Discover what's to love about Charm City for yourself. As many as 300 young athletes from 18 teams, ranging from 14 to 18 years of age, will be examined for HCM. PRO BASKETBALL; Virus Damaged Lewis's Heart, Autopsy Finds "Michael would have 37 and Reggie would have 32, so all the talk was about MJ, but Reggie was right there.". He played 15 minutes, scoring 7 points and grabbing 4 rebounds. Although the myocarditis had healed, Kessler told the newspaper that Lewis heart remained scared and enlarged when he collapsed and died while shooting baskets at Brandeis University in the Boston area. He reached forward to stretch his legs. [1] At the age of 27, Lewis died while still a member of the Celtics, and his number was posthumously retired by the team. Mr. Lewis' widow, Donna Harris-Lewis, said at the same news conference that she is "disappointed that a national publication would print rumors, innuendoes. Explore our state-of-the-art patient care facilities in the Sheikh Zayed Tower. It was during a workout at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on July 27, 1993, when Lewis collapsed on the court and died. "Reggie was a model citizen and an intelligent and wise man. [4], Lewis was drafted in the first round, 22nd overall, by the Boston Celtics in the 1987 NBA draft. The NBA's drug policy, however, does not allow its veteran players to be tested for drugs without probable cause. There were a few guys in the league I hated to guard because you didn't know what they were thinking. Though his cause of death was later determined to be cardiac arrhythmia, at the time of his death, there was speculation that he had been using performance-enhancing drugs. Follow @TIME. He also assured doctors, from his own experience with Mr. Lewis, that he was not a drug user. He also said he experienced guilt. A $15 million insurance policy on his contract would not pay off if his disability was linked to drugs. A bad back forced Bird into early retirement in 1992. Lewis blocked Jordan four times in that game and harassed him into a 12-for-36 shooting performance. Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, 17-part series on the Celtics championship history. More than 110,000 high school students in Maryland are active in sports, and, according to Abraham, the stress of athletic competition poses ultra-dangerous risks to those who have inherited tendencies to develop overly enlarged and thickened hearts, hypertrophic cardiomyopathies, or similar abnormalities. In the last decade, Abraham has treated dozens of athletes with overly enlarged hearts. African-American players at special risk of death from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, Sudden Death of Baltimore Basketball Player Reggie Lewis Spurs Coach to Screen Other Young Players For Heart Defects - 01/14/2010. He was a tough matchup, and he had those long arms that really bothered me. All Rights Reserved. * Mr. Lewis' new doctors concluded that his problem was a benign fainting condition, requiring only tests and close monitoring. "He kept you off balance all the time. Marta Figueras-Dotti ended 11 years of frustration on the LPGA Tour with a victory in the Hawaiian Ladies Open at Ewa Beach. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Goran Ivanisevic defeated Boris Becker, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, and Stefan Edberg beat Sergi Bruguera, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, to reach the Eurocard Open final at Stuttgart, Germany. The Celtics responded by threatening to file a $100 million lawsuit against the reporter, the Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones and Co. Inc. "The story was written with complete disregard for the truth," the team said in a statement. Because of the differing views, Lewis had a team of L.A. specialists review the data. Printouts from a test that illuminates how blood moves through the heart prominently showed three black patches - dead spots - on the left ventricle. The news of Lewis's untimely and unexpected death left a long-lasting hole in the Boston community and the sports world as a whole. He revived on his own, but was pulled from the game due to shortness of breath and dizziness. display: none; That was it.". Selanne slashed Dmitri Mironov of the Toronto Maple Leafs last Saturday. 1998 The Associated Press. Was he going left or right? "We wish to try the case on the facts of Reggie Lewis' medical treatment," Harley told the Boston Herald. As he so often did with young players, Jordan tried to verbally engage Lewis, yet Reggie wouldn't participate. What is evident: The official cause of death, a heart damaged by a common-cold virus, is a medically nonsensical finding by a coroner who was under intense pressure from the Lewis family to exclude any implication of drug use. The other five were all Hall of Fame inductees, so it's not a stretch to say that Lewis was on the path to greatness. "I miss him," Shaw said. Young people are not supposed to die, especially when they are in what we believe to be peak physical form, says Wade, current coordinator of athletics for the Baltimore City Public School System. For further evidence of what might have been, you need look no further than March 31, 1991, when Reggie Lewis did something I never thought possible: He completely and utterly flummoxed the great Michael Jordan. Dr. Stanton Kessler, the deputy medical examiner, told the Journal that he stood by his findings. There was the 1984 NCAA tournament game against VCU, when he was close to unstoppable. Kessler's office said today that he was not available for comment. Robert Harley, Harris-Lewis' lawyer, has denied the basketball star used drugs. The newspaper's report offered no proof of cocaine abuse. His death was attributed to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a structural heart defect that is the most common cause of death in young athletes.