Brian Williams Blacks Out, Crashes Car : Basketball: Pro career is in jeopardy for former star at St. Monica High and Arizona.

Brian Williams, who has been trying to get his life and NBA career together since collapsing during a summer league basketball game six weeks ago, suffered a major setback Thursday in Orlando, Fla.

Williams, the 1991 first-round pick of the Orlando Magic, blacked out and crashed his car into a concrete column of an overpass on his way to a workout, Magic officials said.

Williams, 23, was not injured, but will remain at Florida Hospital in Orlando for at least two days to undergo a series of neurological and cardiological tests, said Kerry Schwartz, the Magic’s cardiologist.

The fainting spell--the second since an Aug. 11 incident during a Southern California Summer Pro Basketball League game at Redondo High--casts doubt as to when Williams will resume playing. Although Williams has fainted three times in six weeks, doctors have not diagnosed the condition.

“This whole thing has been very puzzling to us,” Schwartz said Thursday. “All the tests that have been done never found any serious heart problems at all.”

Williams, a star at St. Monica High in Santa Monica, blacked out briefly Sept. 2 while swimming in a pool in Santa Monica. Williams told the Orlando Sentinel two weeks ago that he was in danger of drowning before pulling himself to the edge of the pool. Magic officials were unaware of the incident until reading about it.

Williams said he suffered the second spell after playing basketball for a couple of hours and then swimming about 20 laps. He spent a night in the hospital before being released.

“The scary part about this second time is that the doctors thought this was some kind of fluke occurrence,” Williams told the Sentinel. “Now it happened a second time, and it is hard to explain it.”

After the initial episode, Williams was administered tests by David Cannom, one of Southern California’s leading heart specialists. But doctors were unable to determine why Williams, who played at Maryland and Arizona before being selected as the 10th player in the 1991 NBA draft, had collapsed.

Afterward, Patricia Phillips, Williams’ mother, said: “It was a traumatic episode. You couldn’t help but think it was another Hank Gathers or Earnest Killum, but fortunately, it looks like it isn’t going to turn out that way.”

Phillips, who was in the gym when her son collapsed Aug. 11, was well aware of the deaths of Gathers and Killum, former college basketball players who died in Los Angeles during their primes.

Gathers collapsed while playing for Loyola Marymount in March of 1990, and died of a heart disorder. Killum suffered a fatal stroke last January, a day after his team, Oregon State, played USC.

Those tragedies were far from Williams’ thoughts Thursday morning as he drove to a voluntary workout at the Orlando Arena. He had trained with the Magic for about 10 days, and it appeared he would be able to participate with the team when camp officially opens Oct. 9.

Williams, a 6-foot-11 forward, wore a heart monitor while playing, and was observed by cardiologists in case he suffered another spell. Monitor results were normal, even under physically stressful conditions, Magic officials said.

“He was a little out of shape, but things seemed to go pretty well for him on the court,” said Bob Vander Weide, the Magic’s director of basketball operations. “We thought things were progressing well.”

Magic trainer Lenny Currier said of Thursday’s setback: “It’s like going back to square one.”

Schwartz, the cardiologist, said Williams will wear a heart monitor all the time once released from the hospital. He said little can be done except to observe Williams and “see what shows up.” Doctors were unable to say whether the latest episode will jeopardize Williams’ career.

“It’s all just a big mystery,” Vander Weide said.

Currier said that although he was alert and feeling fine Thursday, Williams was anxious about the uncertainty of his condition.

“He’s young and doesn’t understand why he is having these problems,” Currier said. “We’re trying to help him cope with that. We’re trying to reassure him at every turn that he is going to be fit and he is going to play. But whenever he has a setback it stings him.”