‘His heart was bigger than life’: 30 years after Hank Gathers’ passing (2024)

Hank Gathers wasn’t going to be denied. It didn’t matter how many times he went up, only to have Shaquille O’Neal’s massive mitts smash his shot into smithereens, he was going to keep coming. Five times Gathers barreled into O’Neal — five years his junior but six inches his senior — and turned around as the ball was shipped first-class in the opposite direction.

Each embarrassing block and frenzied reaction from Louisiana State fans only made Gathers more determined. Loyola Marymount Coach Paul Westhead called a timeout to calm his team and settle down his star. Gathers was too busy fuming to feel ashamed about his shots being treated like tennis balls to O’Neal’s racket hands. He used the time in the huddle to make a demand.

“Get me the ball,” Gathers told his teammates.

Gathers survived the same gang-infested Raymond Rosen projects in North Philadelphia that produced boxing champion Bernard Hopkins. He’d shut down pickup games by squaring up to fight if calls didn’t go his way. He could charm a room with his cutting sense of humor but no one ever had to question when he was dead serious.

His teammates weren’t foolish enough to defy the self-proclaimed “strongest man in the world.” They fed him. Over and over until O’Neal and his fellow 7-foot rim protector, Stanley Roberts, realized they were going to have to keep jumping to contain him.

“That muthaf*cka kept coming,” said Darrell “Heat” Gates, a longtime friend who watched the game from home in Philadelphia.

Fearlessly attacking the basket with the shortest of memories and a limited supply of Fs to give, Gathers turned the battle into an endurance test: Block some, block every last one. Gathers eventually wore down the towering duo and finished with 48 points, on 35 shots, in a 148-141 overtime loss.

“That’s the perfect example of the will and the tenacity and the unstoppable mindset that Hank had, that when I get this ball, nobody can guard me,” said Bo Kimble, Gathers’ teammate at both Loyola Marymount and Dobbins Technical High in Philadelphia. “He played with that presence that began his junior year in high school: In the paint, I’m unstoppable; I don’t care who you are.”

What stands out from that performance to Derrick Gathers, Hank’s younger brother by only 10 months, is that it came while Gathers was taking the beta-blocking medication Inderal to combat an irregular heartbeat that had been discovered a few months earlier. “He was on meds,” Derrick said. “That just shows you his heart was bigger than life.”

Nearly a month later — on March 4, 1990 — a promising player filled with so much life lost his. After catching a lob from teammate Terrell Lowery in a West Coast Conference game against Portland, Gathers threw it down, effortlessly as always, jogged a few steps up the court and collapsed.

Lucille Gathers was in the stands, alongside her sister Carole Livingston Gilmore, Derrick and her youngest son, Charles, at Gersten Pavilion, Loyola Marymount’s home gym. She was celebrating the slam by holding up a sign that read, “Hank.” She missed him falling. But as Gathers attempted to get up and dropped back on the floor, she was among the 5,000 people in the arena who fell silent. They’d all seen his last dunk.

Gathers succumbed to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and was pronounced dead at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital in Marina del Rey less than two hours later, ending prematurely the dreams he’d made the moment he realized basketball could be the way out for his family.

Getting Miss Lucille a better life, far from the deprivation of their neighborhood back home, was the inspiration for all of the tireless work he invested into the game. She was the reason he declined claiming hardship to enter the NBA draft after leading the nation in scoring and rebounding as a junior, because earning a college degree meant so much to her.

Thirty years later, Gathers’s death continues to impact the lives of those he touched. The void is felt. Derrick lives with the regrets of the bad advice the family received in the panic-filled days following the stunning passing — which resulted in a failed wrongful death suit against Loyola Marymount— of not following through on his own dreams of playing professional basketball. Gates still dreams about Gathers, wishing they’d had more time together.

Family and friends still ask if he should’ve been playing at all. They wonder how his life would’ve been different had he gone pro and had his condition discovered and treated sooner. But those close to Gathers also readily admit that nothing would’ve stopped him from playing. Not even the threat of having his life shortened because of a heart condition. Gathers didn’t drink or do drugs, resenting the latter so much that he hated taking the Inderal for what it did to his body. He believed he was invincible. He attacked life, basketball and nearly everything else he did the way he attacked O’Neal that afternoon at LSU. He was relentless. He wouldn’t be denied.

“Nothing deterred Hank Gathers,” Westhead said.

