Hank Gathers, 20 years later (sort of)

I can't believe it was 20 years ago... I saw Gathers and Kimble play a couple times and I always thought Gathers was by far the better of the two.

I remember I was in my room when one of my friends called and said, "Hank Gathers just died during a basketball game."

I said, "You're full of shit."

He said. "If I was making it up, I'd have told you it was Bobby Hurley."

 

Check out this box score from the LMU-LSU game. Not only was Gathers, at 6-foot-7, going against Shaq, the Tigers also had Stanley Roberts. Chris Jackson said it was the most fun game he ever played.
If I recall correctly, Terrell Lowery (90 percent FT shooter) missed a free throw in the final seconds that would have won the game for LMU in regulation.



http://www.lmulions.com/sports/m-baskbl/archive/022405aab.html

 

Bo Kimble had a ruptured patella tendon his junior year and another knee injury his senior year. He never regained his speed or explosive jumping ability. And that was the reason he flopped as a pro. Losing just that little bit of quickness is a huge difference between college and pro ball.
Gathers would have been a good, probably not great, pro because of his work ethic and ability to run the floor -- and, as was said, fearlessness.
He was a 'tweener. At 6-foot-7, he had shooting forward height but power forward skills. He wasn't tall enough to play the 4 in the NBA and his shooting range wasn't good enough to play the 3.

 

Yes it was. Not sure I've ever seen a college team go nuts like that for 40 minutes.

 

Hank had a heart episode a few weeks before his death, so this is sort of a 20th anniversary. Why he died after that is a waste.

 

You can watch that game here:

http://www.lsusports.net/mediaPortal/player.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=5200&id=689758

I don't think you need a log-in and password, but if you do, check with me.

LSU 148, Loyola Marymount 141, overtime. Dale Brown told his team there would be no game plan; instead, just go out and have a blast. They did. Amazing LSU's big men could play in that kind of game and help produce a victory. The Tigers practiced at the run-and-gun tempo a couple of times after an SEC game, and then they just went out and played LMU's style.

As the story goes, the motor in the electric typewriter for play-by-play burned up courtside and had to be replaced. With about four minutes left in the first half, you can see on the video a crowd around the scorer's table as they try to fix the problem, and someone runs off to go get another typewriter.

In a story on LSU's Web site, Kent Lowe reports that scorer Al Toups "was just trying to keep up and as he would suddenly realize in the final 10 minutes of regulation, the scorebook only went to 114 points on the running score. Al had to manually add another line that went to 150. He almost needed all of it."

Note: The link will take you to a window that says Signee Video, but you'll get through a brief commercial and have the CBS video of the game synced (more or less) with the audio of LSU radio announcer Jim Hawthorne. Enjoy.

 

The hardest thing I had to do was talk to Lionel Simmons, Doug Overton and Randy Woods of LaSalle University moments after Gathers died. They were in the MAAC Championship game in Albany, NY. Seeing them breakdown on the court was gut-wrenching but they showed a lot of class in talking about their friend afterwards.

 

Watched the first few minutes of it. Both teams were cold shooting at the beginning. That game looked like a lot of fun, though, even though the video was pretty pixilated.

 

What a coincidence ... boots was there too. :

 

At least the stories match.

 

Oops.

 

Awesome.