http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/oregon-state-football-freshman-fred-thompson-19-dies-after-collapsing-on-campus-120711

[h=3]CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP)[/h]Oregon State says freshman football player Fred Thompson has died.
[h=3]TRAGIC SPORTS DEATHS[/h]Sports has lost many athletes way too soon. We list a few.

School officials say the 19-year-old Thompson was playing basketball on campus Wednesday when he collapsed. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Thompson, 6-foot-4 and 317 pounds, was a true freshman defensive tackle from Richmond, Calif.
The university said football coach Mike Riley was off-campus recruiting and was en route to Corvallis. A news conference will be held Thursday, according to the university.

Very sad. My guess is an enlarged heart, pretty common when things like this happen. This has happened so often, I can't believe they don't run some test on these athletes to see if they have any kind of medical condition.

centralbucksfan;1007175 wrote:Very sad. My guess is an enlarged heart, pretty common when things like this happen. This has happened so often, I can't believe they don't run some test on these athletes to see if they have any kind of medical condition.

This post is kind of misleading. In general, all athletes have an enlarged heart because of the nature of what they do. The heart is a muscle, and just like any muscle, it gets bigger because of training. There is, however, a specific condition that is dangerous, which is what you are referencing. But simply just having a enlarged heart because of athletic training is not actually dangerous.

hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the name of the condition that is fatal in some instances. Apparently in that, the heart muscle actually thickens and makes it harder to pump blood, which puts more strain on the heart.

Fly4Fun;1007205 wrote:This post is kind of misleading. As generally, all athletes have an enlarged heart because of the nature of what they do. The heart is a muscle, and just like any muscle, it gets bigger because of training. There is however, a specific condition that is dangerous (which is what you are referencing). But simply just having a enlarged heart because of athletic training is not actually dangerous.

hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the name of the condition that is fatal in some instances. Apparently in that, the heart muscle actually thickens and makes it harder to pump blood, which puts more strain on the heart.

cool

Sad story.

Rest in Peace.

My prayers are with the family/friends. An enlarged heart killed the Arkansas player a few weeks ago too.

cats gone wild;1007359 wrote:My prayers are with the family/friends. An enlarged heart killed the Arkansas player a few weeks ago too.

No, an enlarged heart did not kill him. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) is what most likely killed him. That's the reason that this is kind of an issue. While HCM does cause a heart to become enlarged (as I said earlier, HCM causes the hearth to work harder because the walls are thick, thus making it grow), athletic training will also cause a heart to grow.

So just having a test to see whether a heart is enlarged or not would be pointless. The test would have to distinguish between a heart enlarged naturally because of exercise or a heart enlarged unnaturally because of a medical condition(HCM). I believe I read a year ago that one way to distinguish between the two was to simply just have the athletes not work out for a period of time. And during this time a normal heart will shrink in size, just as any muscle would if it's not being exercised as before. But the problem with that test is pretty damn obvious... athletes exercise to be good at their sport and would strongly be opposed to that.

Another problem about HCM is that some of the symptoms often get dismissed. Symptoms include dizziness, chest pains, shortness of breath or passing out. Often coaches or the athlete themselves will just assume some of it is because they are out of shape.

I'm just trying to shed some light on a situation that people really don't understand for the most part (attributing death to the enlarged heart). Hopefully coaches start to be more conscious of when their athletes complain about some of the aforementioned symptoms.

Fly4Fun;1007382 wrote:No, an enlarged heart did not kill him. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) is what most likely killed him. That's the reason that this is kind of an issue. While HCM does cause a heart to become enlarged (as I said earlier, HCM causes the hearth to work harder because the walls are thick, thus making it grow), athletic training will also cause a heart to grow.

So just having a test to see whether a heart is enlarged or not would be pointless. The test would have to distinguish between a heart enlarged naturally because of exercise or a heart enlarged unnaturally because of a medical condition(HCM). I believe I read a year ago that one way to distinguish between the two was to simply just have the athletes not work out for a period of time. And during this time a normal heart will shrink in size, just as any muscle would if it's not being exercised as before. But the problem with that test is pretty damn obvious... athletes exercise to be good at their sport and would strongly be opposed to that.

Another problem about HCM is that some of the symptoms often get dismissed. Symptoms include dizziness, chest pains, shortness of breath or passing out. Often coaches or the athlete themselves will just assume some of it is because they are out of shape.

I'm just trying to shed some light on a situation that people really don't understand for the most part (attributing death to the enlarged heart). Hopefully coaches start to be more conscious of when their athletes complain about some of the aforementioned symptoms.

cool