Deaths (Obituaries)

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      in Golf

      Lee Elder, Who Broke a Golf Color Barrier, Dies at 87

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      In his prime he played in a league for Black players, but in 1975, at 40, he became the first African American to take part in the Masters tournament.Lee Elder, who became the first African American golfer to play in the Masters tournament, a signature moment in the breaking of racial barriers on the pro golf tour, died on Sunday in Escondido, Calif. He was 87.The PGA Tour announced the death but provided no other details.When Elder teed off at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia in April 1975, he was 40 years old. Years earlier, in his prime, he played in the United Golfers Association tour, the sport’s version of baseball’s Negro leagues. The PGA of America, the national association of pro golfers, accepted only “members of the Caucasian race,” as its rules had spelled out, until 1961.Elder was among the leading players on the UGA tour, which over the years also featured such outstanding golfers as Ted Rhodes, Charlie Sifford, who was the first Black player on the PGA Tour, and Pete Brown while offering comparatively meager purses.Elder first played regularly on the PGA Tour in 1968, and that August he took Jack Nicklaus to a playoff at the American Golf Classic in Akron, Ohio, losing in sudden death.“The game of golf lost a hero in Lee Elder,” Nicklaus said in a statement on Monday.The Masters, played annually at Augusta National, had no clause barring Black golfers, but unofficially it remained closed to them. With the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, it came under pressure to integrate its ranks.The tournament eased a bit in 1971 by announcing that any player who subsequently won a PGA Tour event would automatically qualify for it. Elder came close, finishing second in the Texas Open and losing a playoff to Lee Trevino in the Greater Hartford tournament in 1972.But those performances did not persuade the Masters to bend its new rule and accord Elder a spot. Elder broke through after capturing the 1974 Monsanto Open at the Pensacola Country Club in Florida, where six years earlier he and other African American PGA Tour members playing there had been refused entrance to the clubhouse. They had to dress in a parking lot.That victory finally brought the 1975 Masters invitation. In the run-up to the tournament Elder received death threats. He rented two houses near the Augusta National course and moved between them as a security measure.When he teed off for his first shot, a huge crowd lined the fairway. “I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to tee off without killing somebody,’” he told The New York Times in 2000, wryly reflecting on the pressure he faced.Elder at the Masters in 1975. Black employees of the Augusta National Golf Club lined the 18th fairway when he played it. “I couldn’t hold back the tears,” he said.Leonard Kamsler/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesHis shot off the first tee was straight down the middle, but he ended up far back in the field in the first two rounds, shooting 74 and 78, and missed the cut to continue to play through the weekend by four strokes. He received a fine reception from the galleries, though.“The display from the employees of Augusta National was especially moving,” Elder told Golf Digest in 2019. “Most of the staff was Black, and on Friday, they left their duties to line the 18th fairway as I walked toward the green. I couldn’t hold back the tears. Of all the acknowledgments of what I had accomplished by getting there, this one meant the most.”Elder played in the Masters six times, his top finish a tie for 17th place in 1979. He won four PGA Tour events and finished second 10 times, playing regularly through 1989 and earning $1.02 million in purses. He also played for the U.S. team in the 1979 Ryder Cup. He joined the PGA Senior Tour, now the Champions Tour, in 1984 and won eight times, earning more than $1.6 million. He won four tournaments overseas.Elder and his first wife, Rose Harper, created a foundation in 1974 to provide college scholarships for members of families with limited incomes. He promoted summer youth golf development programs and raised funds for the United Negro College Fund.In 2019, he received the United States Golf Association’s highest honor, the Bob Jones Award, named for the co-founder of the Masters and presented for outstanding sportsmanship.Elder in November 2020 at the Augusta club after he was named an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRobert Lee Elder was born on July 14, 1934, in Dallas, one of 10 children. His father, Charles, a coal truck driver, was killed during Army service in Germany in World War II when Lee was 9. His mother, Almeta, died three months later.Elder caddied at an all-white club in the Dallas area, earning tips to help his family, then went to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. He worked as a caddy again and dropped out of high school to pursue a career in golf, at times touring the Southwest as a “hustler,” winning private bets against players who had no idea how good he was.At 18, after playing against the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, an avid golfer, Elder became a protégé of Rhodes, who was Louis’s golf instructor.Following two years in the stateside Army, Elder joined the United Golfers Association tour in 1961. In one stretch of 22 consecutive tournaments, he won 18.Gary Player, the South African native and one of golf’s greatest international golfers, invited Elder to play in his country’s Open and PGA championships in 1971, having received permission from the prime minister. Black people mingled with white in the crowd at what became the first integrated golf tournament in South Africa since the adoption of apartheid in 1948.Elder’s survivors include his second wife, Sharon, with whom he lived in Escondido. He returned to Augusta National in 1997 to watch Tiger Woods win the Masters by a record-setting 12 strokes, becoming the first African American golfer to win one of golf’s four major tournaments.Elder with Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus, right, during the opening ceremony of the 2021 Masters tournament in April. They were honorary starters. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters“Lee Elder came down, that meant a lot to me,” Woods said afterward. “He was the first. He was the one I looked up to. Charlie Sifford, all of them. Because of them, I was able to play here. I was able to play on the PGA Tour. When I turned pro at 20, I was able to live my dream because of those guys.”On April 8 this year, Elder became the first Black player to take part in a decades-old Masters tradition, joining Nicklaus and Player as that year’s honorary starters, who strike the tournament’s ceremonial first shots. Though he brought his clubs with him, arthritis in his knees left him without enough stability to take a shot.But he received a standing ovation. The ceremony, he said, “was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever been involved in” and “something I will cherish for the rest of my life.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

