Deaths (Obituaries)

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    J.C. Snead, Golfing Nephew of His Uncle Sam, Dies at 84

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    He knew he could never match the success of the great Sam Snead, but he won eight tournaments on the PGA Tour and four more on the senior circuit.J.C. Snead, who knew he could never match the golfing success of his celebrated uncle Sam Snead but who nevertheless won a combined 12 tournaments on the PGA Tour and senior tour, died on April 25 at his home in Hot Springs, Va. He was 84.Suzie (Bryant) Snead, his caregiver and former wife, said the cause was prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.When Snead joined the PGA Tour in 1968 at age 27, he understood that he would always play in the shadow of his Uncle Sam, nicknamed Slammin’ Sammy Snead, whose 82 victories on the PGA Tour were a record until Tiger Woods tied him in 2019.“There was no way I was going to live up to his reputation,” J.C. Snead told The New York Times in 1988. “With the late start I had, I didn’t have a prayer to be what Sam was. I wasn’t trying to be.”J.C. Snead won for the first time at the Tucson Open in February 1971. He followed that victory with another two weeks later at the Doral-Eastern Open, in Miami. During the final round at Doral, as Snead was preparing his approach shot to the 18th hole, someone in the gallery shouted, “Miss it!”Snead in June 1971. Earlier that year he had won for the first time, at the Tucson Open.PGA Tour Archive, 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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      Jim Dent, Long-Driving Golfer, Dies at 85

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      Honing his skills on segregated courses, he became one of the few Black golfers in the pro ranks, following the lead of Charlie Sifford, Pete Brown and Lee Elder.Jim Dent, who was one of the few Black golfers on the PGA Tour — in his day or now — and who became known for his prodigious drives off the tee, died on Friday at his home in Augusta, Ga. He was 85.His grandson Andre Lacey II said the cause was complications of a recent stroke.Mr. Dent was part of a small group of significant Black golfers who preceded Tiger Woods (who identifies as partly Black) into professional golf. Charlie Sifford was the first to play on what became known as the PGA Tour after its former parent, the PGA of America, dropped its “Caucasians only” policy in 1961.In 1964, Pete Brown was the first Black golfer to win an event on the tour. Eleven years later, Lee Elder was the first to play in the Masters tournament. And Calvin Peete, another Black member of the tour, won his first tournament in 1979 and 11 more between 1982 and 1986.Dent accumulated $564,809 in earnings, but he never won a tournament on the tour, and he did not qualify to play in the Masters. His best finish came in 1972, when he tied for second place, nine strokes behind Jack Nicklaus, at the Walt Disney World Open Invitational in Florida. But Dent went on to win a dozen tournaments on the tour’s new senior circuit (now called PGA Tour Champions), which he joined in 1989 at age 50. He won two tournaments in 1989 and four more the next year. His last victory came in 1998. In all, he earned more than $9 million on the Champions tour.Laury Livsey, the PGA Tour’s historian, said that Dent did not regard himself as a racial pioneer; rather, he credited Sifford, Brown and Elder with that distinction.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 Barnett, Champion Knick With a Singular Jump Shot, Dies at 88

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      A high-scoring guard, he played on New York’s two title-winning teams, in the 1970s. He was remembered for his “fall back, baby” shooting style.Dick Barnett, who helped propel the Knicks to their glory days in the 1970s with his unorthodox jump-shooting style, and who played on the only two N.B.A. championship teams in the Knicks’ history, has died in Largo, Fla. He was 88.The Knicks announced the death, which had occurred overnight at an assisted living facility, on Sunday. Danielle Naassana, a producer of “The Dream Whisperer,” a PBS documentary about Barnett and his college career that came out last year, said he had become increasingly frail in recent years but did not appear to have a fatal illness.Barnett was voted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in its men’s veterans category in April 2024.Playing for 14 seasons in the N.B.A., his last nine with the Knicks, Barnett teamed with Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe at guard, Willis Reed at center and Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere at forward under Coach Red Holzman.The Knicks won N.B.A. championships in 1970 and 1973 with unselfish play and tenacious defense that complemented their scoring power. Barnett displayed all-around court skills but was remembered most for executing jumpers with a form that had not been seen before or since.The 1970 starting lineup of the Knicks celebrated after beating the Milwaukee Bucks to win the 1970 N.B.A. Eastern Conference title. From left: Barnett, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere and Willis Reed.Dan Farrell/New York Daily News Archive, 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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      Jay Sigel, Amateur Golfer Who Played Like a Pro, Dies at 81

