Hank Gathers - 20 Years Later

Twenty Years After: Hank Gathers Stirs Memories
for His Family

3/02/2010 1:00 PM ET

By Clay Travis, Fanhouse

Twenty years ago, on March 4, 1990, a
mother watched her son take flight.

“He was so high,” says Lucille Gathers
Cheeseboro, two decades later. “And
then when he came down, he was so
low.”

Taking flight was Hank Gathers, a soonto-
be NBA multimillionaire, who she’d
already pledged to follow to whichever
NBA city he called home when his career
at Loyola Marymount ended. And why
wouldn’t she follow the second oldest of
her four sons, the son who’d gone all the
way across the country to play basketball
at USC and left her in their hometown of
Philadelphia?

“I cried for a couple of weeks,” she said,
“because I missed him so much and he
was so far away.”

But now, in Gathers’ senior year, all was
well with the decision. Her son Hank’s
Loyola Marymount team was 23-5,
averaging 122.4 points per game and had
scored over 100 points 28 times behind
the controlled chaos instituted by head
coach Paul Westhead. On Feb. 3, 1990,
Gathers had dominated Shaquille O’Neal
and LSU, posting 48 points and 13
rebounds in an overtime road loss at
Baton Rouge.

Now, 29 days later, it was March, and
time for a West Coast Conference
quarterfinal game game against Portland.
Time for Gathers and the Lions to make
their run.

Sitting in the stands alongside Hank’s
mom on that March day in Los Angeles
were two other sons, Derek and Chris,
Lucille’s sister, Carol Livingston, along
with other family members and friends.

“We had burgundy and red towels that the
minister’s wife had made for us. We were
holding them up and cheering,” says
Lucille. The towels are emblazoned with
slogans, “Hank,” says one, “The Bank
Man,” says another, a nickname
Westhead had given his star player.

Still standing from Hank’s alley-oop dunk,
the family crumbles as he hits the floor.

“I couldn’t move,” Lucille says.
Twenty years later, there are still some
days when Lucille can’t move. “I feel good
this morning,” she says, on a late
February day when snow blankets the city
of Philadelphia and keeps her indoors.
“But some days I can’t talk about it, can’t
mention his name. They say you don’t get
over a child dying, you get through it.”

Her voice cracks, tremors.

“I’m still not through it.”

******

Hank was Lucille’s second child. Named
Eric at birth, he acquired the nickname
Hank from his father. Born on Feb. 11,
1967, Hank was closest with his brother
Derek, who was born just 10 months
later, on Dec. 30, 1967. The two would
attend school in the same grade, closer to
twins than brothers.

Hank was not a natural on the basketball
court. In fact, according to high school
and college teammate Bo Kimble, Hank
didn’t play much on their JV or freshman
team. “He worked twice as hard as most
players,” Kimble said. “Nothing came
easy to him.”

One day in high-school practice, Kimble
drove to the basket and attempted a
windmill dunk. Hank jumped, met him at
the rim, and blocked the shot so hard that
Kimble feared he’d hyperextended his
arm. Kimble was furious. “We played
basketball the Philly way,” Kimble said.

“That meant that when we were between
the lines, we were not friends. If I’d tried
to windmill dunk with the other hand, he’d
have hyperextended that one too.”

Furious, Kimble was ready to fight. As
calm as could be, Hank approached him
after practice. “Don’t forget we’ve got a
meeting at 6,” Hank said.

“He’d left it all on the court! Already!”

While in high school, Hank also
developed a reputation as a prankster,
once lighting Kimble’s sneakers on fire
after practice. “We’d just had practice,”
recalls Derek Gathers, “and Hank
disappeared. Next thing you know he’s
under the [locker room bench] and Bo’s
sneaker is on fire.”

As Kimble recalls, “He should have lit
them on fire. They were horrible
sneakers, the cheapest shoes. The soles
were so bad, I felt like I was playing in
skates.” As Kimble watched his shoes
smolder, Gathers said simply, “You ain’t
wearing those sneakers again.”

By his senior season, wearing number 44
on the basketball court for Dobbins Tech,
Gathers blossomed into a major college
prospect, winning a Philadelphia city
basketball title alongside Kimble. He and
Kimble committed to play together in
college at USC.

After the coaching staff that recruited
them to USC was fired following their
freshman year, Gathers and Kimble
transferred to Loyola Marymount, a small
Catholic university in Los Angeles with an
undergraduate enrollment of less than
5,000.

Basketball success followed rapidly. As a
junior, Gathers led the nation in scoring
with 33 points, and rebounding with 14
per game, a feat that only two players
have managed in the history of major
college basketball.

But in December, something scary
happened, Gathers collapsed while
attempting a free throw at UC-Santa
Barbara.

