sportsjabber.net

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 soon-to-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.”

http://ncaabasketball.fanhouse.com/2010/03/02/twenty-years-after-hank-gathers-stirs-memories-for-his-family/