Posted on 03/04/2011 5:06:41 PM PST by Immerito
What had been a dream ending to a perfect regular season for the high school basketball team in the small southwest Michigan community of Fennville turned swiftly and tragically into something worse than a nightmare.
You can awaken from a nightmare, shake away the demons and drift back into reality.
There is no shaking away the horrific reality at the Fennville High School gymnasium Thursday night when Wes Leonard, the school’s star in basketball and football, collapsed on the court moments after making a game-winning basket.
Leonard was pronounced dead at Holland Hospital about two hours later. He was 16.
An autopsy report Friday revealed that Leonard died from a heart attack due to dilated cardiomyopathy.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.foxsports.com ...
I can remember from Jr High in 1970 how one of our players was pulled from the team because after the mandatory pre-season physical he was found to have the disease.
Was somebody negligent? Was he told not to play and allowed to play anyway?
There's more to this story.
My great-uncle also dropped dead in a basketball game at the age of 16, long before I was born. It happens. Even exceptional athletes can get a lethal myocarditis or cardiomyopathy.
Thanks Immerito.
Unfortunately, people drop dead from physical stress all the time. It’s particularly sad when it’s a young person. Not in the story was he was recovering from the flu.
My son play varsity football and track at a division 1 college. I can’t imagine what they are going through at this time.
Prayers for them.
An observation, it is ‘H’ when a child who has great promise and talent, dies before it reaches maturity. On the other hand, he was almost certainly doing what he loved when he tragically died at, quite literally, the height of his game!
A E Houseman wrote a poem in 1896, “To An Athlete Dying Young”, that could be used as this young man’s elegy but that no one could fathom the language of a century ago. Young glory is like the brightest meteorite blazing in the night, you have lit our lives and though you are gone, you will not be forgot!
What a heartbreak. Prayers to his family and community.
OMG, my heart is breaking. Prayers to his family. How incredibly sad.
Many years ago the best friend of my nephew was sitting in the living room watching TV when he just fell asleep and died. As it turns out, he had contracted a virus that attacked his heart........the boy was only 17 at the time.
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