The first time Gates saw Gathers player, he couldn’t believe that a 6-foot-2 seventh-grader could be so scrubby. Gathers couldn’t make layups and threw up hook shots from the free throw line that nearly broke the backboard. Brick after brick. It was painful to watch, so painful that Gates didn’t want to be around him for fear that people would associate him with being so pitiful.

“I tell you, dog, he was the worst basketball player I’ve ever seen in my life. I couldn’t believe it,” Gates said.

Gates was the man on the team and would hold that title until he and Gathers both went to Dobbins Technical High, where they met up with another freshman, Bo Kimble. “Bo could’ve started varsity in probably eighth grade, ninth grade, that’s how good he was,” said Gates. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this guy is so good.’ Hank is still not good.”

Kimble recalls meeting Gathers for the first time at age 14, when his game was already polished after playing against guys almost twice his age at the park and holding his own. “I was at 25th and Diamond – that’s the Hank Gathers Center now – and I’m doing backward dunks. I’m doing windmills with my cousin. And Hank probably looking like who is this little guy jumping out the gym? But he came down and said, ‘Hello,’ ” Kimble said. “Mentally, I knew there was a new sheriff in town scoring wise and I never gave that badge back, my entire career. I was a natural athlete because I was tested young. Hank was a hard worker. He didn’t have the natural ability but his work ethic was extraordinary.”

Gates, Kimble and Mark Stephenson – a future McDonald’s All-American who went to Notre Dame – all started as sophom*ores for Dobbins, while Gathers was at the end of the bench. That summer, Gathers was determined to get better and called on Gates to play one-on-one all the time, hoping to steal some of the ball-handling moves that made him special.

“My handle was crazy, it was like on a rope, and if you ever saw him play in college, you see how he dribble? You see him dribbling through his legs and all that? He got that sh*t from me,” Gates said. “By the junior year it was over. This boy wanted to play ball all day, like nonstop. Boom, boom, boom. C’mon, let’s go. And I tell you, he reminded me of Michael Jordan and them, he wanted to beat you in everything. Boxing, cards. Jokes, whatever it was, he wanted to be on top. I really think, because he never did no drugs. He never drank. He would’ve played until he was 40. Easy.”

The Gathers brothers, Kimble, Gates and a future NBA player in Doug Overton teamed up to take Dobbins to the Public School League championship game in back-to-back years. They lost to a Pooh Richardson-led Franklin team in 1984 and spent the next season with vengeance in mind. Their only losses came against a DC-area DeMatha squad led by Danny Ferry and a Dunbar team out of Baltimore that featured another future NBA player in Kurk Lee. But back home, they were unmatched and demolished Lionel Simmons’ South Philadelphia High — which had upset Richardson and Franklin in the semifinals — to take the title in 1985.

“We was mad and said, ‘Let’s take it out on them.’ That’s what we did,” Derrick Gathers said about the foiled rematch with Richardson. “We almost had like a parade on Lehigh Avenue because our school had never won the championship. But we had a wonderful time back then. All of the accolades that came with it was beautiful.”

Kimble was still considered the better player but Gathers wasn’t afraid to challenge him. “We had fierce battles and if somebody was watching us and watching the level of competition between us, and you didn’t know our background, you would’ve thought we were enemies. He hated to lose and I hated to lose in pickup games. One of the things I really loved, Hank taught me a very valuable lesson. One time, we had a very physical practice and we were just fouling each other. And we almost got into a fight 15 minutes before the end of practice …”

Players would typically convene after practice at the home of a local priest, Father Dave Hagan. Hagan offered mentorship and support – both emotional and financial – for families in the community and was close with both Gathers and Kimble. After Gathers’s death, Hagan was the first person Derrick called.

“We almost got into a fight at the end of practice, and Hank says, with a straight face – I mean, I couldn’t believe it. It was almost like he was Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde – ‘Hey, Bo. Don’t forget to meet at Father Dave’s house at 6.’ Like nothing just happened,” Kimble said. “And I’m thinking, F-you and Father Dave’s house. I’m not going to be nowhere. I’m thinking to myself, ‘He must’ve lost his damn mind.’ But guess where I was at 6 o’clock. I was at Father Dave’s. So he taught me a very valuable lesson. On the court, it’s one thing. Off the court is something else.”

Gathers and Kimble weren’t a package deal at USC, both just happened to be swayed by recruiter David Spencer at different times. Gathers committed first to the Trojans. Kimble was ready to play at Temple for Hall of Fame coach John Chaney when he boarded his flight for an official visit to USC. When he returned to Philadelphia, Kimble decided to join Gathers in Los Angeles.

