoing he was and how much he brought everybody together and how welcome he made every single person feel.”
As the months since Stegall’s death carry on with games and practices, the Blue Demons soccer team tries to honor him by recalling that joy.
That is just how his family wants him remembered.
Stegall was known as dynamic on the soccer field, but the story of his first match at age 3 had nothing to do with his speed.
His parents, Milt and Darlene, were certain he understood he was competing against another team. But when the other team scored about five minutes into the game, Stegall ran to celebrate with his opponents.
“He was excited that someone scored,” Milt said. “That’s all he was excited about. So we didn’t know what type of athlete or soccer player he was going to be, but we knew he wasn’t going to be a selfish individual. We knew he was going to be an individual who wants to be happy — but more so he wanted others to be happy.”
Stegall’s entry into an open track meet in Atlanta one year played out similarly. Given how much he loved to run, his parents thought it would be the perfect event for him, and they were eager to see how he would place. But when the race started, Stegall looked around with excitement as he ran.
“He’s just so happy to be in the race that he’s not even running at full speed,” Darlene said. “He just always had a tremendous amount of joy.”
Milt was a Hall of Fame wide receiver in the Canadian Football League who also played three seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals. His son took a different path, in part because he loved to run so much — and didn’t like to get hit, his parents theorized.
Stegall was competitive, but there were times as he looked toward earning a college scholarship that Milt, who helped him condition in high school, told him he needed to worry more about himself than making sure others got their due.
Stegall eventually found his place, thanks in part to his friend and teammate Clagette, who sent Plotkin an email inquiring about recruiting. Plotkin was impressed with Clagette’s tape, so he went online to watch a full game.
Ten minutes in, another player from Clagette’s Atlanta team caught Plotkin’s eye.
“This kid just takes off on like a 70-yard run and runs by everybody and scores a goal,” Plotkin said. “And I was like, ‘Who the heck is this kid?’”
He called Clagette’s club coach to inquire.
“Oh, you found Chase Stegall, huh?” the coach said.
Plotkin watched them at a showcase in California, and Stegall and Clagette both received scholarship offers from DePaul.
“From an attacking standpoint, there was nobody I’ve seen with that kind of pace,” Plotkin said. “Like, if he picked up a ball, he could cover 70 yards and run by everybody on the field. I’ve never seen it before. It was such a unique skill set that you don’t see anywhere.
“And so I was so excited to get him because I was like, he’s a little bit unrefined technically, but we can help him with that because you can’t teach that kind of speed.”
Stegall and Clagette took their visit to Lincoln Park together on a cold, rainy Monday that couldn’t dampen their excitement. Both were familiar with the Chicago area. Darlene Stegall attended Northwestern, and Clagette’s brother played soccer for the Wildcats.
They weren’t entirely sure what to expect from DePaul, but they were ready to do it together, as roommates and teammates.
Stegall used to joke with Plotkin that he had a 100% hit rate in recruiting. When he and his friends were in charge of showing potential players around DePaul, the recruits committed.
“He’s like, ‘Plotty, you’ve just got to give every single kid to us,’” Plotkin said.
Stegall’s parents called him a “connector.” In a private school interview once, the questioner asked about a disciplinary action Stegall had received for talking, wondering if it was because he knew all of the content in the class.
No, he said, he just liked getting to know people.
“We would walk by someone, and he would stop and have a little convo,” Clagette said. “I wouldn’t even know who that person was, but Chase would know.”
Those social skills helped Stegall settle in at DePaul, even through some challenges in his freshman year, including a seizure that eventually led to him having to redshirt that season.
Stegall’s family wasn’t entirely sure what happened the first time he had a seizure in the eighth grade. It didn’t present in a typical manner. But when he had another seizure in high school, he went on medication and attended regular neurologist visits to manage them.
He didn’t have physical restrictions. His family believed his first seizure at DePaul might have been the result of overexertion as a new college student, Darlene said.
