KFDM COOP Posted December 30, 2008 Report Posted December 30, 2008 Basketball referee dies after collapse This is the hidden content, please Sign In or Sign Up A basketball official who collapsed during the intermission of a holiday tournament game Monday evening has died, Skyline boys basketball coach J.D. Mayo said Mayo, in a phone call late Monday night, said Jake Bethany was pronounced dead at R.H. Dedman Memorial Hospital hours after collapsing at Loos Field House. Bethany collapsed around 8:30 p.m. in the hallway before the Loos basketball court entrance as he prepared for the start of the second half of a Dallas ISD/Coca-Cola Boys Tournament game. Cause of death was unknown as of late Monday. Bethany, Mayo said, was 48. Mayo, a longtime DISD coach, knew Bethany when he was a high school student-athlete at Spruce. After coaching Skyline in two tournament games Monday, Mayo met with Bethany's family at the hospital. "I was an assistant coach at Spruce when I first met him," Mayo said. "He was about 6-8. He played mostly on varsity as a sophomore. He played on the last Dallas ISD city champion team back in the day. "He was so coachable when he was in high school. He really worked hard and had a great attitude. He carried that on in life and with officiating." Bethany, according to Loos stadium manager Charlie Cox, collapsed during halftime of a second-round tournament game between Richardson and Wylie. Tournament officials and the Richardson and Wylie coaches, after the collapse and a lengthy delay, agreed to postpone the continuation of the game until Tuesday morning.
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