By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and DAVE CALDWELL
A Montclair High School football player who died Wednesday told a teammate that he still had postconcussion symptoms after he was cleared by doctors to return to play, the school’s interim principal said Thursday.

Ryne Dougherty, a junior linebacker, died Wednesday night. He was 16. He had a brain hemorrhage Monday while making a tackle during a junior varsity game. Doctors cleared Dougherty to return Oct. 6, roughly three weeks after he sustained a concussion in a practice Sept. 18. He first returned to action Friday, participating in one play for the varsity team.

Judith Weiss, the school’s interim principal, said that during a grief-counseling session with students Wednesday, one of Dougherty’s teammates said Dougherty had complained of postconcussion symptoms, specifically headaches, after he was cleared to play by his family physician and a neurologist.

“That’s what we have heard from students, that he complained after Oct. 6,” Weiss said in a telephone interview. “I overheard them talking. We have had some grief sessions with the students and one of them said he felt guilty that he didn’t tell someone” that Dougherty was still experiencing postconcussion symptoms.

Weiss said she was not aware of any school officials who knew whether Dougherty had not been feeling well even after he had received clearance to play.

“From the time he came back, we did not believe there were any symptoms,” she said.

At issue is whether Dougherty was fully recovered from his Sept. 18 concussion when he resumed playing. Established guidelines for concussion management state that athletes be free of symptoms, both before and after physical exertion, before they can return to competition. Those symptoms can include nausea, headaches, dizziness, sensitivity to light or cognitive problems.

Several studies have shown that, particularly among teenagers, sustaining another blow to the head before full recovery from a concussion can lead to second-impact syndrome — a condition in which arteries swell and pressure builds in the brain, often leading to coma or death.