According to the National Institute of Health, sudden cardiac death is the leading medical cause of death in athletes with an estimate between one in 40,000 to one in 80,000 incidents per year.

At UW-Whitewater, student-athlete heart health is a priority. In July of 2022, Warhawk men’s basketball player Derek Gray died unexpectedly when he collapsed due to a blood clot in his heart at the age of 20.

The beloved member of the Whitewater community left his mark on countless members of the Madison area – where he grew up – and quickly won over the Warhawk fanbase as a star on the basketball team. Since his passing, heart health has become an even bigger concern for the Whitewater athletic department.

Athletic Director Ryan Callahan, who experienced his own personal issues with heart health, said it is certainly a priority for student-athletes at UW-Whitewater.

“What scares me [about heart health] – and I had heart surgery when I was 17 – is it’s one of those things that you don’t know until something happens,” Callahan said. “Overall, the standard athlete going from youth sports to college may be living with something that they don’t know about.”

UW-Whitewater athletic trainer Steve Hillmer stressed the importance placed on heart health within the department, saying that it is “critical.”

“Obviously it’s a major organ in your body that has the potential for catastrophic injury,” Hillmer said. “It is critically important because of the chance of a heart condition being more catastrophic than an ankle sprain,” or something else of that nature.

Several precautions such as a physical are required for student-athletes before they compete for the Warhawks. Part of the physical includes a document about the athlete’s health history with questions adapted from the American Heart Association. The heart health questionnaire is a yearly requirement for Whitewater student-athletes.

Unfortunately, even with the questionnaire and all of the heart testing available, there is a chance that any potential heart defects or issues that a person may have would not be identified.

Derek Gray, Hillmer said, is an example of one of those athletes that went through the normal screening process, but no pre-existing issues were recognized at the time.

“Derek went through a physical process, didn’t have any signs and symptoms of any cardiac related issues, unfortunately he’s one of those individuals that even if he went through that testing of the Echocardiogram they wouldn’t have found an issue,” Hillmer said. “Unfortunately he had that issue.”

Unknown heart concerns, while a concern for active student-athletes, also poses a risk for former athletes in their later life. Another former Warhawk basketball and football player Chris Davis senior passed away at the age of 36 in August, 2024 due to a heart condition that he was not aware of during his playing career.

Anytime you participate in athletics, Callahan said, there are impacts on your body that can create issues later. The big difference for student-athletes after their athletic years is the amount of resources at their disposal when they are a student-athlete that they may not have access to after they leave the university.

“All athletes, when they’re here they always have someone telling them we’re going to work out, we’re going to work on your cardiovascular, we need you to eat well, sleep well,” Hillmer said. “As you transition into adulthood, you may not have had those kinds of resources.”

For this reason, the university does their best to provide Warhawk student-athletes with the skills to appropriately maintain their health after college.

“From a department standpoint we have experts in each domain that work well with each other to try to maximize the health when they’re here and also express to them as they move on to other stages of their lives after a student-athlete, here are some steps you may have to take,” Hillmer said.

Overall, Whitewater athletics takes the heart health and overall health of their student-athletes seriously during college as well as after. Heart health remains a thoroughly researched issue for athletes of all ages and should be a top priority for anyone.