Donnie Britt, youth football supporter, dies
Photo at left: Donnie Britt emceed the 'Best of Pasco' countywide cheerleading competition at Gulf High School in November 2002.
This article appeared in the St. Petersburg Times on Jan. 25, 2002.
By STEVE LEE
NEW PORT RICHEY -- Donnie Britt, a crusader for the youth football league his father helped found, was always there to lend a hand to those in need, most notably in crisis situations.
Friday, friends wished they could have been there for him.
Mr. Britt, 30, died Thursday. A housekeeper discovered his body shortly after noon in a Green Key Beach Motel room.
Although police have ruled out foul play, they think Mr. Britt overdosed on prescription drugs.
"It looks like he ingested some pills, but at this time we don't know what they were," said New Port Richey police Capt. Darryl Garman, adding that it appeared that Mr. Britt's death was either a suicide or an accidental overdose.
A former player, coach and announcer with the Pasco Police Athletic League, Mr. Britt also announced high school football games at various times for Ridgewood, River Ridge and Mitchell.
Additionally, he organized fundraisers for student-athletes such as David Haskins, who suffered a near fatal brain injury in 2002, and the family of James Priest, who died in an auto accident in 2001. He also arranged alumni football games at his alma mater, Ridgewood High School, and Gulf High.
Those who knew Mr. Britt expressed shock and dismay Friday over his death.
"He meant a lot to the kids. He was there for the kids, and everybody liked him," said PPAL president Ted Mounts. "We're going to miss him terribly."
Mike Donnelly, who coached with Mr. Britt for the PPAL's New Port Richey Buccaneers, fondly recalled his best friend.
"I'm crushed," Donnelly said. "It broke my heart.
"He was the best friend anybody could ask for. He'd do anything for anybody. He loved the kids of Pasco County. He did a lot for the kids. That's what he lived for."
Dolly Dearsman, the director of the PPAL's New Port Richey program, witnessed Mr. Britt go from player to board member and recollected how he tried to carry on the work of his father.
Mike Britt, who, along with former Pasco County Sheriff John Short, was instrumental in establishing the PPAL in 1976, had a fatal heart attack in 1992. The New Port Richey field off Grand Boulevard is named after him.
"They were big shoes, but he tried," Dearsman said of Mr. Britt's following in his father's footsteps. "He definitely wanted the league run like his dad had done it, making it about the kids. All those kids knew that he cared about them."
Mr. Britt and Wesley Chapel football coach John Castelamare, who coached him at Ridgewood, were neighbors in Orchid Lake. They often visited and talked about football and people they knew in the community.
"He was my center on a line we called the gremlins, because they were all about 5-6, 140 (pounds)," Castelamare said. "He was a good boy.
"I don't know if he got involved in something over his head. In fact, sometimes I think he was involved in too much."
Mr. Britt met his wife, April, 28, at a PPAL football game in 1993. She has been a cheerleading coach since that season. The couple married a year later and had three children: an 8-year-old son, D.J., and two daughters, Brandi, 6, and Peyton, 4.
Friday, April Britt made funeral arrangements with Donnelly, who was best man at the Britts' wedding.
"I'm trying to stay strong for everybody else, because nobody else seems to be able to hold it together," she said.
"I told my kids (Thursday) night. That was hard, but I told myself I wasn't going to cry until it's all over."
-- Times staff writer Cary Davis contributed to this report.
Donnnie Britt confers with the audio equipment operator
before the cheerleading competition in Nov. 2002