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      Many considered him to be the greatest American amateur since Bobby Jones. So why didn’t he try for the PGA Tour? An old hand injury had something to do with it.Jay Sigel went to Wake Forest University in 1962 on a golf scholarship named for Arnold Palmer. He won an Atlantic Coast Conference individual title and became a second-team all-American. He would later tell friends and reporters that he went to college to play golf, not to study, and that he thought more about turning professional than about graduating.But his plans were deferred after a serious accident. Sigel — who died at 81 on April 19 in Boca Raton, Fla. — did not turn pro for nearly three decades, until he became eligible for the Senior PGA Tour at age 50.In the intervening years, he became widely viewed as perhaps the greatest amateur golfer of the post-World War II era in the United States.At Wake Forest, Sigel inadvertently put his left hand through a pane of glass in the summer of 1963 while trying to keep a door from closing. The accident severed a tendon, and the wound, near his wrist, required more than 70 stitches. He remained hospitalized for nine days.It took months to regain something resembling the completeness of his skills. His left little finger remained hooked, and he did not regain full feeling in the hand, which often grew cold, his wife, Betty Sigel, said. (She confirmed the death, in a hospital. She said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer.)But the injury altered the arc of Sigel’s career and his life in a way that he came to see as fortunate and providential.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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      Leo Beenhakker, Winning Soccer Coach Without Borders, Dies at 82

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      Among many other accomplishments, he led tiny Trinidad and Tobago to the World Cup and Poland to its first appearance in the European championships.Leo Beenhakker, a globe-trotting soccer coach who managed his native Netherlands during the 1990 World Cup, won three Spanish League titles with Real Madrid in the 1980s and, perhaps most impressively and improbably, guided Trinidad and Tobago to the 2006 World Cup as the smallest nation at the time ever to compete in soccer’s global championship, died on April 10. He was 82.His death was announced by the Dutch soccer federation and by Ajax, the powerful Amsterdam club that Beenhakker coached to two Dutch League titles. The announcement did not cite a cause or say where he died.His own playing career, as a winger, did not carry him beyond the amateur level. But neither did it prevent him from achieving national and international success as a coach.In that role, Beenhakker displayed wit and charm as well as the ability to engage with and inspire his players and to immerse himself in various cultures in the soccer diaspora. One of his accomplishments was to coach Poland to its first appearance in the European championships, in 2008.He dismissed the idea that to coach at a high level, one needed to have played at a high level. “You can be a very good milkman,” he once said, “without having ever been a cow.”Beenhakker (pronounced bin-HACK-er) never possessed the authority or standing of Johan Cruyff, who captained the Netherlands to second place at the 1974 World Cup and is considered one of the greatest players of all time. Nor did he have the tactical skill of Guus Hiddink, who in 1988 coached PSV Eindhoven to both the Dutch League title and the European Cup, the forerunner of the European Champions League title.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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      Dave Pelz, Scientist Turned Golf Instructor, Is Dead at 85

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      After working at NASA, he became a renowned expert on putting and shots close to the green through his coaching, books, television appearances and training aids.Dave Pelz, who left his job as a scientist at NASA to study the short game of golf, a detour that would make him a celebrated guru of putts and wedge shots, died on March 23 at his home in Dripping Springs, Texas, near Austin. He was 85.David Pelly, Pelz’s stepson and the chief executive of his company, Dave Pelz Golf, said the cause was prostate cancer.While most golfers focus more on how to drive long distances, Pelz concentrated on the short game — shots from within 100 yards, including putting and chipping and blasting out of bunkers with a wedge. In his early statistical research, he found that 80 percent of shots lost to par occur within that distance, and that putting makes up 43 percent of the game.“Golfers think that their first two shots are the game,” he said on the PBS talk show “Charlie Rose” in 2010. “They drive almost every hole. They hit to the green almost every hole. But what they don’t think about is that after you hit those first two shots, and you don’t hit the green, there are two, three or four more shots.”As a golf instructor, Pelz demonstrated putting techniques in 1999. He found that putting makes up 43 percent of the game.Bill Kennedy/The New York TimesPelz, recognizable in his trademark broad-brimmed sun hat, became a major influence on the short game. He developed training aids and created clubs (he had about 20 patents); wrote instruction books; had his own Golf Channel show; opened schools for amateurs at golf resorts; and coached professional golfers.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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      Hank Steinbrecher, Who Helped Elevate Soccer in the U.S., Dies at 77

