He Didn’t Receive a Fighting Chance

Six days after Hank Gathers buckled and fainted at the free-throw line of a December college basketball game, I waited for him to keep an appointment in a lonely corner of Loyola Marymount’s basketball pavilion. He wandered in a little late, a little woozy, a little wobbly, I thought. He did not look good. He looked listless.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Is that what we’re going to talk about?” he asked.

Hank was longing to get back to shooting hoops. A doctor had tested and tested him, X-rayed and examined him, taken his blood pressure and pulse, aimed a penlight beam into his eyes, monitored his heartbeat. He seemed OK. He felt OK. Loyola had basketball dates the following week with Oregon State and Oklahoma, so naturally, Hank Gathers was dying to play.

Was dying to play.

Was dying to play.

He gave me a shrug that day and said: “The doc’s got a job to do. If he clears me to play basketball, and then I go out there and collapse again, he’d better be able to show that he ran every test there was on me.”

Go out there and collapse again.

Go out there and collapse again.

More than two months have passed. It is a bone-chilling Sunday in the California oceanside community of Marina del Rey, where yacht brokerages dot the main boulevard, where boat sails flap from the channel’s evening breeze. A nearby hospital has just ushered into its emergency room a handsome young man, a young man who three weeks before had celebrated his 23rd birthday, a young man who three weeks hence hoped to be celebrating a surprise ending to his senior year.

A regional championship. A national championship. A way to one-better the staggering individual accomplishment of the year before, when Gathers led every young man in the land not only in scoring, but in rebounding as well. And as long as Hank and this season’s No. 1 scorer, Bo Kimble, could step onto a gym floor together, championships seemed eminently possible. Anything seemed possible. The NBA. Glory. Money. Everything was possible, because Hank Gathers had his entire life ahead of him.

His entire life ahead of him.

His entire life ahead of him.

He wanted to be a sportscaster. He went to a camp, learned the tricks of the trade, interned at a local TV station, took over the host’s role on a local cable channel’s Loyola pregame show. He wanted to learn how to interview and be interviewed. He asked for advice. He listened politely, thoughtfully. He asked me: “Did I give you a good interview, or was I dull?”

A week went by. Two weeks. Hank’s trigger finger got itchy. In practice he shot baskets, felt fine. For the Oklahoma game he suited up, ran through the lay-up drills, pumped a couple of jumpers, even though he understood that the Loyola coach was not about to let him play. All night long I stole glances at him, leaning forward from his courtside chair, wiping his sweaty palms. It was all he could do not to make a plea to Paul Westhead to put him in the game.

In days to come, when he finally did return, Hank seemed good as new. No lingering aftereffects. He lit up St. Mary’s for 44 points. Bo Kimble, his buddy from the cracked schoolyard asphalt of Philadelphia to the clean, green playgrounds of the West Coast, thought Hank looked like, well, Hank. He talked about a day in the NBA when he, Bo, hoped to compete in the All-Star game’s three-point shooting contest, but not in the dunking contest. “I’ll leave that one for Hank,” he said.

Leave that one for Hank.

Leave that one for Hank.

A March afternoon. A day like any other day. A basketball game. Hank Gathers in a silvery uniform, brow beaded with sweat, hands steady under pressure. He backpedals. He swoons. His legs crumple beneath him, and he tips over, topples like a fallen oak. Prostrate on the court. Trembling. Having a seizure. He tries to rise. He’s confused. He slumps backward a second time. His leg is rising involuntarily, is twitching uncontrollably.

A March evening. A hospital like any other hospital. Five minutes before 7 o’clock. A young man, a handsome and articulate young man, a gifted and engaging young man, an indecently unlucky young man, has passed away. An attending physician, Dr. Mason Weiss, relates how resuscitative measures were taken, how “with somebody in his physical shape,” at least a fighting chance remained of reviving Hank Gathers.

“Much to everybody’s chagrin,” Dr. Weiss said, “there was never any evidence of spontaneous heart activity that we could measure on a heart monitor.”

Much to everybody’s chagrin.

Much to everybody’s chagrin.

Hank Gathers, gone. Taken away, by the unforgiving beeping of a monitor, by the uneven beating of a heart. I can still see him falling, falling, falling. Tell me he’s going to be OK. Tell me they can run more tests. Tell me anything at all, anything except the terrible thing you keep telling me.