Hank’s Spirit a Lesson for Loyola Students : College: Despite team’s success in NCAA tournament, Gathers’ death has taught students to take a fresh look at their own lives and values.

There were 42 seconds left on the clock and the Loyola Marymount basketball team was trying to break a tie with Alabama when John Anter and his fraternity brothers, giddy with school spirit and a little bit tipsy with beer, laid down on their living room floor and clasped their hands in prayer.

“Please, dear God,” Anter whispered to the three television sets that were tuned to Friday night’s NCAA West Regional tournament game. “Come on, Loyola. Come on, Hank.”

Come on, Hank.

Hank Gathers, of course, was not at the game. It has been three weeks since the young Loyola Marymount athlete who called himself “the strongest man in America” collapsed on the basketball court before thousands of fans. His death stunned the nation and sent his school into an emotional tailspin.

But as his team charges on, racking up victory after victory without him, Gathers--already large in life--has become even larger in death. His spirit reaches into every corner of this close-knit little campus, hanging over its 5,000 students like some kind of mystical cloud.

Propelled by the three triumphs that have landed the Lions a place in the regional final this afternoon, Loyola Marymount students are on the rebound. No longer in mourning, they are riding an almost bizarre wave of euphoria that is inspired, they say, by the man they simply call “Hank.”

“It’s an intense feeling,” said freshman Mary Beth Padberg. “Everyone’s on such an inner high. I’ve never seen such school spirit. It’s great. Everyone is coming together like one big family.”

Said Michelle Cervera, 18: “The students actually believe that Hank is here. He’s not gone. He lives within the basketball players right now.”

Gathers, a 6-foot-7 center, led the NCAA in scoring and rebounding last year. The 23-year-old senior, described by teammates as the squad’s emotional leader, was also rated a probable first-round draft choice by NBA scouts.

On the clean, well-manicured Loyola Marymount campus in Westchester, signs of Gathers are everywhere. Bouquets of red roses and carnations grace the feet of a stone statue of a lion; a sentimental poem about individuality is taped to the statue’s pedestal.

“Hank hankies”--silver-and-burgundy bandannas bearing Gathers’ number, 44--decorate apartment windows. Newspaper clippings about the team are taped to dormitory walls. Students are wearing T-shirts that show a smiling Gathers making the last slam dunk of his life, with the words “We Love You, Hank” underneath.

And when the Lions eked past Alabama’s Crimson Tide for a 62-60 win Friday night, Anter, Cervera and hundreds of other undergraduates threw open their apartment doors and rushed into the quadrangle, hugging, pouring beer on one another and chanting “Hank is here! Hank is here! Hank is here!”

“We are the heart of the lion,” screamed Derrick Tatis, stumbling about after the victory with a Hank hankie wrapped around his head and a mug of beer in his hand. “We’re going all the way. We’re a team of destiny. Hank is in us all. You want any more cliches? We got ‘em all. This team is on a mission.”

But beyond the cliches and the predictable revelry that goes with a winning team, there is a very serious side to what has happened at Loyola Marymount in the wake of Gathers’ death on March 4. His loss hit students hard--even those who didn’t know him say they found it hard to concentrate on their schoolwork and to come to grips with why someone so young and seemingly invincible should have his life cut short so abruptly.

In a sense, Gathers’ death created a common bond. Students say the tragedy has brought the school closer together, sparking new friendships and reinforcing old ones.

Rahiem Swann, who intends to major in political science but says his true love is singing, recalled an intense discussion that he and the members of his rhythm and blues band, all of them Loyola Marymount students, had after Gathers died.

“We sat down,” Swann said, “and we told each other exactly how we felt about each other and how close we wanted to stay to each other.”

Band member Jason Frank was there. “We just told each other that we all love each other,” he said, “that we’re like brothers now, and that we’re all here to hold each other up.”

Other Loyola Marymount students say the loss of Gathers, a poor youth from Philadelphia who seemed all set to live out a fairy-tale dream of rags to riches, has caused them to take a fresh look at their own lives and values. One freshman said it made him realize for the first time that no matter who you are--rich or poor, young or old, famous or unknown--”you can very quickly be gone.” Another said she is now more determined to “make all you can out of every day.”

And although they are elated at their team’s performance, Loyola Marymount students have come to see that while winning is a whole lot of fun, it certainly isn’t everything. “I don’t think they have to win,” said freshman Will Milano. “The first time they stepped on the court without Hank, they won.”

That aside, the prevailing opinion at Loyola Marymount is, of course, that the Lions will not be denied when they face Nevada Las Vegas this afternoon. Aside from having an old score to settle (UNLV defeated Loyola Marymount when the teams met earlier this season), these students believe the Lions are somehow destined to become the regional champs.

“There’s something carrying our team,” said junior Sandy Rodriguez as she and her classmate, Jennifer Seubert, pored over microfiche in the school library on Saturday. “There’s somebody looking over our team.”

Said Seubert: “It’s Hank.”