COLUMN ONE : A Legacy on Court, in Court : The death of Hank Gathers reverberates in legal circles and in the sports world 2 1/2 years after his sudden collapse. No verdict was ever rendered on the tragedy’s cause.

The lighting is favorable at La Scala restaurant in Beverly Hills, but it can’t do miracles. Bruce Fagel looks beat.

He has been struggling for days to explain why his clients abandoned him during trial, leaving him embarrassed and standing alone that last day in court. He’s still trying.

Trudy Miller, Fagel’s wife and assistant, says that clients usually send them thank-you notes for years after a case. This time, they didn’t even get a goodby.

The last thing Lucille Gathers told Fagel before she hung up the phone and pulled out of the much-publicized trial was that she didn’t want to lose another son over this lawsuit; she didn’t want the stress of testifying to be more than another son’s heart could bear.

Then for reasons they did not explain, the Gathers family suddenly abandoned the three-week-old trial, ending an expensive saga with a cliffhanger that was as bizarre as that first episode 2 1/2 years ago when the legal witch hunt was announced.

But it’s still not over.

The death of Hank Gathers at age 23 continues to reverberate among athletic directors whose worth is seemingly measured by the success of their sports programs, doctors who walk the line in deciding whether a student athlete, determined to play, should be allowed to, and lawyers who now increasingly calculate the risks of a wrong decision.

But for the youth who hope that basketball is their ticket out of the slums, little has changed; their dream lives.

Even before Hank Gathers was buried, before his body had arrived in his hometown of Philadelphia, Fagel called a news conference in Los Angeles to announce that the family was going to sue. The price tag he would eventually put on the suit was $32.5 million.

The autopsy would list Gathers’ cause of death as a heart disorder, but his family listed the cause as negligence and filed suit against the doctors who treated him before and on the night of his death, as well as against Loyola Marymount University, where Gathers was a star basketball player.

The suit would name seven doctors, the coach, trainer and athletic director at Loyola, and three medical practices.

Lucille Gathers was furious with Fagel. She had first met with him within days of her son’s death, but she did not expect him to announce the suit until at least the day after the funeral. Only the family’s friend and adviser, Father Dave Hagan, was more outraged at Fagel than Lucille Gathers. Hagan was a mentor to Gathers, and had been instrumental in keeping him off the streets by funneling his energy into basketball.

They both wanted to pull the case from Fagel and talked with lawyers in Philadelphia, but Gathers’ brother, Derrick, who lives in the Los Angeles area and was playing basketball for Cal State Northridge at the time, talked his mother into staying with Fagel. The repercussions would come to haunt the relationship between Lucille Gathers and Fagel for the next 2 1/2 years.

Thinking back, Fagel said he would not have announced the suit so early. “But there were so many allegations against Hank, things I knew weren’t right, and I wanted to set the record straight,� Fagel said.

The family had been referred to Fagel by Albert Gersten, a Loyola alumnus and booster who helped finance the new gymnasium and named it after his father. It was in Gersten Pavilion that Gathers collapsed March 4, 1990, while playing in a postseason game, and died within two hours. He was being treated for an irregular heartbeat and a biopsy to determine the underlying cause was planned for after the end of his senior season--just weeks away.

The morning after Gathers died, 30 to 40 rich Loyola boosters scrambled to the phone and pledged money to the Gathers family. The school set up a fund and checks began to arrive. But as soon as Fagel announced plans for the suit, many of those checks were either torn up or canceled. Lucille did get some money, but nobody will say how much.

Some time later, Fagel advanced Derrick Gathers money so he could finish college. That, too, would eventually cause a rift between Fagel and Gathers’ mother.

For the funeral, Gersten bought suits for a couple of Hank Gathers’ friends and paid for the limousines. Interestingly, it was Gersten’s alleged financial relationship with Gathers that Fagel would later use to show that Lucille Gathers was dependent upon her son, a requirement for her to sue for wrongful death. Gersten has adamantly denied giving Gathers money, which, if true, would be a violation of NCAA rules.

Under probate law, the rightful heir to Gathers’ estate was his then 6-year-old son, Aaron Crump, who lives in Philadelphia with his mother, Marva. She and Gathers never married.

