WHAS11 coverage

(WHAS11) -Clarence Holloway couldn’t wait to play basketball at Louisville.

He explains, “I think I would have been real good in this program. I know I would have been an NBA player. Rick Pitino was waiting to have a big center like me.”

This big center attracted a lot of attention as a 7-foot-1, 270 pound high schooler in Chicago.

It seemed that everyone in the country was recruiting him—from North Carolina, to Michigan, to Florida, and of course here in Louisville.

Holloway eventually chose the Cards, and his dreams of big time college basketball were so close. But during a routine physical before his freshman year, doctors found a heart murmur. That led to more tests, and then a disturbing discovery.

Holloway recalls, “The nurse, she couldn’t tell me if it was bad or not. She was just checking my heart. She went to go get the doctor, then I was like, ‘Uh-oh, something’s wrong.’ Then the doctor said, ‘You’ve got to have heart surgery.’ My heart started beating a million miles per hour.”

The doctors discovered that Holloway’s heart was close to giving out.

“My valve was leaking. It was leaking from the other side of my chest. It was really bad—it was torn. The doctor said I could have gave any day,” explains Holloway.

There was no time to waste. Holloway had to have emergency open heart surgery.

When asked about the surgery, Holloway admits that it was tough. “I remember them picking me up. It felt like I got hit by a freight train.”

The surgery came as a shock to Holloway and his family. He was always an athlete and never had any sense that something was wrong.

“That scares me a lot because now I have a daughter and if I wasn’t here for her…My girlfriend was pregnant at the time, so if I would have gave, she wouldn’t have no father,” he says.

After surgery and sitting out his freshman year, Holloway still had hopes of getting back on the court, but another blow eight months later would end his basketball career for good. Holloway was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome—a condition that will not allow him to return to the game he loves.

“It was dramatic for me. It still is tough for me—watching the guys on the court, playing, working out, it’s tough for me. It’s really tough.”

Holloways says in those quiet moments when he is sitting and watching his teammates, it’s not the fame or the potential money he misses the most.

He says, “I think about the love I have for the game. The things I miss…working out, going to the gym everyday…When I was stressed, going run for 2 hours, go play basketball, take it out on somebody else, I can’t do that no more.”

Marfan syndrome can affect one in 5000 people.

Holloway is still on scholarship at UofL, and Rick Pitino made him a student assistant coach, so you will see him on the bench.

Holloway says he is feeling good, but he has to watch every step he takes. No running, no strenuous work-outs, and he is even limited to walking on the treadmill and shooting around in the gym.

But he is alive and still a part of the Louisville basketball team.