Jack Louridas played high school basketball for Albany Academy.
Jim Franco/Times Union
Jack Louridas is a freshman on the Yale men’s basketball team.
Jim Franco/Times Union
A former Albany Academy boys’ basketball standout is suing a local gym owner, a trainer and a sports equipment manufacturer after allegedly suffering “severe, catastrophic injuries,” according to recently filed court documents.
Jack Louridas, a 2026 Albany Academy graduate who is now a freshman on the men’s basketball team at Yale University, filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Albany County this past month seeking damages from gym owner and former area basketball standout Terron Victoria, trainer Carl Morris and his training business Workout Mania LLC, and New Jersey-based equipment manufacturer Pro Sports Inc., which does business as Champion Sports.
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The lawsuit — filed by attorney Victor Mazzotti of Harding Mazzotti, LLP — alleges that, on March 10 of this year, Louridas was working out under the supervision of Morris at Victoria Fitness, the Menands gym operated by Victoria, when he was injured using an adjustable height training hurdle manufactured by Champion Sports.
While training, the lawsuit states, Morris instructed Louridas to jump over the hurdle at its highest setting of 42 inches.
According to the lawsuit, when Louridas, “failed to clear the cross-bar of the subject hurdle, the hurdle’s upright poles failed to collapse, as it is designed to, and remained upright. Plaintiff landed on the subject hurdle, and one of the vertical pieces of the hurdle penetrated his rectum.”
Louridas, a native of Bethlehem, scored more than 1,500 points during his high school career at Albany Academy. The 6-foot-3 guard was a four-year player for the Cadets and was named a first-team All-New England Preparatory School Athletic Council selection as a senior before heading to Yale.
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Neither Louridas nor Yale’s athletic communications department responded to a request for comment seeking the extent of his injury. Louridas remains listed on Yale’s men’s basketball roster for the upcoming season and photos of him in uniform at practice were included in the program’s Instagram stories this past week.
Louridas’ suit alleges that Pro Sports, Inc. was negligent in selling a “defective and unreasonably dangerous” piece of equipment that “contained a long-standing design defect (of which Pro Sports, Inc. was aware).”
The suit also states that one of the hurdles “touted safety features” was the ability to collapse for safety.
“However,” the suit continues, “due to this defective design, the hurdle fails to collapse at certain height settings despite Defendant’s advertising to the contrary.”
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It goes on to state that Pro Sports, Inc. was aware of two prior impalement injuries suffered by users of the hurdle prior to the purchase of the subject hurdle in 2023, and that the company sold the hurdle “without ever having conducted any type of formalized risk assessment.”
The lawsuit alleges that Morris and Victoria were negligent in failing to “provide safe and properly functioning equipment” as well as not providing “adequate instructions and/or warnings,” “failing to abide by recognized industry safety standards and customs,” and “failing to adequately and appropriately supervise” Louridas as he used the hurdle.
The lawsuit also alleges that Victoria and his facility “failed to properly maintain its premises and provided equipment that was in a defective, unsafe condition,” and “failed to establish adequate policies and procedures for its professional gym regarding equipment inspection, equipment safety, hazard identification, and training safety standards.”
In his response to the summons, filed this past week, Victoria’s attorney Jasper L. Mills denied Victoria’s liability and requested the complaint be dismissed in its entirety.
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Victoria is a graduate of Albany’s now-defunct Bishop Maginn High School. He played four years of Division III college basketball at Skidmore in Saratoga Springs.
Mills did not reply to an email request for comment, nor did Victoria through an email listed on his business’ Facebook page.
Pro Sports, Inc. did not respond to a request for comment through Champion Sports’ primary email address.