Perham holds up the magic No. 3 while celebrating first state title.
Photo by John George/LakesAreaSports.com
David Cresap looked into the crowd and had nothing. Like just about everyone in the small West central Minnesota town of Perham (population 2,500), Cresap was exhausted and overwrought.
Many eyes he looked at were bloodshot. Most faces were blank. All were teens at school searching for reasons why their 17-year-old peer and basketball star – seemingly in impeccable shape - could be fighting for his life in a hospital bed with a heart ailment.
Zach Gabbard was Perham's leading
scorer before collapsing to the
floor on Jan. 20 with heart ailment.
Photo by John George/LakesAreaSports.com
Perham's leading scorer Zach Gabbard, a 6-foot shooting guard, had collapsed on the court during a Jan. 20 game at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton. Emergency crews immediately rushed Gabbard to Sanford Medical Center in Fargo (N.D.) where heart surgery was performed.
Locals looked to Cresap, the team's 16-year-coach who had been awake with family members for close to 100 hours, for answers.
"I honestly didn't know what to say," Cresap recalled. "I definitely could have crumbled. But thank the good Lord a light bulb went off inside and I told them I would be there for them, that we would get through this. … together."
Perham's basketball team, made up mostly of Gabbard's childhood chums, not only pulled through but somehow finished 31-1 and captured the school's first state championship. This despite another tragedy on campus the same week of the title game.
The community rallied, reached out nationwide and raised close to $100,000 to defray medical costs for the Gabbard family.
And Zach himself, after three major heart surgeries and two challenging touch-and-go months, is alive and stable. On Monday he was transferred to a transitional rehabilitation unit in Perham.
Perham junior Jordan Cresap.
Photo by John George/LakesAreaSports.com
On Tuesday, Gabbard was visited by numerous teammates including Cresap's son Jordan, a 5-10 junior who called Zach his best friend and who actually took his place in the starting lineup.
"To see Zach like his old self cracking jokes and playing cards, man it was awesome," Jordan said. "It was just awesome to be all together again. It's been one wild roller coaster ride, that's for sure."
After a 10-0 start to the season, the wheels came off when Gabbard fell in a heap midway through the first half at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton. Medics arrived, the game was called, bewildered fans went home and inconsolable players were escorted to their locker rooms.
"It was just like a bad dream," Jordan said. "It was just surreal. How could this be happening? All we could do was pray."