When Fagel called the news conference, Aaron’s mother, Marva, quickly hired her own attorneys and filed a separate suit.

Aaron did not receive any of the money from Loyola’s fund, his attorney said.

Unanswered Questions

For at least a year, Gathers’ heart remained in a jar filled with formaldehyde at the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Experts still do not agree on why Gathers died. The coroner’s report said that Gathers died from myocarditis, a treatable inflammation of the heart that can sometimes reverse itself. The report also said there was no presence of illegal drugs.

But another expert, who was asked by the coroner’s office to examine the heart, concluded that Gathers had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an incurable condition that causes thickening and scarring of the heart and interferes with the heart’s electrical current. Moreover, the condition is congenital and can run in families. It is treated in part by limiting physical activity.

Dr. Michael Fishbein, the cardiac pathology expert at Cedars-Sinai Hospital who came to that conclusion, was upset when the coroner’s report listed myocarditis. He wanted the Gathers family to be aware of his conclusion so members could be evaluated. But the coroner’s office stands by its findings, saying that Fishbein’s examination was only an early working diagnosis.

Then a year later, Myrvin Ellestad, a cardiologist at the Heart Institute at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, rendered another opinion. After examining the heart at the coroner’s office at the request of a defense attorney, Ellestad said in a deposition that the likely cause of scarring on Gathers’ heart was cocaine use.

“The kind of scars that were on his heart is typical of someone who has had repeated cocaine use,� Ellestad said recently. “But I don’t think he was using it at the time of his death.

� . . . It’s difficult to be 100% certain and there are some fairly good experts who have different opinions on this. But there are also quite a few doctors that I talked with that came to the same conclusion. The problem is that some doctors say, ‘Well in a case like this, dealing with a local hero, what will people think if I say something adverse?’ �

However, Marshall Silberberg, the attorney for the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Inglewood, one of three defendants who went to trial, said he was not going to ask Ellestad to testify.

“I didn’t think it made any difference what caused the scarring; scars are scars and the main thing is that they interfere with the heart’s electrical system,� Silberberg said. “Plus we had investigators in Philadelphia and out here, and we found no evidence that Hank was using cocaine. In all fairness to him, I decided I would not bring it up at trial.�

The Plan

Gathers grew up in the Raymond Rosen Projects, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Philadelphia, but somehow the stifling gloom never seemed to affect him--he just kept playing basketball.

“Hank knew what he wanted to do early in life, so he was on the right track,� said Adrian Moody, one of Aaron Crump’s attorneys. “He had good people around him, especially Father Hagan. When you play sports like Hank did, the word gets out to people, the drug dealers and all, and that removes you from trouble and they leave you alone.�

There was seemingly nothing from the projects that could foil Gathers’ plan for moving his family out; nothing that could kill his dream of being a lottery pick in the NBA. But maybe the blinders that kept him so focused also contributed to his death. Maybe he should have asked more questions. Maybe his mother should have. Maybe Loyola should have.

But Gathers was still a student who had been pandered to as a star athlete. And his mother lived 2,500 miles away.

And doctors had cleared him to play.

On Dec. 26, 17 days after Gathers’ first collapse, doctors had him play one-on-one basketball for about 1 1/2 hours with a Holter monitor attached to his heart. The results showed that Gathers had a dramatically abnormal heart rhythm during that time period, recording 188 episodes of ventricular tachycardia, some runs in which his heart raced nearly 200 beats per minute, and 26% of pre-ventricular contractions (abnormal heartbeat). Silberberg had experts prepared to testify that this was indicative of a “very sick heart.�

Ventricular tachycardia occurs when the heart is beating too fast to pump blood, causing a drop in blood pressure, and, if sustained, a loss of consciousness that can worsen into quivering of the heart, which shuts down the system.

“The test results were significant because it showed that 26% of Hank’s total heartbeat was abnormal,� said Fagel, who was a doctor before he became a lawyer.

� . . . By definition, any one of those 188 runs, if they hadn’t stopped by themselves, could have degenerated into fibrillation and he would have died right then.

