Deaths (Obituaries)

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    Gus Williams, Guard Who Led Seattle to an N.B.A. Title, Dies at 71

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    Undersized but speedy and known as the Wizard for his acrobatics, he was a high scorer who in 1979 starred in a series that brought the SuperSonics their only crown.Gus Williams, an eyeblink-quick guard known for his volume scoring and electric on-court style who in 1979 helped the Seattle SuperSonics win their only National Basketball League championship, died on Wednesday. He was 71.His death was announced in a statement by the University of Southern California, his alma mater. The university did not cite a cause or say where he died but noted that Johnson had a stroke five years ago.Known for his springy, improvisational play and relentless drive, Williams, a two-time All-Star, was a standout, if an underrated one, during an 11-season career. That career included stints with the Golden State Warriors, the Washington Bullets and the Atlanta Hawks in addition to his six seasons with the Sonics, who moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder in 2008.Unusual for his era, Williams was a point guard known more for scoring than for dishing assists. On defense, he stymied opponents who dared try to dribble past him — in a 1978 game against the New Jersey Nets, he tallied 10 steals, making him one of only 24 players to break into double digits in that category in a single game.Though undersized by N.B.A. standards at 6-foot-2 and 175 pounds, Williams nevertheless did a lot of damage in and around the paint with attacking, acrobatic drives to the hoop. He also had a lethal midrange jump shot.Williams in action in Game 5 of the 1979 Finals. Though undersized by N.B.A. standards at 6-foot-2, he was known for doing damage around the hoop. James Drake/Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rick Kuhn, 69, Dies; Convicted in a College Gambling Scandal

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      While playing basketball at Boston College, he participated in a point-shaving scheme with Henry Hill, the mobster later portrayed in the movie “Goodfellas.”Rick Kuhn, a Boston College basketball player who was convicted for taking part in a headline-making point-shaving scandal that was largely organized by Henry Hill, the mobster played by Ray Liotta in the 1990 movie “Goodfellas,” died on Dec. 22 at his home in Ligonier, Pa. He was 69.The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Chuck Finder, who collaborated with Mr. Kuhn on a recently completed memoir.Mr. Kuhn was a 6-foot-5 backup forward and center for the Boston College Eagles in 1978 when he agreed to participate in a plot to help make sure his team won by fewer points than the spread — the number of points by which oddsmakers make a team a favorite or an underdog in certain games — or lost by more.Small subterfuges, like a player deliberately committing a critical foul or appearing to try to steal a ball but letting his opponent get around him to score, could alter the margin of victory.The scandal began unfolding when Mr. Kuhn took a teammate and close friend, Jim Sweeney, to a hotel room near Logan Airport in Boston to meet Mr. Hill; Paul Mazzei, a narcotics trafficker Hill had met in a federal prison; and Tony Perla, a small-time gambler.“You’re thinking, the initial phase, they want insider information,” Mr. Kuhn wrote in a memoir. But two hours into the meeting, the subject of point shaving came up, and the players were asked how much money they would want to participate in such a scheme.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Greg Gumbel, Who Called N.F.L. and N.C.A.A. Games, Dies at 78

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      The sportscaster combined play-by-play excitement with a knack for precision in his decades as a sports broadcaster calling N.F.L. and N.C.A.A. games for CBS.Greg Gumbel, the sports broadcaster who called some of the biggest football and college basketball games on two networks during a career that spanned five decades, has died. He was 78.His family confirmed his death on Friday afternoon in a social media post from CBS Sports, where Mr. Gumbel had worked since 1989. He had been diagnosed with cancer.For decades, Mr. Gumbel served as a play-by-play announcer for CBS’s National Football League coverage. In 2001, he became the first Black sportscaster in that role covering a Super Bowl. He also covered the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament for the network and had spent four years reporting on the American Football Conference for NBC Sports.He got his first chance as an announcer in the early 1970s, when a boss at the NBC affiliate in Chicago, Channel 5, told him that he wanted to broadcast a high school basketball game every Saturday, as Mr. Gumbel recalled in an interview with the sportscaster Kenny McReynolds published in 2021.“He said, ‘I have this idea, and I want you to take it and run with it,’” Mr. Gumbel said in the interview. “We introduced our audience to a lot of guys who went on to become famous.”Mr. Gumbel’s career took off in the 1980s, when he began to cover the National Basketball Association. He called his first N.F.L. game in 1988.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dick Van Arsdale, 81, One of First Identical Twins in the N.B.A., Dies

