Cheers for a Long Shot

John Flowers’ dream of playing in the NBA ended on a Kansas City freeway in August 1992 when the car he was riding in was hit by a driver who apparently had fallen asleep at the wheel.

The car spun out of control and slammed into a utility pole. Flowers’ brother, who was at the wheel, and his girlfriend died instantly.

Flowers was partially thrown through the car’s rear window: His upper body landed on the trunk while his legs were ensnared in a web of steel and glass.

“You have to get me out! You don’t understand! You have to get me out!” Flowers recalled telling rescuers as they worked to extricate him from the wreckage.

A 6-foot-4 guard for Phoenix College in Arizona, Flowers was Cal State Northridge’s top recruit for the 1992-93 season. The accident occurred a few days before he was to begin classes at CSUN.

Although he didn’t immediately know the full extent of his injuries, Flowers was certain his basketball career was in jeopardy. His worst fears were realized when doctors amputated both his legs above the knee within three weeks of the accident.

Flowers, 27, recounted the life-changing event during a recent interview at Temple Em Habanim in West Hills, whose congregants will honor him Sunday at a fund-raising dinner at the Warner Center Hilton in Woodland Hills.

Proceeds from the affair will benefit Temple Em Habanim and Camp Chesed, a two-week day camp for disabled Jewish children, where Flowers has volunteered as sports director for the last four summers.

“Basketball was my life,” he said. “It got me into community college, and a scholarship to Northridge. It was the most important thing in my life.”

After the accident, Flowers said, his world was a shambles. “My life was turned around,” he said. “I didn’t know how to approach life anymore.”

But a chance meeting with the CSUN team’s ball boy, Joshua Hay, helped him to get through.

Flowers met Hay, then 11, at a Matadors basketball game in December 1992. Hay, who knew Flowers’ story through his contact with the team, said he was saddened that Flowers couldn’t keep his basketball scholarship and couldn’t pay mounting medical bills. So, he decided to do something to help.

“It really upset me how he lost his opportunity for an education,” Hay said. “I thought it was unfortunate that more people couldn’t help.”

Flowers was able to pay part of the $35,000 cost for the limbs through funds raised by Hay, now 17.

At the game, Hay approached Flowers and told him that he planned to raise money for the former basketball standout by holding a free-throw shooting contest.

“He came up to me and told me what he was going to do,” Flowers said. “I looked at him and I couldn’t believe what was coming out of this little kid’s mouth.”

Hay recruited about 20 organizations, most of them Northridge fraternities and campus clubs, to gather pledges and sponsor representatives to shoot foul shots at halftime during a game in February 1993.

The fund-raiser, which attracted Lakers and Clippers players as well as local television sportscasters, raised $15,000. A follow-up fund-raiser collected another $12,000. The money was used to help pay for Flowers’ artificial legs, which Flowers hopes to walk on publicly for the first time at Sunday’s dinner.

It has taken countless hours of rehabilitation and several surgeries to repair nerve damage so that Flowers can use the artificial limbs.

“I have a lot of pain when I wear my legs,” he said. “It feels like a million needles in a pincushion.”

Although he is still learning to deal with the protheses, Flowers has resumed an active life. The Phoenix resident designs Web pages, and he plans to try out for the Special Olympics basketball team.

Flowers never attended Northridge, but he has taken computer classes at Phoenix College and Arizona State University West.

Although the two basketball enthusiasts live in separate countries--Hay is a freshman at Shaarei Jerusalem university in Israel and Flowers works for a computer graphics firm in Phoenix--the friends see each other every summer at Camp Chesed.

Flowers said the accident has given him a new perspective on life.

“Before, basketball used to mean everything to me, but now basketball is just a part of my ife,” Flowers said. “I don’t take anything for granted, and I try to live my life to the fullest.”

Dinner tickets are still available and cost $150. For more information, call (818) 716-8498.