Deaths (Obituaries)

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      Terry Donahue, Who Led U.C.L.A. to Bowl Victories, Dies at 77

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      Over 20 years, he had more wins than any football coach in the school’s history, including seven consecutive bowl championships.Terry Donahue, who became the face of football at U.C.L.A. as a player and coach, staying in the latter position for 20 years and leading the school to seven consecutive bowl-winning seasons in the 1980s, died on Sunday at his home in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 77.The cause was cancer, U.C.L.A. said.Donahue won more games than any other coach in the school’s and the Pac-12 Conference’s history, and he ended his career with a winning record against each of the conference’s teams, including the Bruins’ crosstown rival, the University of Southern California Trojans.Overall, he won 151 of the 233 games he coached, and 98 of those victories were in the Pac-10 (as the conference was known before adding two teams in 2011). His eighth and final win in a bowl came in the 1991 John Hancock Bowl.Donahue’s streak of bowl victories included Rose Bowl wins in ’83, ’84 and ’86. He was the first person to appear in the Rose Bowl as a player, an assistant coach and a coach.On the field, Donahue played in 1966 in U.C.L.A.’s first Rose Bowl victory. The team earned the nickname “Gutty Little Bruins” because nobody on the defensive line weighed more than 225 pounds. Donahue, a walk-on, weighed just 195 pounds.He brought the same overachieving spirit to his tenure as a coach. Some of U.C.L.A.’s best players in the Donahue era, like the future Hall of Famer Jonathan Ogden, came from regions far from California. The famed quarterback Troy Aikman transferred to U.C.L.A. from another college football program.Donahue talking to his quarterback John Barnes in 1992.Otto Greule Jr/Allsport, via Getty ImagesIn an article last year about how Donahue’s successors have not measured up to the standard he set, The Los Angeles Times attributed Donahue’s success to his being “a pioneer in national recruiting,” in part by having a scout “scour the country for talent.” N.F.L. teams chose 14 players from the Donahue era in the first round of professional drafts.In a 2011 interview with The Los Angeles Times, he discussed the level of commitment required to discover and woo young quarterbacks. “You need money, access to an aircraft if possible,” he said. “I went and got players from Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Texas, Oregon.”A news conference where Donahue announced his retirement in 1995 became a spectacle. The Los Angeles Times said that a U.C.L.A. spokesman prepared two news releases in case Donahue changed his mind. As he began to explain his decision, hundreds of reporters and friends “leaned forward at the same instant,” The Times reported.“I can’t believe I’m holding this press conference,” Donahue said. “What are you all doing here?”But he did retire. Twenty-five years later, The Times would write that the U.C.L.A. football program had been “tormented” since Donahue’s departure.Terrence Michael Donahue was born on June 24, 1944, in Los Angeles to Betty (Gantner) Donahue and Bill Donahue, a physician.He was a starting linebacker at his high school in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, but he struggled to establish himself in college, failing to gain a steady position at San Jose State and Los Angeles Valley College before getting a tryout at U.C.L.A. in 1964. He was taken on as a reserve lineman and worked his way up to starter.“Terry didn’t have a lot of ability, but he had a lot of character, high intelligence and seldom made a mistake,” Jerry Long, a former U.C.L.A. line coach, said.Donahue graduated from U.C.L.A. in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He also earned a master’s from the university in kinesiology in 1977.Donahue in 2013. He struggled to accept his own decision to retire as U.C.L.A.’s coach. “I can’t believe I’m holding this press conference,” he said during the announcement. “What are you all doing here?”Stephen Dunn/Getty ImagesHe got his start as a coach by asking a former mentor, Pepper Rodgers, to take him on as an unpaid assistant for the University of Kansas Jayhawks. When Rodgers became head coach at U.C.L.A., Donahue followed him. Rodgers’s successor, Dick Vermeil, left to coach the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976, and Donahue took over, even though he was in his early 30s.After leaving U.C.L.A., he worked in the front office of the San Francisco 49ers from 1999 to 2005.Donahue’s survivors include his wife of 52 years, Andrea (Sogas) Donahue; three daughters, Nicole, Michele and Jennifer; and 10 grandchildren.In 1976, Donahue’s first season coaching U.C.L.A., the Bruins went 9-2-1. An article in Sports Illustrated said he “may be the best young coach in the country.” Known to be relaxed and well tanned, Donahue was asked if he ever felt nervous.“We’re prepared and we’ve worked hard, so there’s nothing to worry about,” he told Sports Illustrated. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw up.” More

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      Jim Fassel, Who Coached the Giants to the Super Bowl, Dies at 71