“The real question is, with that Holter monitor, why was he cleared to play? The problem was he had already been cleared to play when that test was done.�

Gathers was given a a beta-blocker called Inderal, a drug used to control a rapid heartbeat but one that can cause sluggishness. Under medication, he was tested again on Dec. 29 and the pre-ventricular contractions were reduced to 1% and the runs of ventricular tachycardia were greatly reduced.

Originally, Gathers’ prescription called for 240 milligrams of Inderal a day, but over the next three months his dosage was reduced to 40 milligrams a day, a dosage Fagel contended was ineffective.

Dr. Vernon Hattori, Gathers’ cardiologist, made the last reduction from 80 to 40 milligrams on Monday, Feb. 26--six days before Gathers died--but with the stipulation that Gathers would undergo testing Wednesday to determine if the lower dosage was safe and effective before he played in the upcoming tournament.

Gathers did not show up for his test that week and dodged calls from Hattori’s office. When Gathers finally called Hattori, it was about 6 p.m. on Friday. The post-season tournament began Saturday. After a long talk, a persistent Gathers was told to go ahead and play in the tournament and come in for testing when it was over, either Monday or Tuesday. Gathers died Sunday night.

The legal morass that ensued for the next 2 1/2 years tied knots in the lives of the dozen accused, leaving them emotionally exhausted and perplexed.

“Let’s look at the bigger picture, let’s learn something from this,� said Dan Hyslop, the staff physician at Loyola who was accused by the Gathers family of negligence in rendering emergency care on the court the night Gathers died.

“Are we content to live in a world where studies have shown that if you go to a playground of black kids most of them will tell you that they can definitely earn a living in the NBA and that’s how they are going to get out of this mess?

“Are you content to live in a world where we spent millions arguing over Hank’s death? My attorney’s fees were $250,000. If we could spend the millions we spend arguing over dead people toward trying to change some of the conditions, I think that’s where we need to go to break the bitterness.

“When the trial ended, my attorney asked me if I wanted to sue the Gathers family for malicious prosecution. The answer is no. We have to stop the downward spiral.�

The Payout

Looking back at the night that Gathers died, Ben Shaffer wonders why no one asked him any questions. He was the doctor on duty at the basketball game when Gathers collapsed. He was the doctor who ordered the stretcher to move Gathers from the court to the training room. He was also the doctor who accompanied Gathers to the hospital in the ambulance. And he was one of six doctors who were sued in Gathers’ death, one of only two who made it to trial. Yet it would be a year before Shaffer got to tell his side of the story.

“I was standing there with (another doctor) who was talking with ESPN and other reporters, but nobody said anything to me,� Shaffer said. “I just figured it was some kind of journalistic oversight.�

Speculation followed almost immediately, questioning why Shaffer moved Gathers outside Loyola’s gym rather than treat him on the court. Or why he had not immediately hooked Gathers up to the school’s defibrillator.

But legal action also began immediately and it barred Shaffer from talking. A year later he told his story in deposition testimony, and 2 1/2 years later he finally got to tell a jury.

“Hank had a strong pulse on the floor, he was responsive to my commands and he was stable, and I don’t think the Gathers family knew that,� Shaffer said recently from his home in Washington, D.C.

“I wished I could have called the Gathers family up and told them what happened that night on the court, but I couldn’t because it could have been misconstrued as manipulating the legal system. So basically our legal system prevents the right thing from being done.�

Shaffer was one of only three defendants to make it to trial. The other 11 either settled or had their cases dismissed. At one time, there were 29 attorneys and 10 law firms involved in the case, a convoluted mix of egos that did its share to deepen the legal morass.

Hattori, the cardiologist who treated Gathers, was the first to settle. He paid a total of $1 million--the maximum his insurance policy would provide--to Lucille Gathers and Aaron, whose lawyers would negotiate a split. Hattori, whom attorneys for both sides would come to respect for his honesty, would have been personally liable for any amount more than $1 million if a jury found against him.

