Notable sports deaths of 2009

Brand was the president at Indiana University who fired men's basketball coach Bob Knight after issuing a no-tolerance policy regarding Knight's conduct in 2000. He later became the president of the NCAA and was known for stressing higher education for student athletes.


Brand died on September 16, 2009 of pancreatic cancer. He was 67 years old.

Former Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson died July 28. He had taken a leave of absence in May to treat a cancerous tumor on his spine.


A veteran of 22 years as an NFL assistant, Johnson was regarded as one of the league's top defensive minds, known for building units able to pressure the quarterback from every angle. He helped the Eagles to one Super Bowl and five NFC title games.

Forrest was a member of the 1992 Olympic team and was also a former world champion in the welterweight and light middleweight divisions. Forrest took two wins over Sugar Shane Mosley in 2002. On Sept. 13, 2008, Forrest reclaimed his WBC 154-pound title by beating Sergio Mora. That would be his last fight.


Forrest was shot and killed during an apparent robbery in Atlanta on July 25, 2009. Reports are that Forrest may have been robbed and was shot seven or eight times. He was 38 years old.

Sue Burns, a part owner of the San Francisco Giants and devoted philanthropist who was close with home run king Barry Bonds, died on July 20, 2009. She was 58.


Burns died of complications from lung cancer, former managing partner Peter Magowan said. She was diagnosed with the disease July 10 and missed Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter for the Giants that night - a rare absence from the ballpark. Burns attended a game against San Diego the previous day.


Burns often followed the team on the road and regularly went to spring training in Arizona. The Giants estimated that she attended at least 1,000 games over the last decade.

The Wyoming State Patrol says that 68-year-old three-time Olympic speedskater Ed Rudolph and his wife, Gwen, were killed July 20, 2009 when the driver of a GMC Suburban swerved to avoid a deer and collided with Rudolph's 2005 Acura.


Rudolph was on the 1960, 1964 and 1968 U.S. Olympic teams. He went on to become a developer in Colorado Springs and volunteered to help build the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center.

Arturo Gatti, who was born in Italy but moved to Canada as a child, was a former super featherweight champion with a 40-9 professional record. Four of his fights have earned the honor of Ring Magazine's Fight of the Year (1997, 1998, 2002, 2003). After being knocked out by Alfonso Gomez in the seventh round, Gatti announced his retirement on July 14, 2007.

Mathieu Montcourt, a French tennis player ranked 119th in the world, died on July 7, 2009.


At age 24, Montcourt showed promise as an up-and-coming tennis star, winning a Futures title in 2004. A 2006 Futures performance earned Montcourt a bid to the 2006 French open as well, where he later fell to Lleyton Hewitt. Unfortunately, Montcourt's career was best known for a betting scandal, which cost him $12,000 in fines and an eight-week suspension by the ATP for betting on tennis matches.

McNair was drafted third overall by the NFL's Houston Oilers in 1995. He became the Oilers' starting quarterback in 1997, their last season in Houston, and remained the starting quarterback for the Titans during their first eight years in Tennessee. After the 2005 season, McNair was traded to the Baltimore Ravens, with whom he played for two seasons before retiring.


McNair led the Titans to the playoffs four times, and the Ravens once, and played in Super Bowl XXXIV with the Titans. 'Air McNair' was selected to the Pro Bowl three times, and was All-Pro and Co-MVP (with Peyton Manning) in 2003.


On July 4, 2009, McNair and a woman were discovered shot dead. The investigation is ongoing, although McNair's death has been ruled a murder. He was 36.

Alexis Arguello, an all-time boxing great from Nicaragua known for his epic battles against Aaron Pryor, died on July 1 at the age of 57.


Arguello, nicknamed “The Explosive Thin Man," held titles at three different weight divisions, nearly missing a fourth division title after losing to Aaron Pryor in the fourteenth round of an epic junior welterweight bout. Many boxing experts called that fight in November of 1982 the battle of the decade. He retired in 1995 with a career record of 82-8 (65 KO's).

Tisdale was the second overall pick by the Indiana Pacers in the 1985 NBA Draft and played for 12 seasons. He also played for the Kings and Suns and finished with over 12,000 career points. Tisdale won a gold medal as a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team.


