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A native of Roswell, Ga., who lived in Gulf Breeze, Fla., Kessler died of an apparent heart attack after he collapsed while playing in a pickup basketball game in Pensacola. He was taken to Gulf Breeze Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at approximately 12 Noon on Saturday.

Kessler, a 1990 UGA graduate and 1999 graduate of the Emory University School of Medicine, was an orthopedic surgeon in Pensacola.

Kessler arrived at Georgia in the fall of 1985, a low-level basketball recruit who had few offers from NCAA Division I programs. He redshirted in his first collegiate season, became a solid reserve on Georgia’s NCAA Tournament team of 1987, and blossomed into an all-star his last three years. As captain of the 1990 SEC Champion Bulldogs in 1990, he became the seventh player in school history to earn All-America honors.

In his last collegiate game, Kessler became Georgia’s all-time leading scorer with 1,788 points, a mark that was surpassed a year later by Litterial Green.

Kessler’s good work in the classroom, however, fairly dwarfed his on-court accomplishments. In both 1989 and 1990, he was named the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year, an award that covers every student-athlete in every NCAA-sponsored sport. He graduated magnacum laude from UGA in 1990 with a 3.9 grade point average in Microbiology.

After his graduation, Kessler was the 12th pick overall in the 1990 NBA Draft, taken by the Houston Rockets, who promptly traded him to the Miami Heat. He played four seasons for the Heat before retiring and embarking upon his career in medicine.

Kessler was also a 2000 inductee into the University of Georgia Circle of Honor, which pays tribute to those student-athletes and coaches who have exhibited extraordinary levels of excellence by their performance and conduct.

Kessler, who was preceded at Georgia by his basketball-playing brother Chad (1984-87), is survived by his wife Rhea and their two sons, Nicholas and Christopher.