Loyola’s insurance carriers paid the most, $1.4 million, with $855,000 going to Aaron and $545,000 to Lucille Gathers. Loyola’s attorneys, Wayne Boehle and Mike Montgomery, would say that Loyola had no legal responsibility to either recipient, but they did feel a moral obligation. But Loyola’s settlement did not cover Hyslop, who used his own medical malpractice insurance carrier and proceeded to trial.

Hattori’s settlement sparked the most interesting of several rifts between Fagel and Martin Krimsky, co-counsel with Adrian Moody for Aaron Crump. The two suits had been combined, but over a period of time the attorneys were united only in the eyes of the court.

Fagel said he and Krimsky had agreed to a 60-40 split of Hattori’s $1 million, with Aaron receiving the higher amount. Krimsky disputed it. Ironically, the hearing to decide the allocation would be the only time a member of the Gathers family would testify, when Derrick Gathers took the stand.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge J. Gary Hastings, who was appointed overseer of the case, ruled that the legal claim for support appeared to be more significant for Aaron than for Lucille Gathers, and awarded Aaron $650,000 of Hattori’s settlement.

Seated in the courtroom that day was Albert Gersten, who was subpoenaed by Krimsky. Under law, in order for a mother to be able to recover damages in the wrongful death of her child when there is an heir, she must show she was dependent for the basic needs of life: food, clothing, shelter and medical treatment. In depositions, Lucille Gathers and Derrick said that Gersten gave Hank money, and in turn, Hank helped support his mother. Gersten had denied it, but it was the thread that held Fagel’s case together.

Krimsky had Gersten in court for insurance. If Fagel asked Derrick about Gersten giving Hank money, Krimsky would put Gersten on the stand to deny it. Fagel never asked the question.

In total, Aaron grossed $1.5 million from the two settlements but actually received a little more than $1 million after legal costs and fees.

Lucille Gathers grossed $895,000 from her two settlements and received $447,000 after costs and fees. The costs sparked more friction between her and Fagel.

The Trial

The jury that assembled in Superior Court in Torrance never delivered a verdict on who, if anyone, was responsible for Gathers’ death.

Only one issue made it to trial. The Gathers family, Lucille and brothers Derrick, 24, and Charles, 21, claimed that negligence by Hyslop and Shaffer and the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic of Inglewood in rendering care courtside caused them emotional distress and led to Gathers’ death.

The jury, though, was not limited to three defendants in laying blame for Gathers’ death. If the jury found in favor of the Gathers family, it was required to determine the percentage of Gathers’ death for which the defendants were responsible. If not 100%, then the jury had to decide who else was responsible.

This apportionment could have resulted in less money for the Gathers family. If the jury, for example, ruled that the defendants were responsible for 10% of Gathers’ death, the award to each of the plaintiffs would be $25,000. (In this case, the judge ruled there was a maximum of $250,000 allowed per plaintiff under the state medical malpractice statute.)

Fagel, worried after the selection of a jury that included 11 women--most of whom professed to know little about sports--one man and no blacks, scrambled to settle with the defendants. He believed that his case had suffered greatly when it was moved from the downtown courthouse to Torrance--the district in which the incident occurred--at the behest of defense attorneys. Fagel believed that if the case were downtown the jury pool would have included more blacks.

Fagel said that as the trial progressed he warned the family that even if the jury ruled in their favor, they could walk away with as little as $50,000 after costs. Fagel then arranged with Lucille Gathers and her son Charles, who live together in Philadelphia, to waive their claims so that any funds from a settlement would go to Derrick, who lives in Panorama City.

But the defendants refused to settle. Hyslop had already been grilled for three days on the witness stand and Shaffer for two days. Hyslop, listening to a myriad of advisers, actually considered settling once, but that moment was fleeting.

Kerlan-Jobe, a national leader in orthopedic sports medicine, provides free orthopedic care to Loyola, USC and Cal State Los Angeles by sending doctors to attend home games and offering weekly clinics. It also serves the Dodgers, Lakers and Kings. Nearly 100% of the incidents the Kerlan-Jobe doctors respond to at games are orthopedic. A verdict was important to determine where it stood legally when one of its doctors responded to a non-orthopedic emergency of an athlete or anyone else.

