James Hampton, a top-level school basketball from Liberty Heights Athletic Institute in North Carolina, collapsed while playing during a Nike Elite Youth Basketball League game on Saturday night and was pronounced dead later. He was 17.
Team United director, Jacoby Davis said the newspaper The Charlotte Observer that Hampton that Hampton had suffered seizures on several occasions in the past. While he was running and turned towards the referee to say something during the Saturday night’s game, he collapsed and fell down in the second half.
Before he was taken to the hospital, Davis said that chest compressions were performed by the medical personnel at the court after which he was pronounced dead. The game was stopped and later suspended on all the four courts. Davis said to the newspaper, “It’s even hard to explain. To have a kid in your program with so much life — that’s just the kind of kid he was. He was always happy. For something like this to happen, I can’t even explain it. And to have to talk to a parent not even in town and tell him that his son has died, well, that’s more devastating.”
The team was playing against Nike Phamily that night. Soon after the sad news was released, many prominent people belonging to the basketball community tweeted their deepest condolences to Hampton’s family as well as the team including Scottie Pippen, who was also in attendance.
The 17-year-old Hampton attended Liberty Heights School and was supposed to graduate from the school in 2019. Davis said that Team United would be competing in the Sunday tournament in honour of their late teammate.
Davis said, “They want to play Sunday. They really want to finish it up. The coaches are just torn up right now, so it’s going to be tough, but it’s what the kids want to do.”
