Normally, a Florida-Florida State game in any sport is about rivalry, intensity, conflict, competition and doing whatever is necessary to embarrass your hated opponent.
But on this somber, surreal Saturday afternoon, even FSU’s basketball players hit their knees and started asking God to revive collapsed Gators star Keyontae Johnson.
“My players were crying,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton explained after his Seminoles beat the Gators 83-71 in a game that lost all of its magnitude and meaning in that one sad, scary second when Johnson inexplicably lost consciousness and fell to the floor. “I told our guys we needed to pray for him, and immediately several players got down on their knees in our huddle and start praying.”
Right now, it seems, praying is the only option because, frankly, there are no answers and only questions:
What is Johnson’s outlook as he lays in a hospital bed in critical but stable condition at Tallahassee Memorial?
What caused Johnson to suddenly collapse?
Could Johnson’s situation be related to COVID-19, which he tested positive for during the summer and has been tied to myocarditis — a viral inflammation of the heart muscle?
Why did the game resume after such a devastating development?
Gators coach Mike White was not available for comment afterward, but when asked if there was consideration of calling off the rest of the game, FSU’s Hamilton said, “I told our staff I was going to let them [UF] make that decision. It was totally up to them and whatever they thought was in the best interest of their team. Our administration asked me, and I just told them I would be OK with whatever they decided, and it’s my understanding that they wanted to play.”
Johnson had just completed an alley-oop dunk on a pass from Tyree Appleby before he collapsed with the Gators leading 11-3 at the 16:18 mark of the first half. Johnson, the preseason SEC Player of the Year, celebrated with teammates and made his way to UF’s bench for the ensuing timeout. As he was coming out of the team huddle, he collapsed face-first onto the hardwood.
“Johnson came out of the huddle after the timeout and fell flat on his face,” emotional UF radio broadcaster Mick Hubert told listeners. “He looks like he is unconscious and he’s been put on a stretcher. ... He walked out to the top of the arc and just fell down. … The building is totally hushed for this moment.
“It’s terrifying,” broke in former UF player and radio color analyst Lee Humphrey.
Responded Hubert: “I’ve never seen anything like that. This is a tough moment. The Gators are huddling, and there are a lot tears being shed in that Gators huddle right now.”
Everybody on the floor, it seemed, was visibly and emotionally shaken. Florida players tearfully embraced each other. And after Johnson was stretchered off the floor, White put his arms around his players just before the game restarted.
White stayed in Tallahassee after the game and planned to spend the night at the hospital. After the game, the UF coach tweeted out, “Please keep praying for Keyontae and his family. We all love him.”
In a social media message to Johnson, UF teammate Tre Mann tweeted: “I know you’re fighting bro. God got you.”
Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl stopped practice Saturday to tell his team what had happened to Johnson and then asked his players to pray.
“You know how we believe in the power of prayer,” Pearl told his team. “God’s got to hear our voices and our calling right now for [Johnson’s] health, his safety and his protection. Let’s bow our heads and ask God to be with Keyontae and that Florida program right now.”
Sadly, whenever we see an incident like this, it’s hard to keep our minds from drifting back 30 years to when another college star — Loyola Marymount All-American Hank Gathers — collapsed on the court and died after he completed an alley-oop dunk.
Then, as now, something like this is hard to grasp and fathom.
How?
Why?
Dammit, this isn’t supposed to happen to the youngest and the strongest among us. Johnson is a hulking 6-foot-5, 229-pound NBA prospect who comes from a Navy family in Norfolk, Va. And, by all accounts, he was just coming into his own as a basketball player and a young man. He was shy but always polite when he first arrived at UF as a freshman, but he came out of his shell on and off the court last season.
Now, as he battles for his life in a hospital in Tallahassee, nothing else really matters. Not Saturday afternoon’s Florida-Florida State basketball game nor Saturday night’s Florida-LSU football game.
During a depressing year in which our country has been divided by political and racial issues and our world devastated by a global pandemic, can we all agree on at least one thing today?
Can we all agree that Keyontae Johnson represents our most valuable and precious commodity?
A good kid with a bright future.