In college at Oklahoma, he was a three-time All-American, and was the only male in Division I basketball history to be voted All-America his freshman season. Kevin Durant later matched it in 2007. Tisdale died of cancer on May 15, 2009. He was 44.

Chuck Daly is most known for being the head coach of the Detroit Pistons for nine season, winning NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. He also coached the original "Dream Team" to an Olympic gold medal in 1992. Daly was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994. He died on May 9, 2009. He was 78 years old.

The youngest of the three DiMaggio brothers who became Major League center fielders (Joe and Vince), Dom played his entire career for the Boston Red Sox from 1940 to 1953. He was a seven-time All Star. Dom died on May 8, 2009. He was 92 years old.

Jack Kemp, a former Buffalo Bills quarterback, congressman and vice-presidential nominee, died on May 2 at the age of 73.


Kemp, who landed with the Bills in 1962 for a free-agent price of $100, led the team to the 1964 and 1965 AFL championships and won the leagues MVP award in '65. He later went on to a successful career in politics, earning the vice-presidential bid alongside Bob Dole in 1996.

Felix “Doc” Blanchard, the 1945 Heisman Trophy winner and Army’s Mr. Inside in one of college football’s most famous backfields, died on April 19. He was 84.


The fullback and Glenn Davis, aka Mr. Outside, helped Army win consecutive national titles in 1944-45. Blanchard scored 38 TDs and gained 1,908 yards in his three seasons at West Point. He was drafted by the Steelers with the third overall pick but never played pro football, instead serving a long career as a fighter pilot in the Air Force, flying in the Korean and Vietnam wars retiring with the rank of Colonel. He was inducted into the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1959.

Longtime Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, who punctuated innumerable home runs with his "Outta here!" call, died April 13 after being found passed out in the broadcast booth. He was 73.


Kalas joined the Phillies in 1971. Before that, he was a member of the Houston Astros' broadcast team from 1965-70. In 2002, he received the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for his contributions to the game.

A talented pitcher whose career was cut short by injuries, Mark Fidrych was found dead on his farm on April 13, 2009. He was 54.


Nicknamed "The Bird" because of his resemblance to the Big Bird character on the Sesame Street television show, Fidrych made an immediate splash when he was elevated to the majors. He was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1976 when he went 19-9 with a 2.34 ERA and 24 complete games in 29 starts. Injuries, however, limited him to 58 major league games with a 29-19 record and a 3.10 ERA.

Bruce Snyder, whose 20-year career as a college football coach included an unbeaten regular season at Arizona State in 1996, died April 13 at the age of 69 after a 10-month fight against cancer.


Snyder's 1996 team, which upset two-time defending national champion and then-No. 1 Nebraska 19-0, had Jake Plummer at QB and Pat Tillman at LB. Snyder also was the coach at Utah State from 1976-82, as an assistant with the Los Angeles Rams from 1983-86 and at California from 1987-91. His overall college record was 126-105-5. At Arizona State, Snyder was 58-47, second only to Frank Kush for victories with the Sun Devils.

On April 9, just hours after pitching a scoreless six innings, Los Angeles Angels rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed in a car crash by a drunk driver. He was 22 years old. The hit and run accident also killed two other people in the car in which Adenhart was a passenger.


After being picked in the 14th round of the 2004 draft, Adenhart underwent Tommy John surgery and spent most of next four seasons in the minors. In 2009, he was made the Angels' No. 3 starter.

Marvin Webster, a fierce shot-blocking center who helped lead the Seattle SuperSonics to the 1978 NBA finals, was found dead in a hotel in Tulsa, Okla on April 6, 2009. He was 56.


Known as "The Human Eraser," Webster spent nine seasons in the NBA. He averaged 16.1 points during the SuperSonics' playoff run in 1978. He signed with the Knicks the following season and played six years in New York.

Former Chicago Bears and Arkansas Razorbacks defensive lineman Ken Anderson died of a heart attack on April 3 at the age of 33.


Anderson lettered for the Razorbacks from 1994-97 and played for the Bears in 1999.