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      He predicted that New York would make the playoffs when no one gave them much of a chance. Then they marched to the championship game, only to lose to the Ravens.Jim Fassel, who was a longtime architect of offensive schemes in the pros and collegiate football and reached the pinnacle of his career when he coached the Giants team that reached the 2001 Super Bowl, died on Monday in Las Vegas. He was 71.The Giants reported the death on their website. Fassel’s son John, the special teams coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys, told The Los Angeles Times that the cause was a heart attack.Fassel, who lived in the Las Vegas area for many years, told sportswriters in late November 2000 that he was “shoving my chips to the center of the table” in guaranteeing that his Giants team, 7-4 after a loss to the Detroit Lions, would reach the playoffs.“When I called the staff together the night before to tell them what I was going to say, they thought somebody on the staff was going to be fired,” he told The New York Times. “I just wanted to tell them what I was going to do, and the next day I did it.”The Giants won their last five games of the 2000 regular season, defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the playoffs and trounced the favored Minnesota Vikings, 41-0, in the National Football Conference championship game at Giants Stadium. Kerry Collins, one of the many quarterbacks Fassel worked with over the years, threw for five touchdowns, including two to Ike Hilliard and another to Amani Toomer, his prime wide receivers.Fassel was carried off the field by the linemen Michael Strahan and Keith Hamilton, mainstays of the Giants’ defense, along with the linebacker Jessie Armstead.The Giants’ co-owner Wellington Mara, responding to those who might have despaired over the team’s prospects late in the regular season, said: “Today we proved that we’re the worst team to ever win the National Football Conference championship. I’m happy to say that in two weeks we’re going to try to become the worst team to ever to win the Super Bowl.”Fassel on the sidelines during Super Bowl XXXV in 2001 in Tampa, Fla. The Giants made a surprising run through the playoffs but were defeated in the title game by the Baltimore Ravens. Barton Silverman/The New York TimesBut the Giants’ luck — chips or no chips on the table — ran out in January, when they were routed by the Baltimore Ravens, 34-7, in Super Bowl XXXV, the Giants’ first league championship matchup since they defeated the Buffalo Bills in the 1991 Super Bowl.Fassel was an assistant coach with the Giants in 1991 and 1992 and an offensive aide with the Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders and Arizona Cardinals later in the 1990s before he was named in 1997 to succeed Dan Reeves, the Giants’ head coach for the four previous years.He was named the N.F.L.’s coach of the year that season, when the Giants finished at 10-5-1. In December 1998, they upset the Denver Broncos, who came into the game at 13-0 behind the future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.Fassel announced in mid-December 2003 that he would resign at the end of the season, after a pair of losing campaigns that included a crushing loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the 2002 playoffs after the Giants held a 24-3 lead in the third quarter.The Giants went 58-53-1 in Fassel’s seven seasons as head coach and made the playoffs three times.He was a color commentator for Westwood One’s radio coverage of N.F.L. games in 2007 and 2008 and was later head coach of the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League.Fassel was interviewed by at least three N.F.L. teams for a head-coaching post after leaving the Giants, but he was passed over each time. He was an offensive coordinator for the Ravens in 2005 and 2006.Fassel at his home in Henderson, Nev., in 2011. He was named the N.F.L.’s coach of the year in 1997.Isaac Brekken for The New York TimesJames Edward Fassel was born on Aug. 31, 1949, in Anaheim, Calif. He was a quarterback at Anaheim High School, played for Fullerton College and was then the backup quarterback for Southern California’s undefeated Rose Bowl championship team of 1969. He later played for Long Beach State.He played for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League in 1973, then coached in the World Football League before returning to college football as an offensive coach for Utah; Weber State, also in Utah; and Stanford. He was head coach at Utah from 1985 to 1989.In addition to his son John, Fassel’s survivors include his wife, Kitty, four other children and 16 grandchildren.“Most people will remember his ‘guarantee’ from 2000, which was genius because if he was wrong he’d have been fired and it’d have been forgotten,” the former Giants running back Tiki Barber, who played for Fassel, wrote on Twitter after Fassel’s death. “When he was right, it became legendary.” More

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      Mark Eaton, Shot-Blocking Star for the Utah Jazz, Dies at 64

