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Remembering Hank Memories of fallen star remain 10 years later
Posted: Wednesday March 15, 2000 08:55 PM
Hank Gathers would have turned 33 by now. Surely he would be in the midst of a flowering NBA career at this point, though his old Loyola coach Paul Westhead thinks "maybe a journeyman who, if he didn't start for you, would come off the bench and scare everybody." Instead, he is a frightening memory, made fresh again by the 10th anniversary of one of sport's great tragedies just recently. A thousand athletes have died since Hank Gathers in 1990, maybe ten thousand. But we remember his passing like it was yesterday and we honor it's anniversary as a sort of monument to life's ironies. Here he was, an All-American, the nation's leading scorer and rebounder as a junior, certainly an NBA lottery choice in a few months. A supurb athlete who had just taken a perfect lob and slammed it home. "He went so high," remembers his mother, who was there that night as Loyola played Portland in the conference tournament, "I thought he was gonna touch the roof. I'd never seen him go that high." And then Hank Gathers turned, acknowledged his teammate's pass, and collapsed. Within minutes, despite the wailing of his family and the work of the paramedics, he was dead. Indeed, in his mother's eyes, perhaps destined to go even higher. We remember every second of it, every frame of the video, cringing still at the sight of a man in uniform actually dying before our eyes. A supposedly healthy, vibrant physical speciman dying, although there are arguments still raging over how healthy, how vibrant, for his heart had given clues in the previous months. He reduced his medication so he could play at his best and, in the end, that's figured to have been the cause of his death.
It is a decade later now and what is Hank Gathers' legacy? What did he leave besides that memory? His name is above the high-school gym where he and Bo Kimble established their reputation, as Philly Boys bound for glory. His uniform is in a glass case in his mother's home. Another version, along with Kimble's, was retired at Loyola Marymount just a few weeks ago. His portrait is two stories high on the side of a Philadelphia building. But many buildings are painted and named, many jersies hung in honor. What is left of Hank Gathers ten years later? Aaron stands nearly six feet tall now, made up mostly of feet and spindly legs. His last name is Crump, for Hank and his mother never married. Very few of his high-school basketball teammates know of his lineage and, to be honest, if they did, it would matter little. You stand on your own in that part of the world. "My mom tells me I walk like him," says the youngster named after Hank Aaron. "She says it's spooky when she sees me running down the court." He will probably never be the marvel his father was. If he is, we all shall be twice-blessed. He is a half-foot shorter than his dad and , though he wears his father's No. 44, has yet to work himself into a starting lineup. But if he lives with the kind of bravado, if he touches as many lives, if he makes as many people laugh as did his father, and if he learns the lessons of his father's death, he will have carried the banner impecably. And that is the legacy of Hank Gathers.
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