Back in Philadelphia, Lucille received a
phone call that woke her in bed and
informed her of her son’s collapse. “I
thought they were kidding,” she said,
“because he always had trouble at the
foul line.”

Doctors found he had an abnormal
heatbeat and prescribed a beta blocker.
Gathers missed two games in December
and returned for a Dec. 30 contest
against Niagara.

A shocked Lucille didn’t know what to
believe. “I’m just thinking this thing was
going to go away. He’s too big, he’s too
strong, there’s no way anything is wrong
with him.”

Twenty years later, she wishes she’d
insisted that an entire battery of doctors
examine her son. But that’s in the future,
when she will have two decades to
examine every moment, minutes, hours,
and days that stretch onto infinity that can
lead her to ask a simple question, “Why?”
Intent on watching her son play in the
West Coast Conference tournament,

Lucille climbs on a plane and travels to
California.

******

There are 13 minutes and 34 seconds left
in the first half. Hank Gathers has just
dunked off an alley-oop pass and is
running up the court. The cheers from
inside the gym are still loud and cresting
when Gathers falls to the ground.

Gathers’ maternal aunt, Carol Livingston,
is the first to arrive alongside Hank’s
prone body. “Somebody do something!
Somebody please do something!” she
screams.

Lucille, in shock, arrives on the court
later. Her son has a pulse, but is
incapable of speech. His eyes flutter,
doctors attend to him and then rush him
to the hallway to use a recently
purchased defibrillator.

Lucille’s son is rushed to the hospital
where doctors work on him for over an
hour, attempting to save his life.

Multiple teammates arrive at the hospital
still wearing their uniforms.

Just over an hour after his collapse, Hank
Gathers is pronounced dead. An autopsy
showed he died of a heart-muscle
disorder, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

******

Hank Gathers was funny. That’s what his
coach Paul Westhead recalls 20 years
later. “He had an incredible wit,”
Westhead says. “On the team bus, he’d
take the microphone and talk about every
player and coach as we got on the bus.”
Westhead, now the women’s basketball
coach at Oregon, pauses for a moment,
laughs softly, “No one escaped the
humorous wrath of Hank Gathers.”

And opponents didn’t escape him on the
court.

“He didn’t have the size of Karl Malone,
but he played like Malone could,”
Westhead says. “He’d get rebounds on
anybody and could score on them too.
Like Malone at his best, he was
unstoppable. Against LSU and Shaq he
had 48 points and 20 rebounds.”

Westhead is silent for a bit longer, “When
he fell down, I wanted them to get him
back up. I always thought he would get
back up.”

******

Lucille flies across the country to bury her
son. Thousands turn out for his funeral in
Philadelphia. So many people pile into the
church that they play the service for an
overflow crowd standing outside in the
cool air.

“I flew back with his body on the plane,”
Lucille says, “they didn’t tell me he was
with us.”

So overcome with grief is Lucille that she
can’t attend her son’s burial. Instead,
she’s at the hospital, being treated for a
racing heartbeat.

******

The West Coast Conference suspends
the tournament and awards Loyola
Marymount, the regular-season
champion, the league’s automatic bid to
the NCAA tournament.

Seeded 11th, Loyola Marymount faces a
first-round game against sixth-seeded
New Mexico State. Just 11 days after
Hank’s death, Kimble, Hank’s teammate
and best friend, leads Hank’s team onto
the court.

In memory of Hank, Kimble shoots the
first free throw of that game left-handed.

“It just came into my mind,” says Kimble
of the idea. “Hank had struggled so much
at the free throw line that he’d switched to
left-handed. His form was better then.”

To Kimble it didn’t matter if the shot went
in. “I didn’t care if it ended up like that old
Larry Bird commercial, with the ball
bouncing over the backboard and going
on down the street. The message was to
Hank: I love you, I respect you, and this is
for you.”

Against New Mexico State, Kimble toed
the line and lifted the ball with his left
hand.

Nothing but net.

Loyola rushes past favored New Mexico
State, 111-92.

Back in Philadelphia, Lucille catches a
few moments of the game.

“I cried through most of it, but I tried to
watch,” she says.

******

Remarried since Hank’s death, Lucille
says that occasionally her second
husband finds her crying. “He
understands that sometimes I have to cry
it out. Sometimes I just miss him more
than other times. I don’t know why.”

In her bedroom, Lucille keeps a
photograph of her son in his Loyola
Marymount uniform. He inscribed the
photo to her, “To Mom, I love you very
much.”

“I look at that photograph all the time,”
Lucille says.

After Hank’s death hundreds of letters
pour into the family from all over the
world. Lucille reads them all. She has her
pastor get a copy of the photograph and
she writes back to every person who sent
her a letter.

She signs Hank’s name alongside her
name, and the name of her other three
sons.

“The letters made me feel better,” she
says.