After one year at USC, Gathers and Kimble were forced to play elsewhere after the forced resignation of Coach Stan Morrison. George Raveling was hired and took away their scholarships after the freshman failed to state their intentions to stay by a set deadline. The night before they were forced to make a decision, Gathers and Kimble argued over dinner about what they should do. Gathers didn’t want to go, but Kimble felt the deal-breaker for him was when Raveling repeatedly called him “Hank” in their initial meeting. Kimble spotted Gathers on campus the next day and Gathers was distraught after having received a letter telling him that he needed to go elsewhere to continue playing college basketball.

He’s got his look like, this expression on his face like he lost his dog or his puppy, like the dog ran away,” said Kimble. “He’s like, ‘Yo, man, did you get your letter?’ What are you talking about? What letter? I was like, ‘I didn’t get no letter.’ And he showed me his. It said that his scholarship wasn’t going to be renewed if he didn’t make a decision right away. And I had already told him, ‘Look I’m gone. I’m going to pass these Finals and I’m going to go wherever I want to go.’ Because I was being recruited by everybody. I wasn’t worried about it. That’s when we decided. It was hilarious to me. I said, ‘I guess we’re not staying now.’ He was really impacted by that big time. He was not happy to get the letter. To me, it didn’t matter because I was gone.

Neither wanted to leave the West Coast. Father Hagan, the priest who provided mentorship and guidance for kids in North Philadelphia and was close with Gathers and Kimble, recommended they consider Loyola Marymount. Hagan knew Westhead’s wife, Cassie, and thought the school would be a decent fit for them. Westhead showed them film of the style of play that he ran. Gathers and Kimble looked on in amazement and were sold. Sort of. As they walked out of Westhead’s office, Gathers stopped to make sure what he had just seen was legit.

“Hey, Coach, you’re from Philly. I’m from Philly Don’t try to hustle us. You did something to this film, you doctored it up,” Westhead recalls Gathers telling him. “I said, ‘No, that’s how we play.’ They said, ‘If that’s how you play, we’re coming.’ That was my first introduction to Hank. He was always straightforward. They wanted to play as fast. They wanted to demonstrate their skills. It was me waiting to find people that wanted to play fast and they looked at me like, ‘You got us.’ It was the perfect moment to come together. They fit.”

Gates and Derrick Gathers both followed Hank and Bo out to Los Angeles and wound up at a small community college to get their grades up, with the expectation that they’d form that Dobbins connection at USC. Raveling blew up those plans. But Hank made sure his brother and friend experienced the benefits of the life that was exposed to him.

Pooh Richardson went from being high school rivals with Gathers to being Pac-10 rivals at UCLA but they remained tight in their new city. The best college and NBA players would always play pick-up games in the summers and Richardson helped introduce Gathers to the likes of Magic Johnson, Byron Scott, James Worthy, Isiah Thomas, Mark Aguirre and Reggie Miller. Magic took a liking to the hard-working Gathers and would routinely call to make sure he’d participate in the runs. Gathers would hang out at Richardson’s dorm and show up to the gym, where Johnson called him, “Big Hank.”

“He would literally terrorize dudes on my team. He would play really hard. He went Rodman hard,” Richardson said with a laugh. “Most of the guys on my team, they UCLA guys, LA rooted guys, they don’t run into hard-playing guys every day, especially talking crazy and really aggressive. I would be like, ‘C’mon, man, you can’t just come in my gym and talk crazy to guys and talk about how you’re going to beat them all up.’

“He’s just talking, but he’s so convincing. If he say something to you crazy like he’s going to fight you, he’d get to the point where he put his hands up, like he getting ready to fight you. The moment you don’t put your hands up, he got you. The crazy thing is, you put your hands up, you don’t want to fight that big joker, man. You like, ‘Aw, man. I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Well, I got to take that ass whipping and put my hands up.’ And he’d walk away like, ‘Yeah, you’re lucky, boy. I’d give you some of this.’ And he’d have a big grin on his face. He tests you. He used to test his brother Derrick all the time. He and Derrick would fight for three minutes and stop. He was just intimidating, playing mind games.”

As intense as he was on the court, Gathers would turn around and be the most loving and caring away when he wasn’t playing. Gathers brought Derrick to one of the runs at Pauley Pavilion. “Hank said to me, ‘Want to meet Earv?’ I said, ‘Who? Magic?’