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      At 7-foot-4, Eaton was a two-time N.B.A. defensive player of the year, and his career shot-blocking average was the best in league history.Mark Eaton, the 7-foot-4 shot-blocking king who twice was the N.B.A.’s defensive player of the year during a career spent entirely with the Utah Jazz, died on Friday night in a bicycle accident near his home in Summit County, Utah. He was 64.The team said he had left his home for a bike ride, and shortly thereafter someone called 911 to report seeing him lying on a roadway and unconscious. He died at the hospital.The county sheriff’s office said, “It appears the man was riding a bicycle and crashed,” adding that there was no reason to believe a vehicle was involved.Eaton led the league in blocks per game four times, and his average of 5.6 per contest in 1984-85 remains the highest average since the N.B.A. started officially tracking that statistic. Eaton’s career blocks average of 3.51 per game is the best in league history, and his career happened almost by accident.Eaton blocking a shot by Otis Thorpe of the Houston Rockets. He credited Wilt Chamberlain with inspiring him to focus on defending the basket.Getty ImagesHe was working as an auto mechanic in 1977 when a community college basketball coach persuaded him to enroll. From there, he went to U.C.L.A., and his stint with the Jazz followed.“I had an unusual background,” Eaton said for a story published two years ago on the Jazz’s website. “It’s an unlikely story to be sure. I basically came into the N.B.A. with two years of junior college experience and sat on the bench at U.C.L.A. for two years. And Frank Layden gave me a chance and the team was in a space where they could afford to let me make some mistakes out there and get my feet underneath me. It worked out well for both of us.”The Jazz described him in a statement as an “enduring figure in our franchise history.”Eaton had been, among other things, a restaurateur and motivational speaker in his retirement.Mark Eaton was born on Jan. 24, 1957, in Inglewood, Calif. Information on survivors was not immediately available.In recent years, he served as a mentor to Jazz center Rudy Gobert — the only other player in the team’s history to win the defensive player of the year award.His 11 playing seasons with the Jazz are third most in team history, behind the longtime Utah cornerstones Karl Malone and John Stockton. Eaton’s durability was noteworthy, with him once appearing in 338 consecutive games. He finished with career averages of 6.0 points and 7.9 rebounds.Eaton shooting against Nate Johnston of the Portland Trailblazers. He spent his entire N.B.A. career with the Utah Jazz.Getty ImagesBut his best skill was defending the rim, and he once told a story about how Wilt Chamberlain offered him advice about his career. He shared the tale during a motivational speech, telling others that Rule No. 1 for success is to “know your job.”“Wilt grabbed me by the arm, took me out on the floor, positioned me right in front of the basket,” Eaton said. “He said, ‘You see this basket? Your job is to stop players from getting there. Your job is to make them miss their shot, get the rebound, throw it up to the guard, let them go down the other end and score, and your job is to cruise up to half-court and see what’s going on.’”“When Wilt shared that with me, everything changed,” he said. “I understood what I needed to do. I understood what I could be great at. Wilt showed me what my job was, and how doing what I did would benefit my team.”Eaton’s No. 53 was one of the first jerseys retired by the Jazz.He was the defensive player of the year in 1984-85 and 1988-89, was a five-time All-Defensive team selection — three first-team nods, two second-team picks — and was an All-Star in 1989. He retired in September 1994. More

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      Pete Lammons, Who Helped the Jets Win ’69 Super Bowl, Dies at 77

