<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> <div class="bi"> Kessler Dies In Charity Game</p> </p> </div> <div> <span style="font-style: italic">Oct 15</span> - Alec Kessler, an academic All-American and captain of the Bulldogs' 1990 SEC championship basketball team, passed away suddenly on Saturday. He was 40.</p> </p> According to former Georgia coach Hugh Durham, Kessler was playing in a father-son charity basketball game in Pensacola, Fla., when he collapsed just minutes after walking onto the court. Kessler was immediately tended to by a doctor and a nurse and treated with a defibrillator but was unresponsive. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at a local hospital.</p> </p> Kessler was the 12th pick overall in the 1990 NBA draft, taken by Houston and then traded to Miami. He played four seasons with the Heat before retiring and starting his career in medicine. -- <font color="#000000">Atlanta Journal-Constitution</font></p> </p> [*]He was such a bright man with such a great future," Heat trainer Ron Culp said Sunday. "The thing I remember with Alec was he was so absorbed with his future. He always sat in the back of the airplane and the entire plane would be darkened except for Alec, and he would always be reading his medical books. [*] </p> "It didn't matter if he had played that night. And he would always be coming in the training room and questioning the training staff and medical staff and our doctors."</p> </p> Heat television analyst Tony Fiorentino served as a Heat assistant coach during Kessler's career with the team.</p> </p> "He was well liked," Fiorentino said. "He obviously had a hard time in the NBA and never really lived up to his draft position, but he always had a very good attitude." -- <font color="#000000">South Florida Sun-Sentinel</font></p></div> </div>
