Yahoo! Sports: Jordan Gathers Tries To Shoulder A Beautiful Legacy

This feature, written by Yahoo! Sports' Les Carpenter (@LesCarpenter), focuses on St. Bonaventure freshman guard Jordan Gathers, the nephew of Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers. It originally appeared online Nov. 9, 2011.

--------
by Les Carpenter

The story in the young man's mind starts not at death but in the last moments of life, with Hank Gathers frozen in the air that distant March evening, hands above the rim and the No. 44 stretched across his back. It's an image both beautiful in the power of a dunk and haunting in the knowledge that when he comes down his heart will stop and he will tumble to the floor of Loyola Marymount University's Gersten Pavilion. A life barely lived will be finished at 23.

How many times has Jordan Gathers watched the video of that night now 21 years past, grasping to understand the uncle with whom he shares a legacy and yet he never knew? "People always ask me, 'did you know him?'" he says. "Every game, everywhere I go, 'Gathers. Gathers.' It comes back."

continue reading ...