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      After his football career, he bred racehorses and competed in professional fishing tournaments. He died after falling out of a boat in East Texas.Pete Lammons, the tight end for the Jets team that stunned the pro football world with a victory over the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl, died on Thursday in a boating accident at a professional fishing tournament in East Texas. He was 77 and had been living in Houston.Major League Fishing, the sponsor of the tournament, said that Lammons, who was participating in the event, had fallen out of his boat on the Sam Rayburn Reservoir, a popular spot for bass fishing, and that the other man in the boat tried to rescue him. A team equipped with sonar recovered Lammons’s body a few hours later.Lammons’s nephew Lance Lammons told The Jacksonville Progress newspaper of East Texas that he had appeared to be fatigued after receiving two heart stents. Lammons had competed in more than 50 Major League Fishing tournaments over the years.He played for the Jets from 1966 to 1971, spending his first four seasons with them when they played in the American Football League, which struggled to survive in the shadow of the long established National Football League.The Jets were losers in the early years of the A.F.L., which was founded in 1960. Then came the arrival of their charismatic quarterback Joe Namath in 1965.Lammons in 1967. In his seven pro seasons, he caught 185 passes for 2,364 yards and 14 touchdowns.Associated PressLammons caught a touchdown pass from Namath in the Jets’ 27-23 victory over the Oakland Raiders in the 1968 A.F.L. championship game that set up their January 1969 Super Bowl III matchup against the N.F.L.’s Colts, who were heavy favorites.He caught an 11-yard pass from Namath in the Super Bowl that was followed by Jim Turner’s field goal, giving the Jets a 13-0 lead. They held on for a 16-7 victory.The Jets said on their website that Weeb Ewbank, who coached them to their Super Bowl triumph, had called Lammons and his wide receiver teammates George Sauer Jr. and Don Maynard “the finest trio of receivers in pro ball to throw to.”Lammons called Ewbank “an outstanding coach as long as you got accomplished what he wanted.”“He kept it pretty simple,” he said in 2019 of Ewbank. “It was blocking and tackling.”After playing for three seasons with the University of Texas, Lammons was selected by the Jets in the eighth round of the 1966 A.F.L. draft and by the Cleveland Browns in the 14th round of the N.F.L. draft. Choosing the A.F.L., he played in the league’s All-Star Game after the 1967 season.Lammons, at 6 feet 3 inches and 230 pounds, became a mainstay of a Jets offense that featured Namath’s passing along with the running of Emerson Boozer and Matt Snell. He concluded his pro career with the 1972 season with the Green Bay Packers.Lammons with Joe Namath, left, in 1969. Weeb Ewbank, the Jets coach, called Lammons, George Sauer Jr. and Don Maynard “the finest trio of receivers in pro ball to throw to.”Associated PressIn his seven pro seasons, he caught 185 passes for 2,364 yards and 14 touchdowns.Peter Spencer Lammons Jr. was born on Oct. 20, 1943, in Crockett, Texas, about 115 miles north of Houston. He played football for Jacksonville High School, also in East Texas, and then played for the University of Texas from 1963 to 1965. He caught 47 passes for 706 yards and five touchdowns for the Longhorns, who were ranked No. 1 for the 1963 season.Apart from his nephew, a listing of Lammons’s survivors was not immediately available.After retiring from football, Lammons worked in real estate and partnered with Jim Hudson, his former Texas and Jets teammate at defensive back, in the thoroughbred business, breeding and racing horses.In January 2010, when Texas was getting ready to play Alabama at the Rose Bowl for the Bowl Championship Series national title, Lammons remembered how his Longhorns had defeated the Crimson Tide, 21-17, in the New Year’s Day 1965 Orange Bowl game, when Alabama was top-ranked and had Namath as quarterback and Texas was ranked No. 5.Lammons, playing at end and linebacker, intercepted a pass by Namath, caught two passes, one setting up a score, and recovered a fumble.“Best game of my life, a career day,” he told George Vecsey of The New York Times.For the moment, Lammons had skipped over another great day at the Orange Bowl stadium, at least for the Jets, when they pulled off their astonishing upset of the Colts in Super Bowl III. More

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      Bobby Leonard, Hall of Fame Basketball Coach, Dies at 88

