N.C. State student found dead

Police say the death appears to have been from natural causes

RALEIGH -- ******

CORRECTION

The last name of the former coach of N.C. State University student Cameron Underwood was incorrect in the City & State section Monday. Underwood, who was found dead in his dorm room Sunday morning, was coached at T.C. Roberson High School by Mike Houston.

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An N.C. State University sophomore was found dead in his dorm room early Sunday morning.

Cameron Underwood of Arden was found dead inside Bragaw Hall on Central Campus at 7:30 a.m. Sunday.

"It appears to be of natural causes," said Sgt. D. Brickhouse of the NCSU Police Department.

His mother, Angela Underwood, told The Associated Press that Cameron, 18, had spent the night with a former teammate from T.C. Roberson High School, Cord Collins, who called for help when he awoke to find Underwood unconscious.

Underwood had begun his second year at N.C. State after extensive treatment for a brain tumor discovered during his senior year of high school, said Nick Lanahan, 19, a classmate from Roberson. Underwood spent half his senior year in Atlanta being treated for the golf-ball-size tumor that brought on seizures and required him to re-learn how to walk.

Mike Hudson, Underwood's coach at Roberson, said Underwood began complaining of headaches shortly after the end of Roberson's 2005 football season.

"Then they found the tumor," Hudson, now the defensive coordinator at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory.

Hudson said during the worst of his illness in 2005, Underwood's attitude didn't change.

"The night before the surgery, he was the only one in there that can smile and laugh and cut up," Hudson said. "That's the Cameron that everybody will remember."

Matt Brewer, a former classmate, described Underwood as well-liked and a "big man on campus" at Roberson High.

Underwood was able to return to school in time for the prom and to graduate on time.

"I just remember seeing everybody cheer for him when he got prom king," Brewer said.

Underwood had been Roberson's quarterback his senior year. He had planned to go back to his high school in Asheville with Lanahan to see their team play their chief rivals, A.C. Reynolds High, on Friday.

"He was always having a good time," Lanahan said. "I've never seen him mad, sad, frustrated."

N.C. State police planned to release more information later in the week.

(Staff writer Jesse James DeConto contributed to this report.)