“He said, ‘Magic, I want to introduce you to my brother, Derrick, he go to Cal-State Northridge.’ Magic said, ‘You want to play with me today?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I played with Magic and won damn near every game that day.”

Derrick Gathers also remembers Hank introducing him to Will Smith, as he was beginning his rap career as the Fresh Prince. But celebrity encounters weren’t that uncommon with him being a big-time college star in Hollywood. Gathers’ connection to the pros provided him with access to what they had. He stayed in a condominium with a spiral staircase, drove a 1978 Chevy Malibu that he didn’t pay for, and was never without wads of cash on hand. “We lived like kings,” Derrick Gathers said.

“We was out there tripping,” Gates said. “Best time in my life. We was like rock stars, dog. You know what was going on with these players. I don’t want to get nobody in trouble, but we was out there. I lived in Santa Monica by the beach. You figure it out. You do the math. I’m seeing Ashford and Simpson, Debbie Allen and Norm Nixon almost every day. I’m a- 18, 19-year-old kid. I don’t even know what I got. Go play with Pooh. I didn’t get no sleep, dog. If it wasn’t nothing going on at Loyola, I was at UCLA, tripping. Going to Reggie Miller’s house. This man got a house. Kitchen bigger than my house.”

One image that remains seared into Derrick Gathers’ memory was the time Hank took a rather unique form of transportation to take that 25-mile visit north from Loyola Marymount to Cal State Northridge. Derrick Gathers was having a cookout with friends on the campus lawn one afternoon when a helicopter caused everyone to frantically disperse as it landed. Students gathered around in awe. Derrick Gathers was intrigued by the chopper as well, wondering who was the source of such a commotion and disrupting his barbecue.

“Somebody said, ‘D, that looks like your brother.’ I said, ‘That is this joker,’ ” Derrick Gathers said. “And it was like the Red Sea parted. He comes up to me. He said, ‘We getting ready to go take care of something.’ I said, ‘I’m going with you.’ He said, ‘Nah, you can’t go this time.’ He pulled out a knot of $100s, in front of everybody, like, ‘Here, take this. I’ll call you later.’ Gets back in the jawn. Take off. This is how he was rolling.”

Gathers and Kimble brought the same competitiveness that pushed them in high school to Loyola Marymount. The high-octane offense offered enough scoring opportunities to keep everyone happy but there would still be moments when the two bumped heads at practice scrimmages. “I might have given in to Hank eight out of the last 10 calls, but every once in a while I’m like, ‘Not today.’ It would be like, if I didn’t give in, Hank was too stubborn and everybody would know, ain’t nobody playing no ball here today. Bo ain’t getting this call and Hank ain’t giving in? Game’s over. That’s just how we were. We took it to each other all the time and we made each other better.”

Kimble injured his knee during their junior year, missing 18 games, and Gathers used his absence to lead the nation in both scoring and rebounding, something that had only happened once before in NCAA history. “I’m thinking I’m a better scorer than Hank. So I told Doug Overton, ‘Next year, I’m going to lead the nation in scoring.’ I didn’t say I’m going to try. I said I’m going to do it. And I ended up doing it. Hank inspired me to want to lead the nation in scoring. I never thought about it, but once he’s on the cover of every magazine and all that stuff, I’m like, ‘OK. I just added that to my to-do list.’ We were exceptional individually but we were better together.”

The two were separated briefly when Gathers fainted on the court during a game against UC Santa Barbara on Dec. 9, 1989. Doctors discovered an irregular heartbeat and prescribed him Inderal, a medication that Gathers was never comfortable taking. Gathers only missed two games before returning to the running, gunning offense. The dosage was reduced three times, most notably after a two-game homecoming in January against La Salle and St. Joseph’s. Kimble played well, hitting the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer against St. Joe’s but Gathers played poorly and blamed his medication for feeling lethargic.

“He’s strong, energy and all. That kind of medication is for senior citizens. It slows you down and the type of ball that they were playing, it didn’t coincide,” Derrick Gathers said. “The doctors ended up lowering his dosage over the phone. You’re not supposed to do that. The next game, they played LaSalle, Hank had a better game.”

Gathers had 27 points and 12 rebounds against La Salle and believed he was back. The performance against LSU in February merely confirmed what he believed. Derrick Gathers, however, grew concerned when he came to visit his brother later that season. “I used to pop down on him sometimes. One time, I hit the light switch and he’s sitting on the sofa, in the dark, like, ‘Yo.’ He scared me. He said, ‘I’m sitting here thinking about my next move.’ I can remember it like it was yesterday, bro. My brother always said, ‘I’m the strongest man alive.’ He’d come here and rip the shirt off of you. He used to scare me a lot of times, like this dude here is crazy. I believe he knew he wasn’t going to last long.”

