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Thirty years ago Wednesday, Gathers collapsed on the court inside Loyola Marymount’s arena during the semifinals of West Coast Conference tournament.
He was pronounced dead at nearby Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital about two hours later. An autopsy found Gathers died of cardiomyopathy, a heart-muscle disorder. Gathers had been diagnosed with an abnormal heartbeat after collapsing during a game earlier in the season.
He was 23.
His son, Aaron Crump, was 6.
For most of the three decades since then, Crump said, grief has remained buried inside of him — and perhaps partly responsible for his troubled past.
On the 20th anniversary of Gathers’ death, Crump was in Rockview State Prison in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, serving a five-year sentence for aggravated assault with a weapon.