A former captain of the Duke Blue Devils basketball team committed suicide yesterday by jumping off the roof of the New York Athletic Club. Thomas Emma, 49, reportedly jumped from a rooftop "common area" on the 12th floor around 11:20 a.m. and fell to his death onto a second floor landing of the Essex House hotel. Friends tell the tabloids that Emma had been dealing with health issues and was depressed, but he did not leave a suicide note, and those who knew him say they're shocked by his death.
Emma was a promising basketball star at Duke; a Devils fan website remembers him as "a kid who worked fantastically hard to maximize a modest athletic gift." He was a tenth-round pick for the Chicago Bulls in 1983, but never played a regular season game, and eventually went on to run the company Power Performance, which publishes sports conditioning manuals. "He could light up any mood and he was very quick witted. He was always a lot of fun," Duke teammate and ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas tells the Post.
Emma, who grew up in Manhasset, Long Island, resided on the Upper East Side. It's unclear what immediate family he leaves behind, but one identified relative told the Daily News, "Everyone is shocked."