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      A three-time All-Star, he played for the Knicks and the Phoenix Suns. For one season, he and Tom Van Arsdale were hard-to-tell-apart teammates.Dick Van Arsdale, a three-time All-Star who, with his brother, Tom, was half of the first set of identical twins to play in the N.B.A. after starring and confusing opponents and teammates alike in high school and at Indiana University, died on Monday at his home in Phoenix. He was 81.Tom Van Arsdale said the cause was heart and kidney failure.While the Van Arsdales had remarkably similar statistical careers, Dick was considered the slightly better player, if only by the measure of superior pro teams. He played for the New York Knicks and the Phoenix Suns during 12 N.B.A. seasons, making the playoffs four times, while Tom suited up for five teams, none of which made the playoffs during the same span.Blonde and blue-eyed, the Van Arsdale twins were the stereotypical picture of their rural Indiana roots, but on the basketball court neither was a precise positional fit at 6 feet 5 inches: not fast enough for the backcourt, not big enough for the frontcourt.Dick, who began his pro career as a forward and switched to guard, was nonetheless a rugged defender while averaging a career 16.4 points per game, exceeding 20 three times during his years in Phoenix.Van Arsdale had played three seasons with the Knicks when, in 1968, he joined the newly formed Suns, an expansion team whose general manager, Jerry Colangelo, had selected him first. Van Arsdale scored the franchise’s first points and became an organization fixture, known as the original Sun. He served as interim coach during the 1986-87 season, then as a front-office executive and later a television analyst.“We couldn’t find a better player on or off the floor to build our team,” Colangelo told The Arizona Republic in 1970. “If I could field five Vans, what I’d lack in height and rebounding, I’d offset with fight and desire.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lou Carnesecca, St. John’s Basketball Coach, Dies at 99

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      Known for his quick wit and garish sweaters, he took the New York City university to national basketball prominence over 24 seasons.Lou Carnesecca, the Hall of Fame coach who took St. John’s University to national basketball prominence and who was known for his quick wit and colorful courtside persona, died on Saturday. He was 99.His death was confirmed by Brian Browne, a spokesman for the university, who provided no other details.When Carnesecca took over as the St. John’s head coach in 1965, the university, while rich in basketball tradition, played as an independent. It had begun a gradual move to the Jamaica section of Queens from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn 10 years earlier, and its Alumni Hall athletic building was only four years old.With the founding of the Big East Conference in 1979, St. John’s began competing regularly against leading basketball programs.Carnesecca took St. John’s to 18 N.C.A.A. championship tournaments and six N.I.T. tournaments, including the 1989 championship, and his teams won the Big East tournament championship in 1983 and 1986.St. John’s won 526 games while losing 200 in Carnesecca’s two stints there, from 1965 to 1970 and then, after his three seasons coaching the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets in the old American Basketball Association, from 1973 to 1992.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bob Love, Rugged, High-Scoring All-Star for Chicago Bulls, Dies at 81

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      Love was a cornerstone of the franchise’s success in the early 1970s. He struggled with a stutter that he overcame only after his playing days were over.Bob Love, a cornerstone player for the ascendant Chicago Bulls during the first half of the 1970s who overcame an enervating stutter after his playing days to work for the team as a motivational speaker, died on Monday in Chicago. He was 81.The Bulls announced his death, saying the cause was cancer.Love’s stuttering, which traced to a childhood in rural, segregated Louisiana, was so inhibiting that he seldom did interviews with reporters during his 11 seasons in the N.B.A., despite leading the Bulls in points per game or total points scored for seven straight seasons.“The reporters had deadlines — they couldn’t hang around all night for me to spit something out,” Love told The New York Times in 2002.Nicknamed Butterbean in high school because of his fondness for butter beans, Love even struggled to get words out in huddles during timeouts. A teammate, Norm Van Lier, often spoke up for him.A 6-foot-8 forward, Love averaged a career-high 25.8 points per game during the 1971-72 season, utilizing a smooth jump shot arched high over his head. He appeared in three All-Star games and twice was voted second-team all-league. But he was a complete player, three times named second-team all-league defense. And he was the Bulls’ third all-time leading scorer, behind Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls’ owner, said in an interview for this obituary that Love was “a tenacious defender who set high standards for competitiveness and toughness.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stan Asofsky, Vociferous Courtside Superfan of the Knicks, Dies at 87