Kerlan-Jobe’s situation sparked interest worldwide in other sports medicine groups that provide similar services to sports teams. Many called Kerlan-Jobe to applaud their efforts to stay in the case. Insurance carriers were keenly interested, too.

But there was another reason the Kerlan-Jobe group refused to settle. It, like others, was incensed when the Gathers family suit was announced by Fagel even before Gathers was buried.

“At one point, Dr. Kerlan said he would settle if the money went to the son, but he wouldn’t pay a dime to the mother,� Silberberg said.

When Fagel’s efforts to settle failed, he changed his strategy and decided to put the Gathers family on the stand earlier than scheduled. He thought the jury had been bombarded with medical information and was primed for Lucille Gathers’ emotional testimony.

The Labor Day weekend was ahead, and Fagel sent plane tickets to her and Charles and rescheduled Derrick to testify first thing Tuesday morning.

By then, the trial was three weeks old and had cost Kerlan-Jobe $90,000 and Fagel $75,000. Those costs included more than 60 pretrial depositions. An average medical malpractice case has about a dozen.

There were also attorneys’ fees: $300,000 for Silberberg and co-counsel Dick Carroll and $250,000 for Hyslop’s attorney, Craig Dummit. Fagel had received $200,000 in fees from Lucille Gathers’ settlement with Hattori and Loyola, but he would come to make no money on the rest of the suit. Overall, he said, he lost money.

When court resumed Tuesday morning, Derrick did not show up to testify. Fagel called Hastings aside and told him he was having problems with the family. They had decided not to testify. Moreover, they weren’t even talking with him.

Without Lucille Gathers’ testimony eliciting sympathy from the jury, Fagel’s case seemed unwinnable. Hastings told the jury there were witness scheduling problems, and recessed the court until Wednesday afternoon to give the Gathers family time to change their mind.

Just about everybody but Fagel lingered outside the courtroom that final afternoon, looking anxiously out the third-story windows into the parking lot, waiting to see if they would show. Then Fagel, who had forgone his limousine lest the jury see it, hopped out of a more modest vehicle, alone.

Standing in the courtroom, the jury not present, Fagel tried to explain to Hastings what had happened, but all it seemed to boil down to was that Lucille Gathers was tired of the case. When she agreed with Fagel to forgo her claims on behalf of a settlement for Derrick, she thought she was through with the suit and would not have to relive her son’s death on the witness stand.

When Fagel’s efforts to settle failed, it didn’t matter. She was done.

What was clear that day, is that Fagel did not have the Gathers’ written permission to dismiss the suit, a requirement of law. Fagel had to ask Hastings to dismiss the case.

Hastings said he had never had this happen in a trial.

In Retrospect

Fagel’s instincts about the jury would prove correct. Eight of the 12 jurors who were interviewed after the case was dismissed said they were heavily in favor of the defendants.

Outside the courtroom, one juror walked over to hug Dr. Dan Hyslop. She told him she was glad the case was over and said she had not believed Fagel from the beginning. But she hugged the wrong man.

“I thought she was coming over to congratulate me for my brother,� said Hyslop’s twin, Dave, who had attended the trial every day.

Hyslop had been outside Gersten Pavilion buying a ticket for Dave when Gathers collapsed. By the time he got to the scene, Gathers was being lifted on the stretcher. Hyslop had attended the game as a spectator.

“I remember standing there with Dan after the ambulance took off with Hank,� Dave Hyslop said. “Dan was a mess. They were making an announcement in the gym that the rest of the game was canceled and said something about letting everyone know about the remainder of the tournament. I think I, probably like everyone else in the gym, thought that we would all go home and in a few hours we would hear on the radio that Hank was fine.

“But I looked at Dan and I felt the weight of that pavilion on him. I could tell that he believed they had done all they could for Hank, but it was over. It was like he was the only one in the pavilion who knew that Hank wouldn’t be OK.

“That walk to the car was a long one.�

Dan Hyslop, 36, had treated Gathers on occasion in the student health center. “Hank was the kind of guy that could talk you right out of your shoes,� Hyslop said. “He made me feel like I knew him.�

The spirit of Gathers seemed to carry over at trial, when Derrick Gathers and Hyslop had a friendly exchange in the courtroom, and Ben Shaffer and Derrick even talked a couple of times.