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      He coached the Indiana Pacers for 12 seasons and took them to three A.B.A. titles. The governor of Indiana called him “the embodiment of basketball.”Bobby Leonard, an All-American guard for Indiana University’s 1953 N.C.A.A. basketball champions who later coached the Indiana Pacers to three American Basketball Association championships, died on Tuesday. He was 88.Leonard’s family said in a statement that he had experienced many ailments in recent years, but they did not provide the cause of death or say where he died. He had been living with his wife, Nancy (Root) Leonard, in suburban Indianapolis.Leonard was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2014 for taking the Pacers to A.B.A. titles in 1970, 1972 and 1973. He coached the team for 12 seasons, eight in the A.B.A. and four in the N.B.A. after the two leagues merged.“He has meant as much as anyone in the state of Indiana when it comes to the game of basketball,” Mike Woodson, who played for Indiana University in the late 1970s and became its head coach this season after many years in the N.B.A., said in a statement. “He played the game with great flair. He coached with undeniable passion.”Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana called Leonard “the embodiment of basketball.”Leonard was known as Slick. A 6-foot-3-inch guard, he was a fine playmaker in his seven seasons in the N.B.A. But his nickname wasn’t derived from his savvy on the court.As he once told the story to Carmel magazine, an Indiana monthly, while playing for the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950s he was involved in a game of gin rummy with the team’s star center, George Mikan, on a preseason bus trip. “I blitzed him,” Leonard recalled, “and one of the players said that I was too slick. It stuck.”Leonard was an analyst and color commentator on Pacers broadcasts for some 35 years, beginning on television in 1985 and later moving to radio. He injected a colorful note with his exclamation “Boom, baby!” after an Indiana player hit a three-point shot.William Robert Leonard was born in Terre Haute, Ind., on July 17, 1932, one of three children of Raymond and Hattie Leonard. His father dug ditches during the Depression. “We used to stand in commodity lines, and they would give you a few cans of food and some flour,” he recalled in “Boom, Baby! My Basketball Life in Indiana” (2013, with Lew Freedman).Leonard was an outstanding basketball and tennis player in high school and then played for three seasons at Indiana University. His free throw with 27 seconds remaining gave the Hoosiers a 69-68 victory over Kansas in the 1953 N.C.A.A. championship game. He was named a third-team All-American in 1953 and a second-team All-American in 1954 by The Associated Press and was chosen for Indiana University’s all-century team.Leonard was selected by the original Baltimore Bullets as the 10th pick in the 1954 N.B.A. draft, but the Lakers obtained his rights in a dispersal draft later that year when the Bullets franchise folded. After serving in the Army, he joined the Lakers in 1956. He played for them for four seasons in Minneapolis and one season, 1960-61, after they moved to Los Angeles.His best season came in 1961-62, when he averaged a career-best 16.1 points and 5.4 assists with the expansion Chicago Packers. He was a player-coach in 1962-63 with Chicago, which had changed its name to the Zephyrs.When the team moved to Baltimore and became the Bullets (the second franchise by that name) in the 1963-64 season, he was the full-time coach. But he resigned after posting a losing record.Leonard watched as a banner in his honor was hung during halftime of a game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis in October 2014, shortly after he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.Aj Mast/Associated PressLeonard’s Pacer teams won 529 games and lost 456. He was voted the A.B.A.’s all-time most outstanding coach by a national sportswriters and broadcasters association.A banner at the Pacers’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse honors Leonard with the number 529.In addition to his wife, Leonard’s survivors include five children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.The Pacers and three other A.B.A. teams that joined the N.B.A. before the 1976-77 season were stymied by financial burdens imposed by the league — essentially the cost of their entry. Leonard and his wife turned to TV to boost ticket sales.“If it weren’t for Slick, this franchise wouldn’t be here,” the Boston Celtics’ Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird, who had played for Indiana State in Terre Haute and later was a coach and president of basketball operations for the Pacers, told The New York Times in 2000. “I can remember in 1977, he had a telethon. I can remember being glued to the TV watching him. He was singing ‘Back Home in Indiana,’ trying to do everything to sell season tickets. I know the history behind the Pacers, and most of the history is Slick Leonard.” More

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      Howard Schnellenberger, College Coach Who Built Winners, Dies at 87

