(WSBT) The Notre Dame community is mourning the sudden loss of one of its finest athletes.

Twenty-eight-year-old Ryan Shay, a former Irish track and field star, collapsed and died Saturday at what seemed to be the height of his running career. In fact, it happened while he was trying out for the Summer Olympic Games.

Former Notre Dame teammate Luke Watson remembers Shay as determined.

"We thought, you know, it would be pretty cool to make it up this mountain," Watson remembered as he looked at a picture of a group of guys that included he and Shay. "So Ryan and I decided to climb to the top of this mountain. It was just a challenge. And Ryan really embraced challenges and took them head on and he wouldn't stop until he had completed the challenge and conquered it."

Shay's most recent challenge — making the U.S. Olympic team.

"He had a great shot, he really did," said Notre Dame coach Joe Piane.

But it was a challenge he would never fulfill after collapsing just five and a half miles into Saturday's Olympic qualifier. It's something that shocked Shay's former coach.

"If you saw Ryan you'd say, 'Here's the guy that's the epitome of someone that's in fantastic physical condition,'" said Piane.

During Ryan's cross-country and track career at Notre Dame he earned All-American honors in nine events, making him one of the most decorated athletes in the university's history.

"He was a great competitor, but a great leader and a great captain," said Piane. "He was the best."

His teammates say Ryan knew one way to run — fast and hard.

"We used to kind of give him a hard time and say up in Central Lake, Michigan, his hometown ... you eat rusty nails for breakfast lunch and dinner because Ryan was just the toughest, you know, the toughest kid imaginable," said Watson.

And at only 28 years old Shay would leave them with the biggest mystery of all.

"Why did this happen? Why today? And why Ryan?" wondered Watson.

An autopsy is scheduled for Sunday.

Shay grew up in Michigan, graduated from Notre Dame in 2002 and had just gotten married in July.