[11][12]. Lewis sat, dazed, on the court. Reggie Lewis was born on the 21st of November, 1965. That was about it," Bird told ESPN. But as we know now, even top-flight athletes can have hidden heart disease.. Lewis' widow, Donna Harris-Lewis, denied today that he refused to take a drug test and said he didn't use drugs. "Any allegation that economic or monetary concerns could have conceivably played a role in any care that Reggie Lewis got are absolutely ludicrous," he said. Northeastern, Lewis' alma mater, is reluctant to turn over the results of the internal investigation. Most players weren't athletic enough to literally "hang" with Jordan. The Johns Hopkins team of more than 70 includes cardiologists, medical residents, nurses, ultrasound technicians, administrative assistants and community volunteers. We'd been pressing him about cocaine for days," Dr. Thomas Nessa, who was leading the medical team, told the Journal. Reggie Lewis was born in Baltimore. Twenty years later, we still ponder what might have been. "He was a tough matchup," Jordan said. "What is undeniable: Cocaine was a central, explosive issue for the doctors, the Lewis family, the Celtics and the pathologists who conducted his November 1993 autopsy - an issue that became untouchable because Mr. Lewis was a basketball superstar," the newspaper said. The Tragic Death of NBA All-Star Reggie Lewis Shaped - Sportscasting "I miss the closeness of having a friend who was going through the same things as me. Lewis was clean "in every way possible," Brown said. But it said the official cause of Mr. Lewis' death -- heart damage because of a viral infection -- has been rejected by cardiologists who examined him after a fainting spell during a game months before his death or later after his death. Per CBS, Lewis had collapsed one time before, during a playoff game earlier that year against the Charlotte Hornets. In older patients, dead tissue might indicate damage from arteriosclerosis, abnormal thickening and loss of elasticity of the walls of the arteries. He never relinquished his own aggressiveness. He also refused to provide a urine or blood sample for drug tests, and that only heightened his doctors' suspicions. December 29, 1998 / 10:15 PM / AP. "The defendants want to avoid facing their negligence, and to distract attention from the truth with lies and unfounded rumors.". reggie lewis diedreggie lewis death videodonna harris-lewisreggie lewis death videoreggie lewis death on court How much better could he have been? As far as Reggie using drugs, he never used any drugs, no kind of way, never in his lifetime did anything like that happen. Since Reggie Lewis collapsed and died on a practice court in 1993, there have been rumors that the Boston Celtics star's death was fueled by cocaine use. Get directions, important phone numbers, locations and more. Test results will be reported to each athlete on site, along with recommended follow-ups if problems are detected. The 24-year-old daughter of former Celtics great Reggie Lewis never met her father, born a few months after his tragic and untimely death 25 years ago. That clause was never invoked in Mr. Lewis' case, despite the mounting medical evidence, the Journal said. 35 jersey was retired by the Celtics, making him one of only two Celtics to have a retired number without winning a championship with the team, the other player being Ed Macauley. Two Brandeis University police officers found Lewis and attempted to revive him using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but they were unsuccessful. "Every time I thought I had him beat, he'd recover and get up on me. He took himself away from dealers, or people who used drugs. Thats because they understood who I was up against. The news of 27-year-old Reggie Lewis's fatal heart attack on Tuesday, July 27, hit the citizens of Boston and the basketball community as a whole like a blow to the solar plexussome kind of sudden pain that, in the . Mr. Gavitt told Mr. Lewis' doctors that the ailing star "couldn't be forced into it." On July 27, 1993, during off-season practice at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, Lewis suffered sudden cardiac death on the basketball court at the age of 27 years old. . According to depositions, Lewis and his teammate Andre LeFleur first delayed taking a school-administered drug test. Reggie Lewis's death still hurts, 20 