UMass Coach Is Cautious With Camby

The best college basketball player in the nation arrived at the Fitzgerald Field House with his top-ranked team and listened to his Walkman as he trudged to the locker room.

Just like always.

Then, with tragic visions of Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis all but behind him, Marcus Camby put on his uniform and entered the arena with his teammates for the first time in what, for him, has seemed a lifetime.

Tuesday night against Pittsburgh, Camby, the star center for Massachusetts, sat on the bench for the first time in more than a week and cheered his teammates to a 79-71 overtime victory.

“I’m playing regardless [on Saturday], Camby said. “The coach can’t sit me out, I’m going crazy on the bench.”

UMass won its 17th consecutive game and remains the only undefeated team in the country. The Minutemen have won their last four games without Camby, but clearly could have used him against the Panthers (8-6), who led until midway through the second half and then came back from a six-point deficit in the last three minutes to send the game into overtime.

“With three minutes left in the game Marcus says to me, ‘Put me in,’ ” UMass Coach John Calipari said. “I said, ‘Right.’ ”

After a week of tests, doctors still don’t know what caused Camby to collapse and lose consciousness for 10 minutes before a game on Jan. 14. Doctors have ruled out his heart. They have ruled out neurological problems. And Tuesday afternoon, doctors wondered why Camby, whom they had cleared to play last Friday, wasn’t playing.

“I’ll be honest with you, I went back and forth all afternoon,” Calipari said. “I wasn’t going to play him, and then the doctor called me today and asked me why I was holding him out. So I called Marcus’ mother, Janice, and told her Marcus wanted to play and asked her what she thought and she said, ‘You are not going to play him for 40 minutes are you?’

“And I said, ‘Not unless it is a close game.’ ”

Calipari, obviously kidding, finally decided against playing Camby. Instead, he has called for practice the next three days to give Camby some live action. If all goes well, Camby will probably play on Saturday at home against St. Bonaventure.

“I was a little nervous because of the things that happened to Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis,” Camby said. “But when the doctor told me my heart was fine I knew that everything would be OK . . . I know I probably am never going to know what happened to me and I still have doubts in my mind. I just have to go on, I can block it out.”

Both Gathers, of Loyola Marymount and Lewis, of the Boston Celtics, died from heart disorders. Both collapsed a first time while playing, but recovered. The second time Gathers and Lewis collapsed, they died.

Camby says he doesn’t remember collapsing before the game at Olean, N.Y., but those who saw it say they will never forget it. He said he felt lightheaded during pregame warmups and decided to leave the court. As he walked toward the tunnel he grabbed the side of his head as if to steady himself. That’s all he remembers.

“It was scary, but it was more scary for my family,” Camby said. “My mom told me she saw me on television and got real sick and felt real bad after that. Once I got my senses back, I was all right.”

Since Gathers collapsed and died on March 4, 1990, his death has continued to reverberate among athletic directors who are responsible for successful sports programs, doctors who walk the line in deciding whether a student-athlete, who is determined to play, should be allowed to, and lawyers who calculate both sides of the risk.

“You’re looking for warranties or guarantees--there are no guarantees in life,” said Dr. David A. Drachman, chairman of the neurology department at UMass Medical Center. “But you have to understand that this didn’t happen while [Camby] was exercising strenuously. He was standing still.

Tuesday night, Camby was the most animated person on the bench. When Carmelo Travieso made his fifth three-point basket of the game to give the Minutemen their biggest lead to that point, 59-51, it was Camby who told him to shoot it. And in overtime, while Travieso made two more three-point shots and Donta Bright made four consecutive free throws, Camby never sat down.

On Saturday, he might not get a chance to sit down. But then, he doesn’t want to. “I really just want to help our team win a national championship and take it from there,” Camby said.