On March 30, former Major League Baseball player and manager Herman Franks died. He was 95.


Franks was a catcher for the Cardinals, Dodgers, Athletics and Giants over six seasons, which were interrupted by World War II. He played in 188 games, hitting 199 with three home runs and 43 RBS. Later he managed the Giants from 1965-68, a run of four straight second-place finishes. His former players included future Hall of Famers in Orlando Cepeda, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry.

A star QB and LB at Indiana University, an all-league LB with the Cleveland Browns from 1946-1949, a champion pro football coach (pictured with the Broncos) and a baseball president, Lou Saban died March 29 at age 87.


In the first 33 years of a career that spanned five decades, Saban held 18 jobs, an average of 1.83 years per stop. Among those jobs was president of the New York Yankees from 1981-82 for his longtime friend, team owner George Steinbrenner.

A Hall of Fame third baseman who, while with the Detroit Tigers, edged Ted Williams for the 1949 American League batting title, George Kell died on March 24, 2009 at the age of 86.


In a 15-year career with six teams, 10-time All Star Kell hit more than .300 nine times and compiled a career average of .306. He claimed the 1949 batting crown by hitting hitting .34291, while Williams finished at .34276. After he retired, Kell broadcast Tigers games from 1959 to 1996 - every year except 1964. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1983 by the veterans committee.

Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson, a noted philanthropist and one of the richest people in the country according to Forbes magazine, died March 13. He was 86.


Spurned in his bids to buy the NFL's Detroit Lions and NHL's Detroit Red Wings, Davidson became majority owner of the Pistons in 1974 and acquired the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1999, spending lavishly on both teams. He sold the Lightning in 2008. Davidson also owned the WNBA's Detroit Shock and Palace Sports & Entertainment, comprising The Palace of Auburn Hills and DTE Energy Music Theatre. He was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.

While driving his Ferrari 360 Modena on March 11, 2009, Charles Lewis Jr. was struck and killed by a 1977 Porsche driven by a drunk driver. The two cars might have been racing.


Lewis co-founded TapouT, a fighting apparel company, in 1997. As mixed martial arts exploded in recent years, TapouT became the apparel of choice for many fighters and was the exclusive apparel used in Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter." Lewis was known as "Mask" because of the facepaint he frequently wore. In 2007, Lewis starred in TapouT, a reality television series on Versus.

On March 1, a 21-foot fishing boat owned by Marquis Cooper capsized in rough seas. Cooper, a linebacker with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was never found.


Cooper was selected in the third round of the 2004 NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He played 26 games for the Bucs in his first two pro seasons before bouncing around to seven different teams in the next three years. At the time of his death, he was on the Oakland Raiders' roster.

On March 1, 2009, a 21-foot fishing boat containing four current or former football players was reported missing in rough seas. Detroit Lions defensive end Corey Smith was one of the three never found.


Undrafted in 2002 out of North Carolina State, Smith still made it onto the Tampa Bay Buccaneers roster that year. He later played for the San Francisco 49ers before heading to Detroit from 2006-2008. The Lions will retire Smith's No. 93 jersey for the 2009 season.

A walk-on to the University of South Florida football team who later earned a scholarship and became captain, William Bleakley died when the fishing boat he was on with two NFL players and another man overturned off Florida's west coast.


The boat's lone survivor, Nick Schuyler, a college teammate of Bleakley's, said that Bleakley had swum underwater to retrieve life jackets and a cooler for the men after the boat capsized.

Tom Sturdivant, who pitched the New York Yankees to victory in Game 4 of the 1956 World Series on the day before Don Larsen’s famed perfect game, died on Feb. 28. He was 78.


Sturdivant was a member of the Yankees teams that played in the World Series in three straight years, beginning in 1955. He went 16-8 in 1956 and 16-6 in 1957, when he led the American League in won-lost percentage and was second with a 2.54 ERA. He finished his 10-year career in 1964 with a record of 59-51 and a 3.74 ERA.

