So Many Never Get a Second Look : Hank Gathers: Mourn not only for him, but for the thousands of young men who have no extraordinary talent to save them from torn and wasted lives.

A handsome young man dies after executing, before a national television audience, the perfect “slam dunk” that he hopes will be his ticket to the rich rewards of professional basketball. Around the country, even those who have never heard of Loyola Marymount University gasp in sadness and horror.

We are vacationing in our house trailer on the Zuni Indian Reservation an hour out of Gallup, N.M., when it happens. We are listening to the only radio station we can receive. Announcements are read in Navajo--except for the 6 p.m. network news, which informs us of the tragic death of Hank Gathers.

Tears rush to my eyes. For the next week I devour the thousands of words that are printed about this college basketball star who was struck down at 23, seemingly on the threshold of success. Even the Albuquerque newspaper devotes a full page to the story.

From all reports, Hank was a wonderful person, worthy of the adulation that is now being sent his way. The promise of a rewarding lifestyle that was only a “maybe” one week ago (a first-round draft pick, stardom first in professional sports, then as a sports broadcaster) is suddenly a “sure thing.”

Only Hank is not here to enjoy it.

The debate about whether he should have been playing ball or not is now academic. I am sure Hank, regardless of what he knew or did not know, felt he had no choice. Basketball was a winning lottery ticket in his hand. Who would not attempt to cash it in?

The risk was not in playing basketball, but in not playing basketball.

For Hank knew from childhood the other story that merited less coverage in many of the same newspapers that spoke of his life and death in such glowing terms: Twenty-five percent of young urban black males are either in prison or on probation. An even higher percentage are jobless.

Without his talent for basketball, would Hank have been one of them? If he had been the same warm, caring, ambitious young man that his friends all loved . . . but athletically a little less-talented? Would he have been awarded scholarships to two schools--first USC, then LMU?

How many of the people now singing his praises would have ever given him a second look, let alone taken the time to find out about his character? Could he have dreamed of an internship in sports broadcasting at a local television station last summer, much less a high-paying, high-profile career 10 or 15 years from now?

Would his family have any chance of moving out of the ghetto and becoming comfortable and middle class?

We weep about Hank’s death--something that calls up great emotion, but offers little or no call to understanding or action--and spread the word about the tragedy throughout the country.

The real disaster--that of many thousands of young black men with wasted and torn lives--strikes us as so impossible to solve that we bury it as far away from our consciousness as possible. We don’t think about it, we don’t feel it, and we certainly don’t spend much energy trying to solve it.