years later Lewis attended Northeastern University in Boston. What Killed Reggie Lewis? - CBS News The Detroit Pistons rejected a trade for Sacramento center Duane Causwell, saying he failed to pass a physical examination because of an unspecified problem. The most dynamic scorer in NBA history is now admitting two decades later that he was shocked by what Reggie Lewis did to him, confused by his length and made tentative offensively. "It was so surprising, so sad. Reggie Lewis, the Boston Celtics' leading scorer who fainted during an NBA playoff game three months ago, died Tuesday night in Waltham, Mass., after collapsing while shooting baskets at Brandeis . I was trying to be aggressive with him. "He had my number that particular night.". Following the death information, people wonder what Reggie Lewis's cause of death was. In Boston, A Tragic Death Is Re-Examined - Newsweek ", Asked about a reported split with Tyson, promoter Don King said from his home in Florida: "There's no comment to make on that. George Archer had a second-round five-under-par 67 to take a two-stroke lead at a Senior PGA tournament in Naples, Fla. Thomas Hearns (53-4-1) retained his North American Boxing Federation cruiserweight title by overcoming two knockdowns in a unanimous 12-round decision over Freddie Delgado at Charlotte, N.C. Doctors who reviewed the records agree that cocaine did not kill basketball player Reggie Lewis, the state's chief medical examiner said yesterday. Autopsy results found Lewis had a large, extensively scarred heart, and the cause of that scar tissue is still not known. "Players tried to intimidate him, make it personal. The use of Philips equipment for this event does not constitute or imply endorsement by Johns Hopkins of Philips products or services. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . They even went out and bought life insurance policies together. "There will absolutely be no Q-and-A. L He charged further that the article was motivated by racism. / AP. Nobody ever gave Jordan any flak over his performance that night. The Celtics were looking to add some youth to the team, especially for the aging "Big 3" of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish. But African-Americans are more vulnerable, with two to three times the rate of sudden cardiac death than in whites. His considerable skills were matched by a silent, patient resolve that served him well. At issue was concern for his reputation and the financial interests of his family and the team, the newspaper said. 2 seed, routed Elena Makarova, 6-0, 6-2, in the opening round at the Family Circle Magazine Cup in Hilton Head Island, S.C. Italy's Silvia Farina ousted No. The virus was found in Mr. Lewis' heart during the autopsy, and Dr. Kessler's conclusion was that it caused myocarditis -- an inflammation of the heart -- scarring of the heart muscle and ultimately death. He was pronounced dead two hours later, leaving his family, his friends, his city, his team and his NBA peers completely numb. This NBA Player Died on The Court.. - YouTube Myocarditis can cause scar tissue, which in turn, can . By all accounts, Lewis was primed to make the leap to the team's go-to scorer for the rest of the 90s. He loved it. By his second season, thanks in part to a new coach (and an injury to Bird), Lewis averaged over 30 minutes and scored 18.5 points per game. Enter the last name, specialty or keyword for your search below. He blocked four of Jordans shots, shocking His Airness in the process. I was getting some furniture, and he said, Hey man, I got clearance to play. Reginald C. Lewis (November 21, 1965 July 27, 1993) was an American professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics from 1987 to 1993. Doctors tried to get answers. When someone with his talent does that to you, you can live with it., We lost All-Star Reggie Lewis 29 years ago today. Doctors at Boston's New England Baptist Hospital, where the 27-year-old Celtics captain was taken first for tests, saw three black patches, indicating dead tissue, on Mr. Lewis' left ventricle -- the main pumping chamber of the heart. He launched jumpers for about an hour. His heart damage still could have been caused by a virus. This speculation, combined with the fact that Lewis was . [citation needed], On March 22, 1995, the Boston Celtics retired Lewis' jersey. "I have many, many examples of patients like that who had a relatively sudden onset of a viral inflammation of the heart and went on to have either sudden death or sudden heart trouble," said Dr. Baughman. It was considered career-ending. In Game 3, with Bird unable to play because of back woes, he torched the Cavs for 36 points and seven assists. "He had success against Jordan in other games, too," Shaw said. The failed physical means that center Olden Polynice and forward David Wood return to Detroit. We intend to sue the reporter, Ron Suskind, the Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones and Company Inc., for $100 million. From 1988-1993, Lewis managed to block Michael Jordan four times in a single game and served as only the sixth player at the time to score 7,500 points, 1,500 rebounds, 1,000 assists, and 500 steals. Sudden Death of Baltimore Basketball Player Reggie Lewis Spurs Coach to Lewis death shocked the world. [22] The rules have since been changed so that a similar case would result in a deceased player's contract being paid by league insurance.