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      For decades, beginning in 1959, he was a regular presence at Madison Square Garden (in two locations), befriending players and heckling opposing players and refs.Stan Asofsky was more than a rabid New York Knicks fan. He was a ticket holder with access, reflecting a time when professional sports venues were far less fortified and class-segregated. When one didn’t have to be Spike Lee, or Taylor Swift, to walk in a celebrity athlete’s world.Or play. During the 1960s, Mr. Asofsky delivered crisp bounce passes to Cazzie Russell, a young Knicks forward, while Russell practiced jump shots at the 92nd Street Y, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Then they would shower and walk a few blocks south to the hot-dog emporium Papaya King, so Russell could rehydrate with a glass of tropical juice.“He wasn’t getting enough minutes, and he wanted the workout,” Mr. Asofsky told me in 2009. “I said, ‘Come to our Y.’ He said, ‘Are there ballplayers there?’”Mr. Asofsky, who died on Sept. 12 at 87, was more than a prideful gym rat with a bum knee, not to mention a superfan; he could also be an accommodating friend: He once set Russell up on a blind date, with a woman who worked with Mr. Asofsky in CBS’s publishing division, as he recalled in the 2009 interview, for a book I was writing about the Knicks’ glory days.Certainly seat location helped in the creation of the insider persona that Mr. Asofsky developed alongside Fred Klein, his front-row companion for a half century at two Madison Square Garden locations.Long before there was such a thing as celebrity row, where Mr. Lee has stretched his vocal cords and enhanced his exposure as a premier filmmaker, Mr. Asofsky and Mr. Klein were the arena’s best-known baiters of Knicks’ opponents and referees alike.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Susie Maxwell Berning, Hall of Fame Golfer, Is Dead at 83

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      She often took time away from the tour for her family. But she tallied 11 championships, including three in the U.S. Women’s Open.Susie Maxwell Berning, a trailblazing three-time champion of the United States Women’s Open golf tournament who was known for her tenacity on the fairway and her grace off it, died on Wednesday at her home in Indio, in Southern California. She was 83.Her daughter Cindy Molchany confirmed the death. She said her mother had had lung cancer for two years.Emerging from Oklahoma City in the 1960s, when women’s professional golf was still a developing sport (she later estimated that there were only about 70 golfers on the tour at the time), she built a glittering career. She shone brightest when the stakes were highest. Four of her 11 wins on the L.P.G.A. tour were in major tournaments, including the Western Open in 1965.The other three were U.S. Open wins in 1968, 1972 and 1973. Berning was one of just six women to win three or more, along with Betsy Rawls, Babe Zaharias, Hollis Stacy, Annika Sorenstam and Mickey Wright — all members of the World Golf Hall of Fame. In 2021, Berning finally joined them in the Hall, which honors both male and female stars of the sport. She was inducted in the same class as Tiger Woods.Berning spoke at her induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. She was inducted in the same class as Tiger Woods.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesFull recognition of her accomplishments came slowly in large part because her career was abbreviated, as she consistently prioritized family.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert Lansdorp, Prominent Coach of Tennis Champions, Dies at 85

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      His students, including Tracy Austin, Maria Sharapova, Pete Sampras and Lindsay Davenport, developed their ground strokes through his regimen of intense repetition.Robert Lansdorp, an influential tennis coach whose intense focus on developing ground strokes through ceaseless repetition helped turn four of his students — Tracy Austin, Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova — into No. 1-ranked players in the world, died on Monday in West Carson, Calif. He was 85.Stephanie Lansdorp, his daughter, said his death, in a nursing facility, was caused by cardiopulmonary arrest.Lansdorp, who was based in Southern California, worked one on one, mostly with young players — Austin started lessons with him at 7, Sampras at 10 — to build their muscle memory by relentlessly drilling them on their forehands, backhands and other strokes and on their footwork.“He wanted to do it over and over and over again, and he had methods to get there — he had a knack,” Austin said in an interview. “You knew if Robert was pushing you, it meant that he knew there was more to you. He was tough, but there was a soft side to him. He thrived on making people better.”When Austin won the women’s singles title at the U.S. Open at age 16 in 1979, she became the youngest women’s champion in tournament history and the first Grand Slam champion tutored by Lansdorp.“We made our names together,” she said.After Austin’s victory over Chris Evert, Lansdorp told reporters: “There’s room for improvement. There’s only one way to go — up.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More