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      After assembling the formidable offense for the unbeaten 1972 Miami Dolphins, he breathed new life into football programs at two universities.Howard Schnellenberger, who built the offense for the 1972 Miami Dolphins’ unbeaten Super Bowl champions, then revived downtrodden football programs as head coach at the Universities of Miami and Louisville, died on Saturday. He was 87.His death was announced by Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, whose football program he had created. The university did not say where he died or give the cause.Brash and supremely confident and a distinctive figure on the sidelines, usually wearing a sports jacket and tie and sporting a bushy mustache, Schnellenberger was eager to defy the odds.And he was very much the taskmaster.“Football is the last place, outside of the military, where we have an opportunity to develop the proposition that the team is more important than the individual,” he told Sports Illustrated after putting his 1995 Oklahoma Sooners — the third of four college teams he coached — through a grueling spring workout.Schnellenberger was the offensive coordinator under Coach Don Shula for the 17-0 Dolphins of 1972, assembling a unit featuring Bob Griese and Earl Morrall at quarterback, Larry Csonka at fullback, Mercury Morris at running back and Paul Warfield at wide receiver.He embarked on his collegiate head-coaching career in January 1979, when the Miami Hurricanes hired him to take over a football program that was in disarray. Two weeks earlier, Lou Saban, the latest of several head coaches Miami had gone through in the 1970s, had suddenly departed for Army.Schnellenberger watching his Florida Atlantic University team run drills in 2008. He coached Florida Atlantic to a bowl game in his fourth season there.J. Pat Carter/Associated PressIn his five seasons with the Hurricanes, Schnellenberger focused on recruiting players from Florida high schools, proclaiming that “the State of Miami,” delineated by an imaginary line that ran from Tampa eastward, would be the northern boundary of his prime recruiting territory. And he installed professional-type offensive and defensive schemes.The rebuilding program reached its pinnacle when quarterback Bernie Kosar (who was from Ohio) led the Hurricanes to an 11-1 record and a No. 1 ranking for the 1983 season, capped by a 31-30 victory over the previously undefeated Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.After posting a 41-16 record at Miami, Schnellenberger left in 1984 for a prospective head-coaching post in the short-lived United States Football League. But that deal collapsed, and in 1985 he returned to Louisville, where he had grown up, to coach the Cardinals.He said he was unfazed by the challenge of reviving a football program that had long been in the shadow of the school’s basketball squads.“We’re on a collision course with the national championship,” he said at his introductory news conference. “The only variable is time.”He coached Louisville to a pair of bowl victories, most notably a 34-7 rout of Alabama in the 1991 New Year’s Day Fiesta Bowl, the climax of a 10-1-1 season.Schnellenberger became the head coach at Oklahoma in 1995. But the Sooners went only 5-5-1, and he resigned.He retired after that, but Florida Atlantic University hired him in 1998 to raise funds for the creation of a football program. He began recruiting players as the head coach a year later, and his first team took the field in 2001, in Division 1-AA. Florida Atlantic transitioned to the higher Division 1-A in 2004 and won the 2007 New Orleans Bowl and the 2008 Motor City Bowl at that level.Howard Leslie Schnellenberger was born on March 16, 1934, in Saint Meinrad, Ind. He was of German-American descent. His father was a truck driver, and his mother worked in a munitions plant during World War II. He played for Kentucky under Bear Bryant and Blanton Collier, as an end, and was named a first-team All-American by The Associated Press in 1955. He was an assistant coach under Collier at Kentucky in 1959 and 1960 and under Bryant at Alabama from 1961 through 1965. Schnellenberger’s wife, Beverlee, bronzed a pair of shoes that she said he had worn during every game he coached from 1959 to 1972.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesSchnellenberger recruited Joe Namath and Ken Stabler for the Crimson Tide. When he went to Beaver Falls, Pa., to induce Namath to play for Bryant, he once told The Sun Sentinel of South Florida, “a three-day recruiting trip turned into 10 days,” since Namath and his family took some persuading.“I was out of money and had to buy him a plane ticket to return with me,” he recalled. “I wrote a bad check to Eastern Airlines to get both of us to Alabama.”When Stabler asked Schnellenberger to bring a small gift for his mother when he was wooing Stabler for Bryant, Schnellenberger recalled, “I took his mom a fifth of bourbon.”Schnellenberger was an offensive coach on Bryant’s national championship Alabama teams of 1961, ’64 and ’65. He became the receivers coach for George Allen’s Los Angeles Rams in 1966, then was hired by Shula as the Dolphins’ offensive coordinator in 1970.Coming off the Dolphins’ unbeaten season, he was named the Baltimore Colts’ head coach in 1973. But after the Colts went 4-10 and then got off to an 0-3 start the next season, he was fired. He was the Dolphins’ offensive coordinator again from 1975 to 1978.Schnellenberger with the Peach Bowl trophy after Miami beat Virginia Tech in 1981.Joe Sebo/Associated PressSchnellenberger had a career record of 158-151-3 as a collegiate head coach. He was 6-0 in bowl games, coaching Miami, Louisville and Florida Atlantic to two bowl triumphs apiece. He retired a second and final time after Florida Atlantic’s 2011 season.He is survived by his wife, Beverlee; his sons Stuart and Timothy; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. His son Stephen died in 2008.Miami and Florida Atlantic met for the first time in August 2013. The Hurricanes won, 34-6, with Schnellenberger and players from his 1983 Miami team on hand to mark the 30th anniversary of their national championship season. Schnellenberger was both a winner and a loser at that 2013 matchup: He was the honorary captain for both teams. More

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      Tony Murray, Moral Support for a Gay N.B.A. Player, Dies at 60

