Gathers’ Cousin, 17, Dies After Collapsing at Basketball Practice

PHILADELPHIA — A cousin of the late Hank Gathers collapsed during his high school basketball practice Tuesday and died at a hospital a short time later.

Joseph Marable, 17, passed out during the afternoon practice at William Penn High, WPVI-TV reported.

Tom Green, a nursing supervisor at Temple University Hospital, said a fire rescue team brought Marable to the hospital at 4:30 p.m. EST. “We worked on him until 4:50,” when the youth was pronounced dead, Green said.

Marable was unconscious when he arrived at the hospital, according to Green.

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy, Green said. He had no other information and could not confirm where Marable had been when he collapsed.

“There were many family members here,” he said.

Gathers died in 1990, two hours after collapsing while playing for Loyola Marymount in the West Coast Conference tournament at Loyola’s Gersten Pavilion. Gathers had collapsed once before and was found to have a heart disorder. Experts have never quite agreed on the cause of Gathers’ death or whether it was congenital. He had been a star at Philadelphia’s Dobbins Technical High.