Basketball Player Edith Bradley Plays On Despite Heart Disorder

They weren’t much more than a nuisance at first, those nagging chest pains that gripped Edith Bradley on the basketball floor.

“I thought I was just out of shape,” said Bradley, a sophomore wing on the Oxnard College women’s team. “After a couple of times running down the court, they would usually go away.”

Only to return, sometimes with more intensity. When they did, Bradley simply sat and rested until it didn’t hurt anymore and she could resume the practice or game. Even at Hueneme High, where she was an all-league player, she handled it the same way--without serious concern or second thought.

Then, three years ago, Bradley learned the episodes weren’t normal fatigue. During a physical while trying to win a spot on the Ventura College team, doctors found Bradley suffered from vasovagal syncope, a heart condition created by stress--among other things--that essentially alters breathing and blood circulation.

“One of the doctors said I had a heart murmur,” said Bradley, 21. “She sent me to a specialist. . . . (The specialist) put me on some medication and I was fine.”

Even with the death of former Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers from a heart ailment during a game in March of 1990 to provide a potential deterrent, Bradley chose to continue playing.

By the time she was cleared to do so, however, Ventura had only two games left in the season and Bradley decided not to play to retain her redshirt status. She kept it longer than expected, though. Bradley, who is married to former Moorpark College All-American running back Fred Bradley, quit Ventura after one semester and did not play in the 1991-92 season because she was pregnant with son Svondo, who will turn 2 in February.

Out of school and away from basketball, Bradley followed her husband to Fayetteville, Ark., where Fred was in his first season at Arkansas after rushing for a Moorpark record of 3,212 yards in regular-season play and setting a state junior college two-season scoring record with 318 points. She returned to Ventura in time for Svondo to be born in 1992 and Fred followed about a year later after being acquitted in a rape trial that soiled his reputation and virtually destroyed his Division I career.

Fred transferred to Sonoma State, a Division II school, where he played briefly in one game last season before being sidelined with a knee injury.

For most, the emotional upheaval caused by the trial would have been nerve-wrenching. But despite suffering from a heart disorder that would have been better served without the turmoil, Bradley said her condition didn’t worsen because of it.

“It was kind of hard because I knew he was innocent,” Bradley said. “The one part that made it difficult was that my family didn’t believe he was innocent. . . . But nobody (in the family) talks about it anymore.”

Not when there’s a toddler around the house who keeps everyone hopping. Bradley, who was born in Hawaii and moved to Oxnard when she was about 11, lives with her Samoan mother, Nusi Young, and relies on her and sister Louisa for baby-sitting help.

With a 15-unit school load as a liberal arts major, a part-time office job with the Oxnard Recreation and Community Services Dept., study time and playing basketball, Bradley has a hectic daily schedule. Her weekdays, she says, are demanding but the weekends are mostly devoted to her son. And, for a few hours on Saturdays during the next three months, to basketball.

Bradley (5-foot-11) is one of three genuine scoring threats--guard Blanca Rodriguez and forward Karen Reveles are the others--on a struggling squad that is 2-8 and fighting for respectability. She is averaging 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds, well ahead of last season’s 12.9 points and 5.6 rebounds. Coach Alex Flores is as impressed by Bradley’s character and persuasiveness as he is by her statistics.

“We talked about her heart situation and about playing at Oxnard and I told her I didn’t want to take that responsibility,” Flores said. “She talked to her family and they all backed her up.”

Once Flores had been convinced, Bradley was in business. She opted to attend Oxnard instead of Ventura because it is closer to her home and because she says the campus atmosphere there is quieter and more to her liking. Basketball, although important, is not what keeps her in school. Especially if her health might be affected by it.

“If they told me I was close to Hank Gathers’ situation I would quit,” Bradley said. “I’m not trying to kill myself. If I felt it was getting life-threatening, I would stop. I love basketball, but not enough to die for it.”