A junior college basketball player in Oklahoma has died after suffering a head injury during a game last weekend, his school announced.
Ethan Dietz, a 20-year-old sophomore at Connors State College, was pronounced dead Tuesday after suffering the injury on Nov. 22, the school said in a Facebook post.
“Ethan exemplified what it means to be a Cowboy, to value hard work and being part of a team,” the school wrote in its post. “While the team and the Cowboy community are processing our own grief, our hearts go out to his family and friends.”
Dietz and his teammates were competing against Grayson College on Nov. 22 when he spun toward the hoop in the post and went up for a layup, according to video of the game shared by Tulsa CBS affiliate KOTV. As he spins, an opponent jumps and elbows Dietz in the head on his way back to the ground.
Dietz is clearly injured on the play, taking a few steps away from the court and grabbing his face. However, the injury is not obviously life-threatening on video. Dietz was taken to the hospital after the game, and he died three days later.
“Ethan Dietz was a really, really great person to be around, he was always a social person, he knew everybody in town back at home and he can make any friends,” Dietz’s friend and Connors State teammate DaShun Spence told Arkansas ABC affiliate KATV.
Dietz attended high school in Vilonia, Ark., about 25 miles north of Little Rock, before attending Connors State in Warren, Okla, about 170 miles west of his hometown.