Still, she lies awake at night wondering,
among other things, how much different
Hank’s son’s life would have been had
her own son lived.

“Hank’s son, Aaron, is 26 now. He still
lives in Philadelphia, but every time I see
him I wish he’d have really known his
father.”

******

First-round winners, Loyola Marymount
faces the defending national champion in
the second round, third-seeded Michigan.
Once more, Kimble toes the line for the
first free throw of the game, the lefthanded
shot.

Nothing but net — again.

Heavy underdogs once more, Loyola
could not miss, pounding the Wolverines,
149-115.

That’s right, 149 points.

In the process, Loyola sets 11 NCAA
tournament records.

The team was into the Sweet 16 and the
entire nation was rooting for them.

Kimble’s picture graces the cover of
Sports Illustrated. On his left shoulder is a
number, 44, an emblem for Hank.

Twenty years later, Kimble, who will be
drafted eighth by the Los Angeles
Clippers, will have visited 40 countries,
including Africa three times. Each time he
visits Africa, locals approach him. They
know the Loyola Marymount story, they
want to talk about the left-handed free
throw, they want to touch his hand.

“It’s simply amazing,” Kimble says.

******

“I have a Hank room in my basement with
all his trophies,” Lucille says. “I’ve also
got lots of videos that the school sent me.
I watch them all the time.”

Lucille says she has 20 or 25 videos, but
that the one she watches the most
frequently is of Hank at an awards
banquet.

Her 6-foot-7 son stands before a
microphone. He was a communications
major and after his death Lucille would
accept his degree. “I almost fell because
the sun was so bright,” she says of
graduation day.

In the video, Hank stands before the team
and calls out each player’s name,
number, and where they were from. After
each player is introduced he tells a funny
story about them.

Hank saves himself for last.

“The tape’s faded,” says Lucille, “but his
voice is so great.”

“He says, ‘Well, I guess I have to do
myself now. This is Eric Hank Gathers
and you really don’t know it, but I used to
be a good foul shooter.”

The room erupts in laughter, Hank’s
troubles at the free throw line are well
known.

“He was like that,” says Lucille, “even
when he was a little boy he could always
make you laugh. You could never get
angry with him.”

******

In the Sweet 16, Loyola faces Alabama.
The Crimson Tide adopts a slower,
deliberate pace, attempting to keep
Loyola from running. Doing whatever they
can to avoid the offensive explosion that
doomed Michigan. But Loyola
perseveres, gutting out a 62-60 win to
advance to the Elite Eight. It would be the
Lions’ last victory over a ranked team for
two decades.

Kimble attempts no free throws in the
Alabama game.

“We played for the joy of the game, even
though we were filled with sorrow,”
Westhead says. “There was no
expectation of anything further for us.

There was just a joy in the game, joy and
sorrow in one breath.”

Just one game from a trip to the Final
Four, Loyola faces UNLV.

Again, Kimble steps to the free throw line
and drains a left-handed shot.

It was good. Three-for-three, all for Hank.
The Rebels run with Loyola and, for the
first time, the Lions can’t keep pace.
Derek Gathers is there in person to watch
as UNLV captures a 131-101 victory. Just
over one week later UNLV will win the
national title.

Loyola Marymount’s tournament run is
over, but already it is legendary.
“If I meet 10 people that I didn’t already
know, nine of them will mention that team
at Loyola Marymount,” says Westhead.

******

On Feb. 11, 2010, Hank Gathers would
have turned 43 years old. He’s buried at
Sharon Hill cemetery in Philadelphia. “I
used to go a lot,” says his mother. “I still
do, but not as much as I used to.”

She planned to make the trip on his
birthday, but a snowstorm arrives in the
city, making travel unwise.

So she sits in the basement and watches
videos of her son as tears stream down
her cheeks.

She’s recently returned from a trip out to
Los Angeles to honor the 1989-90 Loyola
Marymount team. “I didn’t cry this time,”
she says. “I don’t know why, but I felt so
good inside. Everyone chanted his name
and Hank felt alive.”

Shortly after her return from Los Angeles,
the grandmother of 15 and the great
grandmother of five, has surgery on her
eye. The eye surgeon scans over her
chart, recognizes her last name.

“Are you related to Hank Gathers?” the
doctor asks.


“I’m his mother,” she says.
The doctor can’t believe it, stands slackjawed,
hands on his hips. The Hank
Gathers who captivated the nation in
1990? The Hank Gathers who a park and
recreation center was now named after in
North Philadelphia? The Hank Gathers
who had ascended into myth in the
generation since his death?

“I used to take him to the park with his
brothers when they were little, and now
it’s named after him.”

She shakes her head, sighs, then speaks
with renewed strength, “He’s alive,” Hank
Gathers’ mom says, “when people
remember him.”