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Wow. Condolences to Okie State Men's Hoops.


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Originally reported as caused by heat prostration. One has to wonder if a Hank Gaithers type cardiac arrhythmia will eventually be the culprit. And I don't think official "team workouts" are authorized at this time of the year. At any rate, none of this makes any difference to the family and friends of this unfortunate athlete. Condolences to all and to OSU which has had more than its share of tragedy.

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Coger's death is the not the first tragedy suffered by the Oklahoma State athletic department.


A 25-year-old woman was charged with four counts of second-degree murder after she plowed into a crowd of people during the school's homecoming parade in October. Four people died.


In 2011, women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were killed, along with two others, when their plane crashed during a recruiting trip in Arkansas.


In 2001, 10 people were killed -- two men's basketball players, six staffers and two pilots -- when their plane crashed during a snowstorm as they traveled to Stillwater following a road game in Colorado.


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Coger's death is the not the first tragedy suffered by the Oklahoma State athletic department.

A 25-year-old woman was charged with four counts of second-degree murder after she plowed into a crowd of people during the school's homecoming parade in October. Four people died.

In 2011, women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were killed, along with two others, when their plane crashed during a recruiting trip in Arkansas.

In 2001, 10 people were killed -- two men's basketball players, six staffers and two pilots -- when their plane crashed during a snowstorm as they traveled to Stillwater following a road game in Colorado.

 

i was in Oklahoma City, the day of the woman crashing into the people. Me and my mom were taking a road trip to see family in Texas, and were going to stop in Stillwater maybe watch a game and catch up with some other family, we decided not too, but man that was tough to hear on the news. 

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Coger's death is the not the first tragedy suffered by the Oklahoma State athletic department.

A 25-year-old woman was charged with four counts of second-degree murder after she plowed into a crowd of people during the school's homecoming parade in October. Four people died.

In 2011, women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were killed, along with two others, when their plane crashed during a recruiting trip in Arkansas.

In 2001, 10 people were killed -- two men's basketball players, six staffers and two pilots -- when their plane crashed during a snowstorm as they traveled to Stillwater following a road game in Colorado.

 

 

I don't remember where I was when I first heard the news of the plane crash but I remember being floored by it.  It hit close to home.  Road games in Colorado -- we did those, too.  That could just as easily have been our guys.  Even more easily, it could have been Eddie Sutton if he'd been on the other plane, and the first news reports weren't clear as to whether he was in the plane that went down or not.  All I remember was that the first reports were a plane carrying members of the OSU basketball team went down due to bad weather.

 

And, remember, that was just barely more than a year after Payne Stewart died when his plane went down in an empty field in South Dakota.

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If memory serves correctly, this guy was a viral hit on youtube after a video of him and john wall going at 1 on 1 got uploaded. he was a former top recruit, very sad to see this

 

edit: yep, here's the vid, from 2012

 

 

he entered high school a top 20 recruit, added a lot of weight and scared off most/all top programs. can't believe he died of essentially a heat stroke. unbelievable, life is too valuable

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I feel like I've heard about this complication with other athletes in the past. Is this a detectable thing?

 

I guess I am a good one to respond to this since I was born with this generalized complication.

There are numerous reasons you can have an enlarged heart and they are not all readily apparent.

My issue was diagnosed when I was a senior in high school (1969). While I was feeling fine, running track, loving my girlfriend , etc. I had no idea something was wrong.

I had a congenital valve defect, for which I have had 2 replacement surgeries and another coming up next month. (Not looking forward to that!)

 

Many of the dozen or so issues that can cause an enlarged heart they can make better,  if they catch them.

Using my condition as an example, if part of the valve breaks off, and they typically will in time, the valve will get stuck somewhere in the heart system, plug it up and cause an immediate heart attack.

People my age may recall Mike Heck, the 7'1" player from Papillion who then went to Creighton.

He died in 1974 in his sleep. If I recall correctly he had the same valve problem I had. Unfortunately, nobody caught his.

 

In this case, only an autopsy will determine the exact cause of death, for whatever it matters.

That is one reason why it is important to get a through physical exam for even the most health appearing kids.

I am sure it has given me at least an additional 30 or more years and I am hoping not to check out any time soon.

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I feel like I've heard about this complication with other athletes in the past. Is this a detectable thing?

I guess I am a good one to respond to this since I was born with this generalized complication.

There are numerous reasons you can have an enlarged heart and they are not all readily apparent.

My issue was diagnosed when I was a senior in high school (1969). While I was feeling fine, running track, loving my girlfriend , etc. I had no idea something was wrong.

I had a congenital valve defect, for which I have had 2 replacement surgeries and another coming up next month. (Not looking forward to that!)

Many of the dozen or so issues that can cause an enlarged heart they can make better, if they catch them.

Using my condition as an example, if part of the valve breaks off, and they typically will in time, the valve will get stuck somewhere in the heart system, plug it up and cause an immediate heart attack.

People my age may recall Mike Heck, the 7'1" player from Papillion who then went to Creighton.

He died in 1974 in his sleep. If I recall correctly he had the same valve problem I had. Unfortunately, nobody caught his.

