Kimble, who works with the National Basketball Retired Players Association, remembers it differently. "Only time we squared off was at USC," he said. "In a parking lot. Over $5. We expected to pay $10 to see a play for a class project. It only cost $5. I said I was putting the other $5 in the gas tank. We danced all over that parking lot, big as a football field. Hank wanted to knock my head off, I wanted to fend him off. Nobody ever wanted to get hit by Hank Gathers."
He seemed so strong, so solid. What people didn't realize was that he had been diagnosed with heart problems. Inderal had been prescribed but the medicine made him weak, woozy. He begged to cut the dose. He may have ignored the warnings to take the pill prior to games.
"It tore me apart," Yankowitz remembers hearing the tragic news. "I had just returned from the Public League championship game. A wire-service reporter called and told me. I was in shock.
"The next day, the school was like a morgue. Everybody loved him. He was a leader, a pusher, a driver. The boy's gym at Dobbins is called 'Hank's Place.' "
"I tried to do something to keep his memory alive," said Sonny Hill. "The Hank Gathers College League started after his death. He was a warrior. That's the kind of drive and dedication he had. And the thing that caused him to die was the thing that made him great - his heart."
Westhead has been a basketball vagabond for the last 2 decades. He coaches the women's team at Oregon now. Attended a reunion at Loyola Marymount on Jan. 20, where the team is wearing the same home uniforms worn 20 years ago and a "Hank's Place" banner is prominently displayed.
"The LMU family remembers Hank," he said. "Including the kids, many of whom weren't even born when he died. They sense his impact on the school.
"He was the strongest, most tenacious, aggressive young man you could ever see. Every shot, every rebound belonged to him. And some games he was dead-on right.
"I still feel the sorrow and grief of what a fine young man and a great athlete that we lost. I'm hopeful that even through tragedy we can learn from our mistakes, learn from past events."
The Forty-Four For Life Foundation logo is a basketball, enclosed in a heart with a heart-rate pulsing through the ball. The slogan: "Saving Lives . . . One Heartbeat at a Time."
Send e-mail to stanrhoch@comcast.net