Most noted for his 33 years in the broadcasting booth for the Chicago Bulls, Johnny "Red" Kerr helped chronicle one of the greatest dynasties in sports history, overseeing all of the Bull's six championships in the 1990s. Kerr lost a battle with prostate cancer on February 26, 2009.


A former first round draft pick in 1954, Kerr enjoyed a 12-year NBA career before taking over the Chicago Bulls as head coach in 1966. He was the first coach ever to take an expansion team to the playoffs in its inaugural season, earning him the NBA Coach of the Year Award. Years later, another Bulls announcer - Jim Durham - suggested Kerr join him in the booth, and the rest was history..

Norm Van Lier, one of the most popular players in Chicago Bulls history and one of the NBA's top defensive players in the 1970s, was found dead in his home just blocks away from the Bulls arena on Feb. 26. He was 61.


After beginning his NBA career with Cincinnati in 1969, "Stormin' Norman" later spent more than six seasons with Chicago before finishing his career with Milwaukee in 1979. He retired after the 1979 season with 8,770 points and 5,217 assists, also finishing among the league's top 10 in assists eight times and among the league's top 10 in steals per game three times. A three-time All-Star, Van Lier played on five playoff teams. He also was named to the NBA's All-Defensive First or Second teams eight times.

A business mogul and sports enthusiast, Miller enjoyed a successful career as the owner of the Utah Jazz. He died on Feb. 20, 2009.


Miller purchased 50 percent of the Jazz in 1985 and the rest the following year. During his tenure he helped build the image of Utah sports, consulting for the Salt Lake Bees AAA baseball team and owning the Utah Starzz of the WNBA while also maintaining his duties with the Jazz.

Five-time Pro Bowl LB Brad Van Pelt died on Feb. 17 at the age of 57.


Together with New York Giants teammates Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson and Brian Kelley, Van Pelt helped form one of the NFL's best linebacking corps in the early 1980s, "the Crunch Bunch." Van Pelt was the Giants’ first draft pick out of Michigan State in 1973 and spent the first 11 years of a 14-year NFL career with them. Van Pelt was inducted into the College Hall of Fame in 2001 and nominated for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005.

Madeline Loftus, a former Buffalo State College student and varsity ice hockey player, died in a plane crash on her way back to campus to play in an alumni hockey event. She was 24 years old.


Loftus died along with 49 others on the night of Feb. 12 when Continental flight 3407 exploded after hitting a home, killing all on board and one in the house in Clarence, NY.

On Feb. 12, 2009, former major league outfielder, coach and scout Ted Uhlaender died of bone marrow cancer.


Uhlaender played in the majors from 1965-72 with Minnesota, Cleveland and Cincinnati. A sure-handed, fleet center fielder, he hit .263 with 36 home runs and 285 RBIs. He returned to the Indians in 2000 as the team's first-base coach, but left to become a scout for the San Francisco Giants in 2002. Uhlaender was diagnosed with cancer in 2008.

Jeremy Lusk, an American freestyle motocross rider, died of head injuries Feb. 10 after crashing while trying to land a backflip in competition. He was 24.


A gold medal winner in Freestyle and silver medalist in Best Trick at the 2008 X Games, Lusk was injured when he failed to complete a full rotation while attempting a Hart Attack backflip and slammed headfirst into the dirt. Lusk crashed in almost identical fashion in the freestyle semifinals at the 2007 X Games but was not hurt.

Mel Kaufman, a linebacker who played in three Super Bowls -- and won two -- with the Washington Redskins and was a former scout for the team, died on Feb. 7, 2009 at the age of 50.


A defensive team leader and team captain with the Redskins from 1981-88, Kaufman was a starting linebacker on NFC championship games in 1982, ‘83 and ‘87. He started 78 of 91 games after making the team as a rookie free agent in 1981. Kaufman later scouted for the Redskins in the 1992 Super Bowl, when they beat the Buffalo Bills.

Betty Jameson, one of the 13 founding members of the LPGA Tour in 1950, died Feb. 7. She was 89.


Jameson won her first title at 13 and completed her amateur career with 14 victories, including consecutive U.S. Women’s Amateur titles in 1939 and 1940. She finished her LPGA Tour career with 13 victories. Jameson was inducted to the Hall of Fame of Women’s Golf in 1951, and became one of six inaugural members of the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame in 1967.