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      Mr. Murray, along with his husband, helped their nephew Jason Collins become the first player in the league to come out publicly. He died of Covid-19.This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.When Jason Collins stepped onto the court on Feb. 23, 2014, as a member of the Brooklyn Nets, it was a historic event: He was the first openly gay player in the National Basketball Association, and this was his first time in uniform since he had come out.Among the thousands cheering him on in Los Angeles, in a game against the Lakers, were his uncle, Mark Collins, and Mark’s husband, Tony Murray. “Congratulations,” they said to Mr. Collins over drinks after the game. “We love you.”They were more than just supportive family members. Mr. Collins and Mr. Murray married in 2013, the same year Jason Collins came out in a cover story in Sports Illustrated. In that article, and in many other places, he talked about how important his uncles were to him as examples of gay men — and, as he began to tell people about his sexuality, how valuable they were as guides and advisers.“For a confused young boy,” Mr. Collins wrote, “I can think of no better role model of love and compassion.”They also paved the way for Jason to come out to his family by showing them that gay men were nothing to be afraid of. Some relatives had difficulty accepting that Mark Collins was gay — until they met Tony.“I think once we saw how Mark and Tony were, the love they had for each other, we knew Mark was going to be fine,” Mr. Collins, who played for six teams in a 13-year N.B.A. career, said in a phone interview.Mr. Murray died on March 16 at a hospital in Valley Stream, N.Y. He was 60. The cause was Covid-19, Mark Collins said.Antoine Murray was born on Nov. 16, 1960, in Philadelphia. His father, William Murray, was unemployed; his mother, Phyllis (Turner) Murray, worked as an office clerk at a supermarket.Along with his husband and nephew, he is survived by his sisters Cynthia and Darlene and his brothers William and Brian.Mr. Murray graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a degree in communications and received a master’s in education from West Chester University in Pennsylvania.While in college he interned at WCAU, a TV station in Philadelphia, and was later hired there as a mail clerk. He rose steadily, becoming its manager of community relations.It was that job, which involved a heavy dose of educational outreach, that took him to an educators’ conference in Philadelphia in 1995. Also in attendance was Mr. Collins, who is a social worker for the Hempstead, N.Y., public schools.The two began a long-distance relationship, visiting each other and taking trips to explore their respective home states. They both loved casinos, and traveled to Atlantic City and Las Vegas.They loved food, too. Along with vacations to foodie-friendly cities like New Orleans, Mr. Murray cooked for them at home, lavishly and often. His tastes were eclectic, but he had a spot for making huge spreads of soul food.“When he cooked, he always cooked for 30 people,” Mark Collins said. “He didn’t know how to cook in small portions.”After Mr. Murray moved to New York in the mid-2000s to work in administration for the YMCA, the couple settled in the Far Rockaway section of Queens. There they would host neighborhood barbecues on their front lawn, with Mr. Murray essentially catering the whole spread. He became one of the most popular people in the neighborhood, Mark Collins said.Jason Collins played center for the Brooklyn Nets in a game against the Toronto Raptors in 2014. “Tony was so proud of Jason,” Mark Collins said of his husband. Kathy Kmonicek/Associated PressBoth Jason and Mark Collins described Mr. Murray as an old soul, relaxed and somewhat reserved, committed to his Baptist faith but adamant in defense of gay rights.Mr. Murray and Mr. Collins marched every year in the New York City Pride parade, and in 2013 they traveled to Boston to join Jason Collins in his first Pride march. The basketball player was there at the invitation of Rep. Joe Kennedy III, his former college roommate, who was leading a contingent in the parade.His uncles smiled as the crowd cheered for Jason.“It was a beautiful day,” Mark Collins remembered. “Tony was so proud of Jason. He was just humbled by the whole experience.” More

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      Elgin Baylor, Acrobatic Hall of Famer in N.B.A., Dies at 86

