In pursuit of Steven Adams, Jamie Dixon suffered a pulmonary embolism

Through several trips to New Zealand, Pitt basketball head coach Jamie Dixon was able to land prized center Steven Adams. Adams was an under-the-radar recruit, but is now being touted as one of the top freshmen in all of college basketball for the 2012-13 season.

Seems, though, that Dixon's pursuit of Adams wasn't a pain-free one, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Dixon took five more trips to Wellington to recruit Adams before he verbally committed to Pitt. One of the trips was in the spring of 2010 after the Final Four. After a 16-hour flight, Dixon suffered a pulmonary embolism, the result of sitting for too long on the flight, and spent a few days in the hospital.

The morning after returning to Pittsburgh, Dixon was having difficulty breathing. Once he arrived at the hospital and told doctors of his itinerary, they made a quick diagnosis and averted a potentially dangerous situation. About 10 percent of pulmonary embolism cases are fatal.

"I kind of kept that quiet," Dixon said. "Luckily, it was only in my lungs. The really dangerous ones are when they go to the brain."