AP News, January 3rd, 2008
A high school basketball player died Wednesday night after he collapsed during a game.
Anthony Hobbs, a 16-year-old junior at Parkview High School, collapsed during the first quarter as he was heading to the bench during a substitution in a game against Lake Hamilton.
"I didn't see him fall, but when he came off the floor, I heard a noise over there, and he went down," Parkview coach Al Flanigan said. "Two of the nurses from Lake Hamilton came over and started doing CPR, mouth-to-mouth. He had a weak pulse, having trouble breathing on his own."
Hobbs was taken to Baptist Health Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Little Rock School District spokesman Joe Mittiga said the boy had played four games in a tournament over the holidays at Hall High School in Little Rock. He said he did not know what might have caused the player to collapse.
"He had — talking to his parents — no medical condition," an emotional Flanigan said at the hospital. "He had a little seizure over there when he fell out. They said that happened once, about a year ago at church, and he got over that. But other than that, he didn't have no kind of medical condition that I'm aware of."
"I really don't know if I can go on after this," Flanigan added. "But I'm going to sit down tomorrow at 5 and talk to (the team) and we'll go from there."
___
Associated Press writer Peggy Harris contributed to this report.