In this case, only an autopsy will determine the exact cause of death, for what ever it matters.

That is one reason why it is important to get a through physical exam for even the most health appearing kids.

I am sure it has given me at least an additional 30 or more years and I am hoping not to check out any time soon.

Trickey-as a medical person who specializes in the heart department-let me clarify a couple things. "Enlarged heart" is a really vague term. In simple terms, a bad valve can cause an enlarged heart but typically causes a dilation problem where a chamber of the heart dilates (expands, think of a balloon inflating). This dilation or expansion of a chamber can cause the heart to pump inefficiently.

Usually, when we hear of athletes having an "enlarged heart" it is hypertrophy or abnormal thickening of the muscle wall itself. A completely different problem than the heart dilating. The abnormal thickening of the heart muscle can increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. We hear that term a lot when these young athletes pass suddenly collapsing during a game or workout. The thickened muscle can screw with the hearts normal electrical conduction causing the normal heart beat to deteriorate into a fatal rhythm.

Sounds like ventricular hypertrophy (thickened heart muscle) is the cause of this young mans death.

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Trickey, if you graduated in '69, you're already an old bastard and anything you get from here on out is total gravy.  Congrats on making it into Club 65.  Don't spend those Social Security checks all in one place, now.  ;)

 

Well, when you are (whatever age younger you are) you might think anything after 65 is "gravy".

Yet, once you are 65, your will not be ready to die. 

I am going to start collecting checks next month and they base my life expectation on my living another 19.6 years or something like that.

I paid in for close to 50 years. I want to take the time to get my full investment back out.

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I feel like I've heard about this complication with other athletes in the past. Is this a detectable thing?

I guess I am a good one to respond to this since I was born with this generalized complication.

There are numerous reasons you can have an enlarged heart and they are not all readily apparent.

My issue was diagnosed when I was a senior in high school (1969). While I was feeling fine, running track, loving my girlfriend , etc. I had no idea something was wrong.

I had a congenital valve defect, for which I have had 2 replacement surgeries and another coming up next month. (Not looking forward to that!)

Many of the dozen or so issues that can cause an enlarged heart they can make better, if they catch them.

Using my condition as an example, if part of the valve breaks off, and they typically will in time, the valve will get stuck somewhere in the heart system, plug it up and cause an immediate heart attack.

People my age may recall Mike Heck, the 7'1" player from Papillion who then went to Creighton.

He died in 1974 in his sleep. If I recall correctly he had the same valve problem I had. Unfortunately, nobody caught his.

In this case, only an autopsy will determine the exact cause of death, for what ever it matters.

That is one reason why it is important to get a through physical exam for even the most health appearing kids.

I am sure it has given me at least an additional 30 or more years and I am hoping not to check out any time soon.

Trickey-as a medical person who specializes in the heart department-let me clarify a couple things. "Enlarged heart" is a really vague term. In simple terms, a bad valve can cause an enlarged heart but typically causes a dilation problem where a chamber of the heart dilates (expands, think of a balloon inflating). This dilation or expansion of a chamber can cause the heart to pump inefficiently.

Usually, when we hear of athletes having an "enlarged heart" it is hypertrophy or abnormal thickening of the muscle wall itself. A completely different problem than the heart dilating. The abnormal thickening of the heart muscle can increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. We hear that term a lot when these young athletes pass suddenly collapsing during a game or workout. The thickened muscle can screw with the hearts normal electrical conduction causing the normal heart beat to deteriorate into a fatal rhythm.

Sounds like ventricular hypertrophy (thickened heart muscle) is the cause of this young mans death.

 

 

ajb, thanks for the clarifications since I am far from a med man. I realized the enlarged heart thing is a generalization including a dozen different causes.

The question originally asked was whether the causes are detectable. How about hypertrophy? If you think that will be the most likely cause, is it detectable in time?

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Perhaps I imagined this but I thought that cardiac ultrasonography is a fairly routine part of evaluating any new athlete who generally falls into the category of individuals who might have Marfan's syndrome ( tall people with long fingers are candidates) because they can have un-diagnosed aneurysms. If not, maybe it should be part of a "routine" initial evaluation. Certainly would have picked up any sort of hypertrophy in a noninvasive way in this unfortunate athlete's case.

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Definitely best of luck Trickey! Glad you got scoped out way back when.

These types of problems are detectable with an echocardiogram. Problem is, unless you're having symptoms or have a family history of sudden cardiac death an echocardiogram isn't the first thing they do. It would be nice if they could just scan every athlete, but that isn't done.

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Trickey, if you graduated in '69, you're already an old bastard and anything you get from here on out is total gravy.  Congrats on making it into Club 65.  Don't spend those Social Security checks all in one place, now.  ;)

 

Well, when you are (whatever age younger you are) you might think anything after 65 is "gravy".

Yet, once you are 65, your will not be ready to die. 

I am going to start collecting checks next month and they base my life expectation on my living another 19.6 years or something like that.

I paid in for close to 50 years. I want to take the time to get my full investment back out.

 

Not saying that 65 is time to die at all.  Not at all.  Saying that after 65, you're playing with house money so enjoy it.

 

Best of luck with your surgery.

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