Ingemar Johansson, the Swede who stunned the boxing world by knocking out Floyd Patterson to win the heavyweight title in 1959, died on Jan. 30 at the age of 76.


Johansson knocked out Patterson in the third round at Yankee Stadium on June 26, 1959, to win the heavyweight title. He floored the American seven times in the third round before referee Ruby Goldstein stopped the fight 2:03 into it. The win made him just the fifth heavyweight champion born outside the United States, and he was named The Associated Press’ Male Athlete of the Year in 1959.

North Carolina State's Kay Yow, the Hall of Fame women's basketball coach who won more than 700 games while earning fans with her decades-long fight against breast cancer, died Jan. 24 at the age of 66. She was first diagnosed with cancer in 1987.


Yow had a record of 737-344 in 38 years -- 34 with the Wolfpack. She also coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1988, won four Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and reached the Final Four in 1998. For her achievements, Yow was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2002, while the school dedicated "Kay Yow Court" in Reynolds Coliseum in 2007.

Reg Gutteridge, a member of both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame as a renowned journalist, died on Jan. 24 at the age of 84.


Born into a boxing family, Gutteridge became a journalist covering boxing after World War II and worked for the London Evening News for more than 30 years. He was also the voice of ITV's boxing coverage from 1962 until 1988.

Former major league baseball player Bill Werber, who played for the New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Athletics, died at the age of 100 on Jan. 22, 2009.


Werber, who was the oldest living ex-major leaguer, was a former teammate of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Grove. A career .271 hitter, he led the American League in stolen bases three times.

John Gordy, a former offensive lineman for the Detroit Lions and University of Tennessee who helped form the NFL Players' Association, died Jan. 20, 2009 after a long battle with cancer. He was 73.


After being picked by the Lions in the second round of the 1957 draft, Gordy helped the team win the NFL championship his rookie year, the last time Detroit claimed the league title. Later on, Gordy served as president and executive director of the NFL Players' Association and was instrumental in negotiating the first collective bargaining agreement in major professional sports.

Shane Dronett started every game of the 1998 season in which the Falcons made a run to the Super Bowl. Dronett, who died on January 21, was a 10-year NFL veteran.


Dronett made 86 starts and had 44 sacks in 139 career games.

Dante "Gluefingers" Lavelli, a sure-handed receiver who helped the Cleveland Browns build a dynasty in the 1940s and 50s, died Jan. 20, 2009. He was 85.


Lavelli, a favorite target of legendary Browns QB Otto Graham, was part of four championship teams when the Browns dominated the All-America Football Conference in the 1940s. After Cleveland joined the NFL in 1950, Lavelli was a member of three title teams while playing for coach Paul Brown and alongside Graham, Marion Motley and Lou Groza -- all Hall of Famers. He was enshrined in Canton in 1975.

Preston Gomez, who managed the expansion San Diego Padres and later guided the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs during a six-decade career in baseball, died Jan. 13, 2009 from injuries sustained in a March, 2008 when he was hit by a pickup truck. He was 85.


Gomez also was the third-base coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1965-68, a span when they won two NL pennants and a World Series title.

Carl Pohlad, a billionaire banker whose Minnesota Twins won two World Series titles during nearly his nearly quarter-century as owner, died Jan. 5. He was 93.


When Pohlad bought the Twins from Calvin Griffith in 1984, he was widely credited for saving baseball in Minnesota. With the purchase, he inherited a promising group of young players that included Gary Gaetti, Kent Hrbek and future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett. Minnesota won World Series championships in 1987 and 1991, triumphing in tense seven-game showdowns against the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves.

"Prince" Joe Henry, a former Negro League baseball player, died Jan 2, 2009. He was 78.


After growing up in Brooklyn, Ill., he played in the Negro Leagues from 1950 to 1959 as an infielder for the Memphis Red Sox, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis Clowns and Detroit Clowns. Henry was especially known for his skills at entertaining the crowd, often wearing shorts as part of his uniform and his hat bill crooked.