Glen Gondrezick, a star athlete at Boulder High School who went on to play in the NBA for the Nuggets, died Monday.
He was 53.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, he died at St. Rose de Lima Hospital in Henderson, Nev., apparently as a result of complications from heart transplant surgery he had last September.
Bonnie Griffin, a close acquaintance, told the Sun that he died about 5:30 p.m. while waiting to be airlifted to UCLA Medical Center after becoming ill earlier in the day.
For eight years before his surgery, Gondrezick’s life had slowed because of two heart attacks and a defective heart operating at about 8 percent of normal capacity.
“After the surgery, I didn’t have to be told I had a new heart,” Gondrezick told The Denver Post on Feb. 3. “I could feel it beating. Now, I can see the results. I’m doing things I haven’t been able to do for years.”
Gondrezick, the UNLV Rebels’ broadcast analyst for 17 years, started feeling ill during the team’s final road trip of the season.
Griffin told the Sun that she last spoke to Gondrezick at about 4 p.m. Monday. She said although he wasn’t feeling well, he was talking with friends and medical personnel and appeared to be in good spirits.
According to Griffin, soon after that his blood pressure began to fluctuate.
“It happened all at once,” she said, trying to hold back tears.
Gondrezick was one of the stars of UNLV’s first Final Four team in 1977, averaging 14.7 points and leading the team in rebounding.
He played in the NBA for six seasons, the first two with the New York Knicks and the final four with the Nuggets from 1979-83.
Former Rebels coach Jerry Tarkanian was crushed to hear of Gondrezick’s death.
“I’m just so devastated, so sad,” Tarkanian told the Sun. “He was the most competitive guy, and the toughest.”
