Gathers Was Hero to Son, 6, in Philadelphia

When Hank Gathers would come back to his hometown, someone was always waiting for him: his son.

Aaron Crump, 6, says his dad was his hero.

“And my best, best basketball player, too,” the boy told the Philadelphia Daily News.

In the aftermath of Hank Gathers’ death on the basketball floor Sunday in Los Angeles, the media attention missed his son, whom Marva Crump had when both she and Gathers were teen-agers.

“He told me one day last year, ‘When I get myself together, Aaron can come stay with me,’ because he didn’t want him to grow up here,” Marva Crump said, sobbing.

Gathers’ aunt, Joyce Livingston, said Gathers planned to use his expected NBA career to be able to move his mother, Lucille, and son out of the Raymond Rosen project in North Philadelphia.

“He’d talked to his aunts about that,” said Livingston, “about how he was going to send for Lucille and Aaron to come live in California.

Phyllis Crump, the grandmother with whom Aaron and his mother live, not far from the Gathers’ home, said she was hurt that Aaron wasn’t a part of the stories about Hank Gathers.

“It’s no scandal. Everybody knows Aaron is Hank’s son. But Aaron’s feelings are on the line now,” she said.

Hank Gathers didn’t walk away from his responsibility after he fathered a child at age 16.

“From the time Aaron was born, I was in the hospital, he was there,” said Marva Crump, who said she and Gathers remained friends after their romance ended years ago. “Every day after school, he was there.