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After 2 heart surgeries, CSU center back in game

Heart surgeries not enough to sideline 6-foot-9 Lee Tabb Jr.

Central State's Lee Tabb Jr. calls for the ball during the Marauders' game against Wayne State University at Beacom Gymnasium Tuesday, Nov. 17. Tabb was heavily recruited out of high school in Toledo, but after undergoing two major heart surgeries, schools offers disappeared. So CSU took a chance. Staff photo by Teesha McClam

Teesha McClam Central State's Lee Tabb Jr. calls for the ball during the Marauders' game against Wayne State University at Beacom Gymnasium Tuesday, Nov. 17. Tabb was heavily recruited out of high school in Toledo, but after undergoing two major heart surgeries, schools offers disappeared. So CSU took a chance. Staff photo by Teesha McClam

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 11:01 AM Friday, November 27, 2009

WILBERFORCE — After more than a year and a half away from basketball — a period of forced exile during which all those Division I schools that had been wooing him suddenly turned their backs, a time when many other folks wondered if he was even going to live — he finally seemed to have beaten the odds.

It was the fall of 2008 — just before the start of the college basketball season — and Lee Tabb Jr. was going through drills with the Central State Marauders. An athletic, 6-foot-9 post presence, he would make an immediate impact with his new team.

Although he had been feeling tired lately and often struggled to catch his breath during certain drills, he tried to discount the troubling prospects for a variety of reasons:

He had gone through open heart surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm just 14 months earlier and now he had a pacemaker implanted in his chest. It was natural he’d be tired.

He wanted so desperately to reclaim his rightful place in the hoops hierarchy. His junior season at Toledo Rogers High, Rivals.com had ranked him the No. 4 power forward prospect in Ohio, ahead of both Dunbar’s Josh Benson, now playing for the Dayton Flyers, and Dominic Britt, the Trotwood-Madison star, now the quarterback at Jackson State University.

During his time away from basketball, Tabb had endured a lot of misinformed, sometimes cruel speculation.

“Barbershop talk,” he said. “People would see me sitting in the stands (his senior year of high school) and say, ‘Yeah, he quit the team.’ They had no idea.”

And so last fall at CSU, he wanted nothing more than to be able to cling to his return to the game he loved and the good health he again hoped he had.

But soon it was evident this was more than just an issue of physical rigors and rust. His heart was in need of more repair.

“I remember we were running outside and my mom called and gave me the results of the tests I’d had,” Tabb said quietly. “She told me one of my heart valves — the mitral valve — was leaking blood into the lungs or something. I needed surgery right away and she was coming to get me.

“The other guys went inside to play in open gym, but I just sat down outside and started crying. This already was my second chance and now I thought my basketball was over for sure. I figured if I ever did return to school, I would just have to be a regular kid.”

But the more you learn about Lee Tabb Jr., the more you realize there is nothing “regular” about him.

In fact, as he was recounting his tale last week, he was sitting in the nearly deserted Beacom-Lewis Gym 45 minutes after he and his Marauder teammates had beaten Wayne State in their season opener.

It was his college debut — “my first legit game,” he called it — though he had played in a pair of Marauder exhibitions. He had scored eight points and added two rebounds, a blocked shot, assist and a steal in 17 minutes against Wright State. And he pulled down five rebounds and added two points and a block in 14 minutes when CSU upset host Toledo.

“He’s got a great story,” CSU coach Doug Lewis said. “We’re talking about a kid who didn’t even know if he was going to live and now he’s back playing college basketball.

“It’s a miracle.”

And while he and his teammates are in Gary, Ind., today — the 3-0 Marauders play Fisk University in the first round of the Lake Shore Classic on Friday — Tabb said he certainly will be celebrating Thanksgiving.

“I’m thankful, all right,” he said. “Thankful to be alive.”

Recruiters back off

Lee Tabb Sr. was a good prep basketball player in Toledo and spent a semester at a junior college in Casper, Wyo., before joining the Navy, which became a career, his son said.

Although he followed in his dad’s footsteps, basketball for Lee Jr. — who was 6-foot-5 by ninth grade — ended up being more than just a game.

“He had some behavior issues when he was young, and basketball was a way to redirect some of that,” said Heather Tabb, his mom.

As a sophomore at Rogers, he averaged 10 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots a game. That summer he and his AAU 16-and-under team won the Adidas Super 64 Open Division championship in Las Vegas. Add in the fact that he had a 3.4 grade-point average and he drew a lot of interest from mid-major colleges — places like Miami University, Kent State, Akron, Eastern Michigan, Virginia Commonwealth and Winthrop.

Then came the aneurysm, surgery and two months in the hospital.

“All the recruiters backed off — absolutely,” Heather said.

Nobody was interested ... except Central State.

“Coach Lewis and Coach Jackson (assistant Donte Jackson) always wanted to know how he was doing. They seemed to really care, and they said they still had a place for him.”

“I understand the bigger schools not wanting to take a chance — it’s the Hank Gathers thing,” Lewis said in reference to the Loyola Marymount star who collapsed and died from a heart problem during a 1992 game.

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When it comes to athletics people often look down on Central State. Everyone wants to go to A Division I or IAA school...This is a great story of how Central State University really cares about the students.

Marauder Agent
3:22 PM, 11/26/2009

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