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      Foreshadowing the likes of Michael Jordan, he was a star with the glamorous Lakers and was voted to the all-N.B.A. team for the league’s first 50 years.Elgin Baylor, the Lakers’ Hall of Fame forward who became one of the N.B.A.’s greatest players, displaying acrobatic brilliance that foreshadowed the athleticism of later generations of stars, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 86.His death, at a hospital, was announced on Twitter by the Lakers. The team did not specify a cause.In his 14 seasons with the Lakers, first in Minneapolis but mostly in Los Angeles, with another pair of Hall of Famers, Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, as teammates, Baylor played with a creative flourish that had never been seen in pro basketball.He was only 6 feet 5 inches — relatively short for a forward even then — but he played above the rim when he soared toward the basket. His ability to twist and turn in midair on his way to the hoop previewed the freewheeling shows put on by stars like Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James.When Baylor arrived in the N.B.A. in 1958, an All-American out of Seattle University, the pros usually scored on one-handed set shots or running hooks. Baylor added a new dimension.“You could not stop Elgin from driving to the basket,” the Hall of Fame guard Oscar Robertson recalled in his autobiography “The Big O” (2010), adding, “You sure couldn’t out-jump him, or hang in the air any longer than he did.”“Elgin,” Robertson wrote, “was the first and original high flier.”Baylor’s sturdy 225-pound frame complemented his finesse. He could muscle his way to the basket, and he followed up his missed shots by maneuvering to score over bigger players. He was also an outstanding rebounder and passer.Baylor driving to the hoop against Tom Sanders of the Boston Celtics, the Lakers’ perennial nemesis, in the 1962 championship series. Boston won, as it so often did against the Lakers. Associated PressBaylor was voted to the all-N.B.A. team for the league’s first 50 years. He was a 10-time N.B.A. first-team All-Star selection and averaged more than 30 points a game for three consecutive seasons in the early 1960s.He set a league record by scoring 64 points against the Boston Celtics in November 1959, then scored 71 against the Knicks in November 1960, only to see Chamberlain score 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors against the Knicks in March 1962.Baylor joined with West and later with Chamberlain to turn the Lakers into a glamour team. He played in eight N.B.A. final series, but the Lakers lost seven times to the Celtics in the Bill Russell era and then to the Knicks in a memorable Game 7 at Madison Square Garden in 1970.He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977.But Baylor had little success when he turned to coaching and front-office positions. He coached three losing teams with the New Orleans Jazz (now the Utah Jazz) in the 1970s and later spent 22 mostly frustrating seasons as the general manager of the Los Angeles Clippers.In the days when the N.B.A.’s TV coverage was limited, Baylor had never viewed a pro game before he played in one.“I had never seen anyone else do my moves,” he told Terry Pluto in the N.B.A. oral history “Tall Tales” (1992). “It starts with talent; you have to be able to jump. But more than that, things I did were spontaneous. I had the ball, I reacted to the defense.”And he had a nervous facial twitch that sometimes made defenders think he was setting off in one direction only to find him heading the other way.As the center Johnny Kerr put it, “You didn’t know if it was a head fake or what was going on.”Baylor, second from right, as coach of the New Orleans Jazz in 1979. With him, from left, were Kent Benson of the Milwaukee Bucks and Tommy Green and Jimmy McElroy of the Jazz.Associated PressElgin Gay Baylor was born in Washington on Sept. 16, 1934. He was a high school basketball star, then played for one season at the College of Idaho and two seasons at Seattle University, leading his team as a senior to the 1958 N.C.A.A. tournament final, a loss to Kentucky.The Minneapolis Lakers selected Baylor as the league’s overall No. 1 pick in the 1958 draft. He took them to the 1959 N.B.A. final series, where he averaged nearly 25 points a game in a losing cause, the Lakers being swept by the Celtics. He was named rookie of the year.The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960, the year West arrived to provide an outside game to go with Baylor’s all-around skills.Baylor was eventually hampered by knee surgery that diminished his spring, but he remained an offensive force. He retired after his injuries limited him to two games in 1970-71 and just nine at the outset of the 1971-72 season, when the Lakers went on to defeat the Knicks for the championship.“Winning that championship was marred for me by the sad, conspicuous absence of Elgin Baylor,” West recalled in his memoir “West by West” (2011), written with Jonathan Coleman. “The guy that shared all the blood, sweat and tears wasn’t there to realize what it felt like.”Baylor averaged 27.4 points and 13.5 rebounds for his career and played in 11 All-Star Games.He was fired as the Jazz coach in 1979. He became the head of basketball operations for the Clippers, essentially their general manager, in 1986.The Clippers made the playoffs only four times in Baylor’s tenure, which ended before the 2008-09 season opened. The Clippers said he had resigned, but he filed a lawsuit in March 2009 against the Clippers’ owner, Donald T. Sterling, and the N.B.A., maintaining that he had been fired as a result of age and racial discrimination.The lawsuit contended that Sterling had described Baylor as “a token” and that he had wanted the team to be composed of “poor black kids from the South” with a white head coach. The N.B.A. was accountable, according to the suit, because league officials knew of a large salary disparity between other general managers and Baylor, an African-American.A jury decided in the Clippers’ favor, concluding that Baylor had lost his job because of the team’s poor showings.But in April 2014, the N.B.A. imposed a lifetime ban on Sterling shortly after a recording obtained by TMZ caught him making racist comments in a conversation with a female acquaintance. The team was sold to the businessman Steve Ballmer in August 2014.Baylor is survived by his wife, Elaine; a daughter, Krystal; two children from a previous marriage, Alan and Alison; and a sister, Gladys Baylor Barrett.Long after Baylor’s playing days ended, his reputation endured.Tom Heinsohn, the Hall of Fame forward on Celtic teams that bested Baylor’s Lakers, marveled at his feats.“Elgin Baylor as forward beats out Bird, Julius Erving and everybody else,” Heinsohn told Roland Lazenby in his biography “Jerry West” (2009), referring to the Celtics’ Larry Bird. “He had the total game: defense, offense, everything, rebounding, passing the ball.” (Heinsohn died in November at 86.)Bill Sharman, the Celtics’ sharpshooting guard who coached Baylor in his brief, final season, was even more succinct, telling The Los Angeles Times back then, “Elgin Baylor is the greatest cornerman who ever played pro basketball.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More