The night before he passed, Derrick Gathers joined his brothers, Hank and Charles, Kimble and some other friends at a club. They stayed out until the club closed, even with a game approaching. Gathers spent the whole night talking to what Derrick described as gang bangers, signing $100 bills for them, not concerned about the dancers. When they went back to Gathers’s apartment, Derrick recalls his brother making his way up to bed. “He looked at me and said, ‘How many credits you need to graduate?’ I’m like, ‘A few.’ He said, ‘Do that.’ That’s the last words he said to me.

“He had accomplished at 23 more than a man 60 years old,” Derrick Gathers said. “Did he go too soon? Yeah. Did he accomplish his goal? No. He didn’t make it to the NBA. He actually didn’t go hardship after leading the nation in scoring and rebounding his junior year because our mom told him to go back to get his degree. And she beat herself up for a long time because she told him to go back. But that was great advice from a mother. Nobody in our family had ever went to college. So you had to get your degree. Maybe he was thinking, ‘I’ve got to finish because mom told me to finish.'”

After Gathers’ stunning, sudden death, the rest of the tournament was canceled. The West Coast Conference awarded Loyola Marymount the automatic bid since it had won the regular-season title. The players participated in two memorials, one in Los Angeles and one in Philadelphia and were emotionally drained. Westhead left it up to the players to decide whether they wanted to continue playing; which they did.

“I think much of it was, we were all so devastated about his death that anything that could distract us was welcome,” Westhead said. “So, our guys started practicing and playing games in the NCAA for like, comic relief. This allows us not to think about our teammate and to our friend, Hank Gathers. So, playing became fun. They weren’t interested in winning. They just wanted to play. And honestly, winning became easier because it wasn’t the end all and be all.”

Since he had known Gathers the longest, Kimble felt that the team was going to look to see what kind of leadership he would provide. Gathers had been the team’s “rah-rah” leader, Kimble the more reserved one. But the two would always lead the team for a casual jog around the gym. That first practice without Gathers at his side, Kimble said his absence “hit me like a ton of bricks.” Kimble said he probably needed to take a break outside and weep, but he decided to fight through so that the rest of his teammates wouldn’t break.

“We all loved Hank,” he said. “And playing basketball and practice was therapy for us. Everybody kept saying, we’re going to play for our love of Hank and I kept trying to say, ‘Listen guys, let’s not play for that, because we love Hank whether we win one game in the tournament or not. Let’s not put our love of Hank on winning this game.’ That went through everybody’s ear and out of the other.

“When that ball went up, I promise you one thing, everybody was thinking about Hank. We’re going to win this. We had a higher sense of purpose than everybody else in the tournament. We had an extra advantage over everybody. We were playing for a higher purpose than just winning a game, which is why we played inspired ball. We put our pain into our play, as a form of therapy, and that’s what we needed as a team.”

The Lions made a miraculous run to the school’s first trip to the Elite Eight, where they lost to eventual champion UNLV. The lasting image was Kimble shooting his first free throw of each game with his left hand. Kimble and Gathers were both right-handed, but Gathers had decided to shoot left-handed from the foul line, where he struggled.

Derrick Gathers thinks Hank chose to go lefty because Loyola Marymount’s style of play kept his heart racing, so it was easier to keep the energy flowing on that side of his body when action came to a halt. Westhead wasn’t going to stand in his way, knowing attempts to do otherwise were futile. Kimble marveled at Gathers’s passion to constantly seek improvement and felt it was the best way to honor him.

Kimble made each free throw, when they defeated Robert Horry’s Alabama squad in the Sweet 16, when they upset defending national champion Michigan, and when they defeated New Mexico State in the first round. Westhead was admittedly distracted when the tournament began but remembers the arena fell silent as Kimble attempted the shot.

“All of a sudden, I said ‘Oh, my gosh. Here’s Bo, about to shoot his first free throw and he’s going to do it left-handed.’” Westhead said. “I don’t think I ever wanted a ball to go in more than that one. And it went in.”