In February, Stegall wrote for the DePaul athletics website about that episode. He told of how Plotkin was standing near his hospital bed when he woke up, how his teammates and friends helped him get to the hospital and constantly checked up on him. Plotkin said he sat with Stegall that day with his family far away, using the rare one-on-one time to get to know his player better.
“Knowing that my head coach and teammates cared about me that much was the moment I knew that DePaul was the right place for me,” Stegall wrote. “It didn’t matter that I was eventually redshirted that season and didn’t see the field.
“I could have transferred and found a new school, a new program. And yet, I knew nothing would compare to the family I had found here. I knew I could make an impact here, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do every single day.”
Stegall’s family and friends said sitting out the season — after missing time during his recovery — was tough on him. Plotkin instructed him on what he needed to do to improve despite missing the playing time.
“He wasn’t going to play, but he was there in practice, always smiling, just being a good teammate,” DePaul forward Keagan Pace said. “Plotty always says to us, ‘Be a great teammate,’ which he was.
“Off the field, he was a great guy. Even if he was having a bad day, he was always smiling, lifting people up, trying to make other people around him feel good.”
Stegall’s first season came last fall, when he played in 16 of 17 games for the Blue Demons, tallying 10 shots and one goal. Plotkin said he grew in his confidence and put in the work to develop his game so that coaches were excited about his progress as he wrapped up last winter and spring.
But Stegall didn’t get a chance to play his junior season.
He and other DePaul students were still on campus, wrapping up the school year, when he died. Stegall’s parents said they don’t know much beyond the medical examiner’s ruling, except that seizures can happen in a person’s sleep and that can make them more dangerous.
They believed his seizures were under control leading up to his death.
Their son — who loved thrifting and family parties and home-cooked meals and his faith and traveling and the NBA and arguing LeBron versus Jordan and learning poker from his friends and the city of Chicago — was doing well. Whenever anyone asked, his parents joked, “Our American Express tells us each and every month how much he enjoys Chicago.”
“Every time we talked to him, he was doing fine,” Milt said. “We saw pictures of him enjoying himself. So everything seemed to be going in the right direction. We started thinking maybe he was over this. Maybe he had grown out of this. There was never a point where we felt that there were some concerns.”
“Or that he needed to come home or anything like that,” Darlene added. “We were just happy for him because he was so happy.”
Darlene’s prayer amid the pain of her son’s death was that people would feel Stegall’s heart and know what type of person he was.
In the months that followed, through letters, emails and tributes, she believes God revealed to her family that many, many people did.
“There were days I didn’t know how I could keep going, right? How we would keep going,” Darlene said. “But there was an army of people that just surrounded us and kept us going. We had more love and support than I could have ever imagined from family, friends, neighbors. The love, really, is what kept us putting one foot in front of the other.”
The love came via messages from different locales, including letters from students in one of Stegall’s DePaul classes and many CFL fans, who watched Milt play 14 seasons for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. One fan sent them a ticket that had not only Milt’s signature, but also an autograph the fan had gotten from a young Chase, too, when they sat together at a signing session.
The love came via tributes. There was a candlelight vigil and moments of silence from his former schools and teams. Canadian sports channel TSN, for whom Milt works as a broadcast analyst, dedicated the CFL season to Chase. The Blue Bombers and rival Saskatchewan Roughriders put up scoreboard tributes.
The DePaul soccer team wears his No. 19 on jersey patches and their warmup shirts. On one locker-room wall, they created “The Chase Stegall Wall of Positivity.” Around a No. 19 jersey hang more than a dozen photos of Stegall and his teammates smiling, hugging and celebrating. They hope at one point this spring or next season to play a game in Stegall’s hometown of Atlanta and to dedicate a game to epilepsy awareness.
The family also received much support closer to home.