[23]. MJ was the best player in the game, the perfect measuring stick for a young player trying to establish credibility. [7], On April 29, 1993, in Game 1 of the Celtics' playoff series against the Charlotte Hornets, Lewis suddenly collapsed on the court and remained on the ground for several seconds. "It was clear the expectations for Reggie were very high at that time," Jordan said. He had my number that particular night. Baltimore native Reggie Lewis was on his way to becoming an NBA legend when the young basketball star tragically collapsed on the court, leading to a death that shook the sports world. However, the U.S. Olympic team does not require physical exams for its competing athletes, but instead offers voluntary cardiac screening. Mike Tyson, his boxing future the subject of great speculation, will read a statement, but not answer questions, at a news conference tomorrow in Cleveland. Dr. Stanton Kessler, the deputy medical examiner, blamed the fatal damage on adenovirus 2, a virus that causes the common cold. Had Reggie Lewis lived, would there have been additional battles with Jordan to add to the highlight reel? Any and all proceeds will go to the Reggie Lewis Foundation.". This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. "He was on his way to being one of the best 2-guards in the league," said friend and former teammate Brian Shaw. The team stood to lose millions of dollars if Mr. Lewis were unable to play basketball because of drug abuse. Reginald C. Lewis (November 21, 1965 - July 27, 1993) was an American professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics from 1987 to 1993. display: none; According to the Journal, the partnership found itself with a capital deficit of $28.1 million in the summer of 1993. He soon left to seek care at another hospital. "There's simply no hard science, no evidence," linking the virus to the condition that killed Lewis. The preliminary autopsy found that Lewis' heart was "abnormal, enlarged and extensively scarred" and that "preliminary drug screenings show no evidence of drug abuse.". I called Jordan earlier this week to see if he had any recollections of a young Lewis blocking him four times. You could always tell that.". At the age of 27, Lewis died while still a member of the Celtics, and his number was posthumously retired by the team. Lewis averaged 20.8 points in each of his last two seasons with the Celtics, and finished with a career average of 17.6 points per contest. . He called me literally the day he died, and I was at Jordans Furniture remember Jordans Furniture? She said that the school promised privacy to people who spoke to the commission and that releasing the files would cripple the school's ability to conduct future confidential internal investigations. "But he was a worker. "There was a lot of pressure on him, but it didn't seem to faze him at all.". Calhoun firmly believes Lewis would have been a Hall of Famer. Doctor Knew Lewis Used Cocaine. Our goal is to make this not only an annual program in Maryland, but to serve as a model for other programs to start across the country, state by state, city by city, if necessary, Abraham says, noting that other countries, such as Italy and Japan, have since the early 1980s run regular school programs to screen teenage athletes and non-athletes for possible heart problems. "Reggie Lewis' death was not caused by cocaine ingestion, nor was the damage to the heart at all typical of that known to be caused by cocaine usage," Dr. Richard Evans said. Mudge was later cleared of any wrongdoing, and he insisted he had never authorized Lewis to resume workouts.[9]. In addition, there is a history of heart trouble in Mr. Lewis' family. "[19][20] Also, Lewis's heart tissue tested positive for adenovirus during his autopsy. Reggie Lewis. The otherwise healthy 27-year-old managed to achieve a great deal during his six-year career with the association, becoming an All-Star, a Celtics captain, and a mentor to underprivileged youth. The Big Three dominated throughout the 1980s. Dr. Mudge told the Journal that he later had come to agree that Mr. Lewis' heart was damaged. No, nobody did, Jordan said. "Reggie was very aware of the problems drugs could bring. [16], The Boston Celtics responded by expressing sadness about the "vicious attack on Reggie Lewis and his family" and threatening "to file a $100 million lawsuit against the reporter, The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones and Co. Inc."[17] Dr. Gilbert Mudge, a doctor who treated Lewis, was sued for malpractice in connection with Lewis' death; in written responses to questions from the attorneys for Donna Harris-Lewis, Mudge said that "16 days before Lewis collapsed from a heart attack in 1993, he acknowledged having used cocaine, but said he had stopped.

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