11/05/24
January 11, 2004
Let's all have a moment of silence for Yinka Dare, the Nets' first round pick in 1994. Dare died Friday at the age of 32. His brief obit mentions that he had 4 career assists, in 112 games played; none in his first two seasons.
posted by shigpit to basketball at 12:24 PM - 8 comments
Is it my imagination or do an inordinate number of basketball players suffer from heart arrhythmia? Is there a correlation to height or something?
posted by dzot at 02:09 PM on January 11, 2004
Nope. I had a friend I played varsity b-ball with in high school die of a heart condition as well. He was a robust 5'10". He died the summer before our senior year. On my birthday.
posted by lilnemo at 07:22 PM on January 11, 2004
Pretty sad because I happened to be going to George Washington (ok, grad school, but it still counts) when Jarvis was here, GW got to the Sweet 16, and Dare was having a pretty big impact to get 'em there. When he decided to go out for the draft, it definitely was too soon though - definitely needed another year or two under his belt. I really hate hearing these stories - I'm about a month away from 35 and, even though I don't have (as far as I know) have any unknown heart abnormalities, these stories of otherwise-healthy 30-year-olds dying really scares the shit out of me.
posted by PeteyStock at 10:54 PM on January 11, 2004
Get your doctor to schedule a working stress test. They hook up electrodes to your chest and run you aggressively on a treadmill for 10-20 minutes, then send the results to a cardiologist to make sure everything looks normal. I had a friend die on the basketball court at age 27 of a mitral valve prolapse in his heart. It's a genetic condition that a working stress test would have revealed.
posted by rcade at 07:10 AM on January 12, 2004
RIP Yinka
posted by vito90 at 08:03 AM on January 12, 2004
In addition, there's a genetic disorder called Marfan's Syndrome, where patients are very tall and have excessively long "spidery" fingers. Unfortunately can also have heart arrhythmias and aorta malformations, leading to serious problems. It wouldn't surprise me if some of these basketball players, with their "Marfanoid" appearance, had the disorder.
posted by brewdudepa at 10:08 PM on January 13, 2004
I googled Marfan's Syndrome, and there's a lot of interesting info available. Here's one of the better links: Marfan's Syndrome, from the American Heart Association website. Welcome to SpoFi, brewdudepa!
posted by dusted at 01:35 AM on January 14, 2004
Really young to have a heart attack but then he was so tall and (relatively) thin.