THE DC Jammers Basketball Organisation, through one of their coaches, Clarence Wallerson, said the late Andrew Ifill will be remembered as one of their fiercest competitor whenever they toured Guyana and they held the Guyanese ‘baller’ in high esteem.

Ifill was found dead in the washroom at his place of employment, Lifestyles Motors, in Trinidad and Tobago, on October 20.

The former national basketball player’s death sent shockwaves through the sport’s fraternity in both the Twin Island Republic and Guyana, since he was considered by many, one of the best forwards to grace the courts in both countries.

The DC Jammers, a team from the diaspora that is made up of current and former national players, as well as players who are eligible to represent Guyana, would usually visit the Land of Many Waters to engage the country’s National team in Goodwill series.

Fans would pack Cliff Anderson Sports Hall over the years, whenever ‘DC Jammers’ visit, to see Ifill go toe-to-toe with the visitors.

“For many years, he gave us all we could handle and kept us (the coaches) up at night trying to figure out how to win a game when he was on the court,” Wallerson said in a release to Chronicle Sport.

Wallerson noted that “Andrew (Ifill) was a fierce competitor who matched wits with some of our best professional players, like Antrick and Gordon Klaiber, Glenn Stokes, Dr Lancelot Loncke, Dr Darren Ainsworth, Dexter Martin, Stephen Nurse, Pierre Goddette, Reggie King, and a long list of other DC Jammer competitors.”

The DC Jammers coach is hopeful that Ifill will have a hero’s ‘send-off’ since he thinks it’s only fitting that a player who devoted his life to basketball and represented Guyana with distinction, be given a proper farewell.

Meanwhile, according to Ifill’s family, his autopsy revealed that the 40-year-old Guyanese, had an embolus – unattached masses (in this case, it was blood) that travel through the blood stream – in his leg.

One medical personnel explained that most times these clots are fragments of bigger clots that are formed in the legs. These free unattached clots are now travelling in the blood freely and travelling clots can lodge in the brain and cause a stroke, and in the lungs and cause chest pain and shortness of breath.

There are no details at this time with regard to Ifill’s funeral arrangements, but Michael Singh, president of the GABF, said his federation is more than willing and ready to assist in bringing the former basketball player’s body back to Guyana if his family’s plans are to see him return home.