THE DEATH OF HANK GATHERS : South Carolina Player Stunned : Heart conditions: Doctor says a pacemaker will allow Joe Rhett to return to basketball court, but Gathers’ death has the 6-8 forward wondering.

News of Hank Gathers’ death stopped Joe Rhett.

Now he’s wondering about his athletic future.

A 6-foot-8, 190-pound forward at the University of South Carolina, Rhett has an irregular heartbeat similar to the one that the late Loyola Marymount basketball star had.

Like Gathers, Rhett had a fainting spelling. In fact, Rhett had two, both of which were suffered off the court in February.

Unlike Gathers, however, the 19-year-old Rhett has a heartbeat that is slower than normal. Rhett’s heart slowed at times and even stopped beating for eight- to 10-second intervals.

A preliminary check by physicians, however, indicated that Rhett was all right.

“They ran all these tests on me and couldn’t find anything,” Rhett told the Independent-Mail in Anderson, S.C., in February. “They told me there was nothing wrong, and I really felt normal.”

But Dr. Robert Schulze, a cardiologist at Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia, S.C., wanted to make sure nothing was wrong, so he had Rhett wear a heart-monitoring device for 24 hours.

Further tests revealed the irregularity, and on Feb. 23 Schulze surgically implanted a silver dollar-sized pacemaker in Rhett’s heart that he said will allow the athlete to live a normal life and return to the basketball court next season.

The pacemaker will supply energy to stimulate Rhett’s heart when it slows or fails to beat on its own.

“He felt fairly confident with how he was doing,” Schulze said from Columbia on Wednesday, “until he heard that Hank Gathers dropped dead. He felt the same thing could happen to him.”

That’s highly unlikely, Schulze said. At a news conference after the 60-minute operation, he said: “There are periods when (Rhett’s) heart essentially stops beating. . . . This is a typical problem in elderly patients. It’s extremely unusual, but not unheard of, in patients Joe’s age.”

Schulze also said: “My opinion is that he will be able to return to competitive basketball.”

Last year Rhett was the only freshman named to the Metro Conference all-tournament team. This season he started in 21 games and averaged 11 points and 7.9 rebounds. In his last game against Southern Mississippi on Feb. 17, Rhett had 21 points and 11 rebounds.

His mother, Mary, said Rhett was “very shaken up” after hearing about Gathers’ death through a friend.

“The Gathers thing shocked him but he’s doing fine,” Mary Rhett said by phone from Columbia. “He won’t comment because his coach told him not to talk to any press people.”

But on Monday, Joe Rhett told the Associated Press: “At first I didn’t believe it. It shocked me. It hurt me inside. I was almost in tears.”

Rhett also said Gathers’ sudden death affected him deeply. “I’ll just have to see how I feel within when it’s time to go (back to basketball),” he said. “After surgery and before what happened to Hank, I felt real confident I’d be back, but now it’s real scary. For me, it’s a tough situation.”

Mary Rhett, however, said there is nothing to stop her son from playing next season.

“Joe had a checkup yesterday, and the doctor said it’s not the same thing (as Gathers’),” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with his heart (with the pacemaker). I believe he’ll be back next year, and the doctor believes it, too.”

Schulze agreed: “Joe is going to be fine. Nothing is for sure now, but we anticipate that he will be back.”