“And we looked at each other several times also,� Shaffer said. “Derrick said he was looking forward to all of this being behind him.

“After all the pain and suffering that he and his family had been through, any verdict we may have gotten as defendants could never be construed as a victory. I feel vindicated by this but it is by no means a cause for celebration.�

After Loyola Athletic Director Brian Quinn had finished his testimony, Derrick Gathers hugged him. “We embraced and that is very important to me,� Quinn said. “Derrick is always welcome here at Loyola.�

But the mood in the courtroom was not always so pleasant. Silberberg, who was named California trial attorney of the year in 1989, aggressively cross-examined one of Fagel’s experts, Steven Van Camp, a cardiologist from San Diego, whose expertise is in sudden death.

At one point, Van Camp turned to Hastings and asked him to please ask Silberberg to change his tone of voice. “All I could say to him was, just answer the questions, doctor,� Hastings said.

At the conclusion of the trial, Hastings applauded the attorneys in his remarks, an unusual thing for a judge to do. Later he gave more praise to Fagel for taking the case as far as he did for his clients.

Silberberg has a record of 3-1 against Fagel. “But the one he got me on was a good one,� Silberberg said.

Fagel won the largest medical malpractice award for a client in California, when a jury awarded $20 million in a case dealing with the delivery of a baby.

Silberberg is one of several attorneys who have said Fagel did well for Lucille Gathers, getting her more money from the settlements than anyone believed possible.

“Lucille didn’t qualify as an heir because she was not financially dependent on Hank for the necessities of life, so the maximum she could have qualified for under the law was $250,000,� Silberberg said. “The only real heir was Aaron, but from the settlement he got Lucille $895,000, so I thought he did a great job.�

But Shaffer and Hyslop are less charitable with Fagel.

Shaffer, 34, saw his career put on hold once the suit was filed. He was in his final months of a fellowship with Kerlan-Jobe, his 10th year in medical training. It didn’t matter how celebrated he was academically or what he had accomplished in medical research, few wanted to touch a doctor in the midst of a malpractice suit. It took a while, but Shaffer landed a good position as an assistant professor of orthopedics at Georgetown University, working in the sports medicine program.

Shaffer said it would not have mattered how he had attended to Gathers on the court. The only way Fagel would not have gone after him is if Gathers had lived.

Fagel contended that Gathers’ condition was not medically stable immediately after his collapse and that Shaffer should have called for the defibrillator, rather than the stretcher, and treated him on the court.

“There were witnesses who also knew that Hank had a pulse on the floor,� Shaffer said. “Fagel says I should have attached the defibrillator immediately, but the instruction manual specifically says that the defibrillator should not be put on until the patient is pulseless and, in fact, that prior to applying it CPR should be initiated.

“If I thought Hank needed it inside the gym, I wouldn’t have hesitated a second in attaching the monitor. Having his family or a crowd around wouldn’t have stopped me. But Hank had a pulse, he was breathing and responding to my commands. If I would have hooked him up to the defibrillator he could have been what is equivalent of electrocuted in front of his family and that would have been a real horror.�

A defibrillator delivers an electrical shock through pads that can change the heart’s rhythm, in hopes of shocking it back to normal. But if a heart has a normal rhythm, using the device can result in generating an abnormal rhythm.

“Have you ever put your finger in an electrical outlet? That’s what it feels like,� Shaffer said. “. . . If I would have done what Fagel said I should have done I would have been up on the stand for criminal conduct.

“I can hear Fagel now: ‘So, Dr. Shaffer, you knew he had a pulse, three others knew he had a pulse, and you still hooked him up to a defibrillator?’ So, Dr. Shaffer, tell me, didn’t you learn in medical school not to hook up a patient that has a pulse?’ �

What Now?

In his annual state of the school address to the faculty and staff this month, Loyola’s president, Father Thomas P. O’Malley, did not mention Hank Gathers. “I asked him why, and he told me that the case is behind us now,� Hyslop said.