The church that held Stegall’s memorial service estimated that about 1,000 people attended. Clagette texts the Stegalls before every game, and he knows their friends at home, many of them Division I soccer players, visit the family often. They check on Stegall’s younger brother, Collin, of whom Stegall was very protective and took everywhere he went. Plotkin checks in on them often.
Darlene said the family had a stretch of having visitors for 60 straight days.
“We are loved, and that much we know,” she said. “And Chase is loved.”
Milt said others who have experienced loss also have reached out, letting him know the Stegalls’ story has helped them.
“We’re individuals of faith and our faith was questioned — and we still question it — but we know that this is in God’s hands and we have to understand that,” Milt said. “People look at me and see how I handle it and they say, ‘Man, you’re helping me out with my situation.’ So that comforts us, knowing that our walk is helping out others.”
The Stegalls know their journey is far from over. There are still days Milt goes to call Chase before realizing he can’t. But the support helps them remember their son the way they want to.
“We have to hold on to our joy in the midst of all this pain,” Darlene said. “We are committed to hanging on to the joy that Chase showed us more than anyone we have ever known.”
The DePaul soccer team shares that mission.
The only goal Stegall scored for the Blue Demons came against Drake last September. He slid to knock in a pass from Ryan Thomas, then ran to the corner, where all of the Blue Demons raced to mob him. Stegall celebrated with a random dance move, Clagette remembered.
Less than a year later, Clagette’s first goal at DePaul came in an exhibition against Michigan. He tapped the ball in the net and jogged off, pumping his hands in the air. Then he raised his right wrist to his forehead, showing off the number 19 scrawled on white athletic tape.
“It was fun, but it was emotional,” Clagette said. “He scored his first goal, and I was there. I scored my first goal, and obviously he’s with us but he wasn’t physically with us. I tried to dedicate something to him.”
Plotkin said there were some dark days in the immediate aftermath of Stegall’s death as the coaches and players tried to come to terms with the loss.
Plotkin’s mother is a South Side Irish Catholic, and he attended plenty of funerals growing up where family and friends dealt with loss through food and togetherness. His first thought as he tried to figure out how to help his team was, “Let’s just keep feeding them.”
The coaching staff fed the players breakfast, lunch and dinner. They brought them to a nearby golf simulator to get them out and laughing again, to let them know it was OK to keep living.
“It was good that we were all here together, just being around each other throughout the day that it happened,” Pace said. “Just being able to grieve with each other and just being there for each other.
“This is our family. We see each other every day. So there’s no one else I would rather be around than these guys in that sort of situation, especially with Chase being like the glue to our team and being so close to everyone.”
Plotkin thought he saw a weight lifted off his players’ shoulders after a celebration of life at DePaul, when they were able to share their memories about their friend and teammate. The group attended Stegall’s funeral in Atlanta together — as did many from the women’s soccer team — and Plotkin and Clagette spoke at the service.
Some of the players told Plotkin they felt bad because they were laughing a lot as they remembered their friend that day.
“I was like, ‘No, they want to see that,’” Plotkin said, “‘because you guys were the last people that were with Chase, and you were helping mold him for the last two years. It’s your job to carry on his legacy. So for them to see you laughing and the type of people you are, it makes them all proud because they know that Chase was in great hands and amongst a great community and in a great culture with you guys for the last two years when they haven’t been able to see him as much.’”
Along with the visual tributes to Stegall this season, the Blue Demons have reminded each other that it’s OK to talk about their friend. The coaches added clips of Stegall to some of their instruction videos. The players allow themselves to joke about moments with him, knowing he would want them to be happy.
Plotkin added a new core value to the team’s principles — “Have a positive mindset always” — in honor of Stegall.
Working toward that together is how they will carry on Stegall’s legacy.
“He loved soccer, but more than soccer, he just loved being around people,” Clagette said. “That’s the bigger picture of things. Soccer is going to end eventually, but his relationships will always stick with people. You could tell when he passed, there were thousands of people who knew him and were affected by him, so it’s just making sure our relationships stay strong.”