“I told everybody and I wanted to make it crystal clear, it wasn’t about making the shot. I wanted to make the shot, but I didn’t care. To me, if I was 0-for-3 it would’ve still been special to me because I’m paying tribute to him,” Kimble said. “It wasn’t about making it, it was taking it. It was my selfish moment to just, the moment I got fouled it was like I was in the arena by myself. In the pitch black dark, with the light being on me, just enough to shoot the shot. I remember it like it was yesterday. Literally, it was nobody there but me and him. Me saying to him, ‘I love you, I miss you.’ If your heart is in the right place and the spiritual stars line up, all three of those suckers went in.”

UNLV overwhelmed Loyola Marymount as the Runnin’ Rebels did most teams all season long. The emotion couldn’t compensate for the talent discrepancy that Kimble believes would’ve been solved by Gathers’s presence. “If Hank would’ve been alive, I humbly say this all the time, we would’ve won the national championship,” Kimble said. “UNLV beat us. Not taking anything away from them being national champs, I think we would’ve beat them.”

Gathers left behind one son, Aaron Crumb, who was 6 at the time of his death and barely knew him. Gathers remains one of the great what-ifs stories in basketball history — up there with the late Len Bias — a legend birthed from a tragedy that won’t ever completely heal.

“He had the heart of a lion, that’s a true story, that’s real. A lot of people out here would’ve quit basketball if they knew it would’ve killed them. If they’d lose their life from it,” Gates said. “That guy, I miss him dearly. He knows what he wanted. He was the first one, like out of our, that we hung with, that was close to us, from the projects, that made it. I think he thought he was going to let everybody down with the situation with his heart and I think he thought he could beat it and he couldn’t, you know, because that’s God’s hands. You got guys out here, they got the technology now, and they’ll quit. They’ll stop playing. I think if they had told him he wasn’t going to play no more, he wasn’t going to listen to them. Because he was the type of person, he thought he could beat it. That was his ultimate goal. I think he should’ve left his junior year. He might still be here today, if he had left. It’s just so sad.”

Westhead left to coach the Denver Nuggets after that final season at Loyola Marymount. Gathers, he believes, would have been a solid, consistent role player in the NBA. “I’ve thought about it. Hank on the one hand would not have been a star,” he said. “He wouldn’t have been first team All-(NBA) but he would’ve been a steady contributor in the NBA. He would be getting 15 and 10, night after night after night. You can mark it down. What’s Hank going to get you? He’s going to get you 15 points, he’s going to get you 10 rebounds and he’s going to knock a few people around and he’s going to do the dirty work.”

Richardson was in town the night Gathers died. The Minnesota Timberwolves played the Lakers at The Forum and he had made plans to hang out after the game. Too distraught by the news, which he received in the locker room, Richardson avoided the chaos of that evening and has spent subsequent years contemplating what could’ve been for his friend.

“If he would’ve lived, Hank would’ve easily been a top five in rebounding in NBA history. Easy,” Richardson said. “Hank would have had a nice little run in the league. Because that was a time they were paying guys to do exactly what he did. He was one of the best guys at it, if not the best. They was paying guys to be the Rodman. I think he would’ve been a guy who would’ve been more of an intangible guy with the possibility of making shots. An Oakley. A guy who will rebound, defend. Team leader. As the years go by, he makes a quality 15 footer. Layups around the basket, nice pick and roll guys. But would’ve been like (Charles) Oakley with more athleticism.”

Kimble went eighth overall in the 1990 NBA draft but played just four years in the league, with the Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks. He played a few more years in the Continental Basketball League before leaving the game to pursue other business and philanthropic endeavors. He created the 44ForLifeFoundation to raise awareness for heart diseases and is the co-founder of a mortgage company, Assetcoin. Recently, Kimble watched a replay of the game against LSU.

“It was one of the few times that I shed a tear,” Kimble said. ”When I think of Hank Gathers, 99 percent of all my thoughts are very positive. They’re not sad, they’re very happy. Hank represents so much joy. He was one of the funniest people you would ever meet in this lifetime. The world really knew Hank was an extraordinary player. I think what impacted everybody was that Hank was even a better person. And that’s what I remember most.

“Hank and I were very, very competitive and if he was here today, he would remind me, ‘Oh, by the way, you might be a better scorer than me, Bo, but guess who’s the all-time leading scorer at Loyola? I am,” Kimble said. ”I’m just proud to say that I was blessed to say that I played 11 years with Hank. And it’s just amazing. l celebrate how he lived, not how he died.”

(Top photo: Gathers (left) and Kimble/Peter Read Miller, NBAE via Getty Images)