The National Collegiate Athletic Assn. also may have closed the book on Gathers. It is aware of allegations made by Lucille and Derrick Gathers in depositions that Gersten gave Hank money while he was was playing basketball for Loyola, a serious NCAA violation. Gersten has denied the charges.

The allegations of a booster giving special favors to athletes can be serious for a school, which can face penalties and sanctions of its sports programs. When the allegations surfaced, the NCAA said it would wait to see what came out at trial. Now that the trial has ended, the NCAA says it has not decided what action to take, if any.

Under ordinary circumstances, barring Gathers’ death, the allegations should have been difficult for the NCAA to ignore. According to Fagel, Gathers had an apartment off-campus that charged a rent of $1,100 a month and Gathers paid all of it. He was driving a new car, a Mercury Cougar, and could frequently be found at the horse racetrack. None of this fits with a budget of someone on scholarship, which allows a stipend of about $600 a month for room and board.

“Mr. Gersten denied (the charges) and said it over and over again,� Quinn, the athletic director, said. “There was no substantiation of any claims. What purpose would there be to initiate any action?�

Epilogue

* Paul Westhead, Gathers’ coach at Loyola, is proceeding with the $1-million defamation of character suit he filed against Fagel in January last year. In one of his news conferences, Fagel said that if it were not for Westhead, “Hank Gathers would be alive today.�

It was Fagel’s contention that Westhead played a role in getting Gathers’ cardiologist to reduce his medication. Westhead vehemently denies that, and, outraged at Fagel’s allegations, filed suit.

Lucille Gathers and the estate each dismissed Westhead as a defendant. The actions were taken before Loyola settled and were not a condition of Loyola’s settlement.

* Kerlan-Jobe, which provides free orthopedic care to several universities, will continue to do so. Had it lost the case, things might have changed, but that would have been dictated by the insurance carriers, which kept close watch on the outcome.

“It would not have been our decision to change how we do things,� said Dr. Ralph Gambardella, an orthopedist who also helps oversee the fellows program for Kerlan-Jobe. “If a verdict had been against us, it might have affected us as well as others who provide free services.

“For example, take a situation like a doctor who helps out at high school football games. An insurance carrier might decide not to cover him at the games, or to charge him an extra premium. We felt we needed to bring the matter to court to see what the outcome was across the board, to see what our position was.�

* Brian Quinn, Loyola’s athletic director, says the school will still rely on the opinions of medical experts in dealing with its student-athletes, but it is taking extra precautions.

“This year, and I’m not saying it’s entirely because of what happened since Hank, we are having all athletes in intramural and club sports sign a waiver that basically holds the school blameless,� Quinn said.

Loyola’s legal nightmare has had a notable impact on other schools in dealing with athletes with medical problems. In several instances, schools have insisted on not only a medical release but also a legal waiver before returning an athlete to competition. For some athletes, that has meant months of meetings with lawyers and testing by doctors before they are cleared. For others, it has meant no clearance at all.

“There is no doubt in my mind that there are some athletes who would be playing now if it weren’t for what happened with Hank,� Quinn said.

* Aaron Crump, 8, moved out of the Raymond Rosen Projects a week ago to a nice home outside Philadelphia, having received some of the money he received from his settlement. The Orphan’s Court of Philadelphia, which controls Aaron’s money, approved a house purchase for about $100,000. The house is in Aaron’s name and he lives there with his mother, brother and grandmother. The Orphan’s Court will release the funds to Aaron when he reaches age 18.

* Lucille Gathers, who lives around the corner from where Aaron lived in the projects, is said to have bought a house and preparing to move soon.

*

The sounds of a pickup basketball game echoed through Gersten Pavilion one recent day. Only two teammates of Gathers remain, Greg Walker and Chris Scott.

Bill Mazurie, from Cerritos College, the MVP of the California State Junior College Championships, was dribbling the ball upcourt, and Quinn pointed to that acquisition with pride.

High above the rafters, hanging over the court where Gathers played his last basketball game, a banner reads: “Hank’s House: Here the Lions’ Spirit Dwells.�

Quinn pointed to that with pride, too.

Times staff writers Elliott Almond and Danny Robbins contributed to this story.