Gathers tragedy still resonates 20 years later

It was one of those seminal moments, one of those harrowing, unforeseen tragedies, that a sports person — or any person, for that matter — does not soon forget. And yet, I do not recall where I was or what I was doing when I heard the grim news, like I do when the Kennedys were assassinated or when Boom Boom Mancini knocked out Duk Koo Kim and they took Kim out of Caesars Palace on a stretcher.

I do remember the video. I sort of recall an unnerving image of Gathers’ eyes fluttering about.

I have seen men die in race cars and recall their crashes with frightening clarity. You know in the back of your mind it could happen in that sport. And yet nothing prepares you for when the pall washes over the grandstands, especially when you are sitting there. Your heart aches when they lower the flags to half-staff. You still can hear the woman sitting two rows in front begin to weep.

Maybe that’s why I remember the Gathers tragedy only in broad terms, not specific ones. Maybe some sort of subconscious defense mechanism kicked in, like with those soldiers in “Band of Brothers.”

It was only 20 years ago. I was writing about sports in Las Vegas. I should remember more clearly. I don’t. I’m not complaining.

Loyola Marymount had this crazy style of playing basketball, that much I remember. Run and gun, multiplied by the nth degree. The Lions of 1990 — and ’91, when they scored 186 points vs. U.S. International — were like listening to a 45-rpm record on the 78-rpm speed setting, if you are old enough to recall your parents’ old phonographs.

I sort of remember that this big guy named Hank Gathers was their star.

I definitely remember the little circular black uniform patches with his number, 44.

Loyola went on this incredible NCAA Tournament run, I remember that. It’s amazing what the spirit can accomplish when motivated by the heart. I recall Kimble shooting free throws with his left hand, to honor his fallen teammate, who shot them that way because he couldn’t make them right-handed. I remember Loyola destroying Michigan 149-115 and that the Lions had this guy named Per Stumer (pronounced: Steamer), and he couldn’t miss.

At least not until the UNLV game. The Rebels of that era had a way of making everyone miss.

UNLV won the national championship in 1990, or LMU still might be busting brackets and touching hearts. LMU’s first game of that season and its last game were against UNLV. The Rebels beat the Lions with Gathers, 102-91. They beat the Lions without him, 131-101, to advance to the Final Four, making coach Jerry Tarkanian something a Las Vegas authority on Gathers and Kimble and maybe even Stumer.

But not the foremost local authority. That distinction belongs to Kyle Keiderling, a retired investment banker from New Jersey who makes his home in Henderson. Keiderling has written a book about Hank Gathers and the 1990 LMU team called “Heart of a Lion: The Life, Death and Legacy of Hank Gathers.” (It’s available through the Amazon.com and hankgathersbook.com Web sites.)

Like me, Keiderling says he remembers the inspiring aftermath of the Gathers tragedy in greater detail than he does the event that spawned it. That was his motivation for the project that took him to the projects — the Raymond Rosen housing projects in Philadelphia, the deplorable place a news magazine called the worst slum in America before they imploded it and started over. It was this blighted place from which Gathers was able to rise, if only for a little while.

“Hank is remembered primarily, if at all, for the way he died. I thought that was almost as tragic as his demise,” Keiderling said Monday during one of about eight daily interviews he has been doing in conjunction with the book this week.

“He faced obstacles. He overcame them. That’s the way he lived. Unfortunately, that’s the way he died.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.