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      He was also a key figure in raising American soccer’s profile on the world stage. Earlier, as a marketer, he saw opportunities in the football ritual of dousing coaches with Gatorade.Hank Steinbrecher, a soccer evangelist from Queens whose passion as a top United States official in the sport helped usher it into the American mainstream and who, in a previous career in marketing for Gatorade, helped popularize the ritual in which victorious players douse their coaches with coolers of sports drinks, died on Tuesday at his home in Tucson, Ariz. He was 77.His death, from degenerative heart disease, was confirmed by the United States Soccer Federation, of which Mr. Steinbrecher was secretary general from 1990 to 2000.Sunil Gulati, who was president of the federation from 2006 to 2018, said in an interview that Mr. Steinbrecher’s biggest legacy was having American soccer “be more respected at the national and international level.”In the fall of 1990, the federation, the sport’s national governing body, had little money and was run by volunteers. It was in dire need of professional administrative expertise.The United States men’s national team had just played in its first World Cup in 40 years, in Italy; the U.S. had recently been chosen to host the men’s World Cup in 1994; and the nascent women’s national team was about to emerge as the pre-eminent international power.Later that year, Alan I. Rothenberg, a Los Angeles lawyer who had been the soccer commissioner for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, became president of the federation, and he hired Steinbrecher to be secretary general, his top lieutenant, impressed by his credentials: Mr. Steinbrecher had been a collegiate player, coach and manager of the soccer venue at Harvard University during those Games (Olympic soccer is played in stadiums across the host country). And, crucial to bringing a business and commercial sensibility to the federation, he had been director of sports marketing for Gatorade.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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      Slick Watts, N.B.A. Fan Favorite and Headband Pioneer, Dies at 73

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      An undrafted, 6-foot-1 point guard with patchy hair, he made an enduring fashion statement and became seen as the ultimate Seattle SuperSonic.Slick Watts, an unheralded, undersized, patchy-haired point guard who turned his obstacles into springboards, endearing himself to fans of the Seattle SuperSonics long past the team’s existence and helping to invent the headband as a basketball fashion signature, has died. He was 73.His son Donald announced the death on social media on Saturday in a statement that did not provide further details. In 2021, Watts had a major stroke, and he spent recent years dealing with lung sarcoidosis, an inflammatory condition.Watts played for the SuperSonics for just four and a half seasons, from 1973-78. Though he helped lead the team to its first playoff berth, he was not around in 1979 for the team’s first and only finals victory.Still, fans and fellow players held him in a singular regard.In 2012, decades after his retirement — and four years after the team moved and became the Oklahoma City Thunder — a Seattle rap duo called the Blue Scholars made Watts’s name the title of a song about the Sonics. James Donaldson, a Sonics center in the 1980s, told The Seattle Times after Watts’s death, “He epitomized the Seattle SuperSonics.”That reputation came from a combination of pluck and generosity.Watts’s basketball origins were modest. He was an impressive collegiate shooter, averaging 22.8 points per game and shooting 49 percent from the field. But he was just 6-foot-1 and played for Xavier University of Louisiana, alittle-known historically Black Catholic university in New Orleans (not Xavier University of Cincinnati). He went undrafted in 1973.That might have been the end of his basketball career, except for the fact that Watts’s college coach, Bob Hopkins, was a cousin of Bill Russell, the Celtics great then coaching the Sonics. He secured Watts a professional tryout. The team was already loaded with shooting talent, so Watts devoted himself to passing. Russell offered him a $19,000-a-year contract, paltry by N.B.A. standards.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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      Junior Bridgeman, N.B.A. Player Turned Mogul, Dies at 71

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      He became an entrepreneur during a solid career with the Milwaukee Bucks. He later bought hundreds of fast-food outlets, a Coca-Cola bottling business and Ebony and Jet magazines.Junior Bridgeman, who followed a strong N.B.A. career with a remarkable run as an entrepreneur, acquiring hundreds of fast-food restaurants, a Coca-Cola bottling business and a minority stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, his team for a decade, died on Tuesday in Louisville, Ky. He was 71.The cause was a cardiac event, a family spokesman said. Mr. Bridgeman had been talking to a reporter for a local television station during a charity event at the Galt House Hotel when he said he felt that he was having a heart attack, the spokesman said, and he was taken to a hospital, where he died.Mr. Bridgeman’s business success brought him a net worth of $1.4 billion this year, Forbes magazine said, putting him in “rare air alongside Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James as the only N.B.A. players with 10-figure fortunes.”Mr. Johnson, writing on X after the death, recalled that Mr. Bridgeman, a former small forward, had “one of the sweetest jump shots in the N.B.A.” Mr. Bridgeman, he added, had helped create a blueprint for “so many current and former athletes across sports that success doesn’t end when you’re done playing.”Mr. Bridgeman was not a major star during his 12 seasons in the N.B.A., 10 with the Bucks and two with the Los Angeles Clippers. But he stood out as a sixth man who provided a scoring boost off the bench for a Milwaukee team that largely excelled under Coach Don Nelson. From 1975 to 1987, Mr. Bridgeman averaged 13.6 points a game.Mr. Bridgeman on the bench during a game between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Bullets in the early 1980s. He played for the Bucks for a decade.Focus on Sport/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