12/22/24
February 10, 2004
Celebrating fans paralyze high school basketball player.: "Joe Kay, a Tucson High School basketball player has been left partially paralyzed after being tackled by fans celebrating his game-ending dunk Friday night."
posted by Joey Michaels to basketball at 12:40 PM - 6 comments
I wondered how that Stanford kid who nailed the hail-mary 3-pointer on the weekend survived the post-game pile-on. Now after reading this, I think he was pretty lucky not to have gotten killed.
posted by grum@work at 01:32 PM on February 10, 2004
I was gonna joke about how fans are ruining the game, but a young promising athlete's potential career has been stolen from him by the ones who cheered him. I can't think of anything more tragic. hearts and thoughts go out.
posted by garfield at 01:33 PM on February 10, 2004
There are more details in the Arizona Republic. Sad story, but he's apparently showing signs of recovery. Here's hoping. People are dumbasses when they do things as a crowd. After some family members were caught in the street riots in downtown Dallas when a Cowboys Super Bowl parade turned ugly, I've always been mindful of how unstable a mob situation can become.
posted by rcade at 01:56 PM on February 10, 2004
I can't tell from either article what exactly the fans (probably his friends and classmates) to Kay. I assume it was a typical celebratory dog pile - and one that he walked away from, at least at first. Every time I see players and fans leap on somebody who has just scored, I always cringe a little bit. Obviously, nobody should be injured in this fashion during a game, but how sadly ironic that the person who won the game ends up being quite literally punished for it. Anyhow, I really hope Kay recovers and quickly - he sounds like a pretty remarkable young man.
posted by Joey Michaels at 03:17 PM on February 10, 2004
Everyone I know is very sad about this. I am hoping, hoping, hoping that the fact that he is young and the fact that he has a strong family to support him will help him get through things as much as his body will allow. It is just hard to know what that level will be. Strokes are scary. I am not sure what can be done to prevent stuff like this from happening. High School Gyms aren't really designed to keep people off the courts, and colleges don't really do a good job of crowd control even with the larger staffing and different bleacher design. I guess the key is getting fans to think a little bit. More local links Unruly prep fan behavior increases ROWDY POSTGAME CELEBRATIONS: COURTING DANGER All-around Joe improving Some of the local paper links expire kind of quickly, so I don't know how many days they will be good.
posted by eckeric at 03:26 PM on February 10, 2004
how sad.