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      in Tennis

      Jane Brown Grimes, a Rare Female Force in Tennis, Dies at 80

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      She was a top executive at three organizations, including the International Tennis Hall of Fame, where she was later inducted.Jane Brown Grimes, who as one of the rare women executives in tennis in her time modernized the International Tennis Hall of Fame, ran the rule-making body of women’s tennis and was president of the United States Tennis Association, died on Nov. 2 at her home in Manhattan. She was 80.The cause was cancer, her daughter, Serena Larson, said.“Jane did everything behind the scenes,” Chris Evert, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, said in an interview. “She didn’t crave attention and quietly went about her work. Not a lot of women tennis players know what she did, because she was under the radar.”In 1989, Mrs. Brown Grimes, as managing director of the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council, which governed women’s tennis, headed talks that led to a change in title sponsorship of the women’s tour — from Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand marketed to women, to Kraft General Foods. Both were owned by Philip Morris (now the Altria Group).Anti-tobacco activists, as well as some players, had for years demanded that women’s tennis move on from its tobacco sponsorship, the financial backbone of the tour since the early 1970s, to one that promoted a healthier lifestyle.“Jane was a very strategic, intelligent leader, and she was clear that the council had to move away from tobacco,” said Anne Worcester, who was director of worldwide operations for the Virginia Slims series and succeeded Mrs. Brown Grimes as the council leader in 1991.Pam Shriver, who won 132 titles in her career, acknowledged in an interview that “there were no apologies for Virginia Slims being a sponsor.” But, she added, “By the time Jane was in a key position to make a change, she made it happen.”Mrs. Brown Grimes speaking to Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, widow of the tennis star Arthur Ashe, during a match in 2008 at the U.S. Open in Flushing, Queens. The Ashes’ daughter, Camera, is on the left.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg NewsJane Trowbridge Gillespie was born on Jan. 20, 1941, in Freeport, N.Y., on Long Island. Her father, Samuel Hazard Gillespie, was a litigator who served as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1959 to 1961. Her mother, Ruth (Reed) Gillespie, was the head librarian at the Collegiate School in Manhattan.In her youth, Jane played on her grandparents’ clay tennis court on Long Island and regularly attended the United States National Championships at Forest Hills, Queens — the precursor to the U.S. Open — with her family. She reveled in watching stars like Althea Gibson, Margaret Court, Tony Trabert and Maureen Connolly.“They were my movie stars,” she told The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., in 2009. “They were my idols.”She studied history at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and received a bachelor’s degree in 1962. After working as a fact checker for Life magazine and then for a documentary filmmaker, she joined the Manhattan office of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.Starting as an event planner, she became a fund-raiser before rising to executive director of the Hall of Fame in 1981, a post she held until 1986. Working mainly from its Manhattan office, she helped raise money to rehabilitate buildings at the Hall, in Newport, R.I., and was the director of tournaments held on its grounds.After leaving to join the women’s tennis council, Mrs. Brown Grimes returned to the Hall as president in 1991 and stayed through 2000, overseeing the acquisition of tennis memorabilia critical to the Hall’s historical mission and continuing the renovations.She was elected to the board of the United States Tennis Association in 2001 and then rose through its ranks to become volunteer chairman and president in 2007. The second woman to hold that position, she served through 2008. During her two-year tenure she particularly championed youth programs and was involved in the U.S.T.A.’s acquisition of the Western & Southern Open.“Jane was one of the few who paved the way for other women to have leadership roles in tennis,” Ms. Worcester said.Mrs. Brown Grimes was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her sons, Jim Schwarz and Ames Brown; her brother, Sam Gillespie; and five grandchildren. Her marriage to Marshall Schwarz ended in divorce, and her marriages to Ames Brown and Charles Grimes ended with their deaths.Ever curious, Mrs. Brown Grimes continued her education well into her later years. She earned an M.B.A. degree from Baruch College in Manhattan in 2012, then used her knowledge of tennis to earn a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge in 2015.Her thesis was about the 1986 Federation Cup tournament in Prague, which marked Martina Navratilova’s return to her homeland for the first time since defecting to the United States in 1975 from what was then Czechoslovakia. Mrs. Brown Grimes had attended the tournament.“When it was over and the U.S. had won, Martina was given a big microphone and started her speech in English, but within about 10 seconds she switched into Czech and the place went nuts,” Mrs. Brown Grimes said in an interview with Steve Flink of Tennis.com this year. “Her mother was sitting in front of me, and down a ways, and she was in tears.”When she died, Mrs. Brown Grimes had nearly finished her dissertation in history at Cambridge — about women’s tennis during the Open era, after tournaments were open to professionals and not just amateurs in 1968. More

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      in Tennis

      Budge Patty, Elegant Tennis Champion of the 1950s, Dies at 97

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      Known for his style as much as his forehand volley, he was one of only three Americans to win the French and Wimbledon men’s singles in the same year.Budge Patty, one of only three Americans to win the French and Wimbledon men’s singles tennis championships in the same year and a glamorous figure on the international tennis scene of the 1950s, died on Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was 97.The International Tennis Hall of Fame announced his death, in a hospital, on Friday. He had lived in Europe for more than 70 years and at his death resided in Lausanne.Patty honed his skills as a teenager at the Los Angeles Tennis Club and won the United States junior championship in 1941 and ’42. But he settled in Paris after World War II and played mostly on the Continent and in Britain.He was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1950, when he defeated Jaroslav Drobny, the Czech defector, in five sets to win the French championships, then needed only four sets to defeat Frank Sedgman of Australia in the Wimbledon final. Don Budge, in 1938, and Tony Trabert, in 1955, are the only other American men to have won the singles titles at both of those Grand Slam tournaments in one year. (Trabert died in February at 90.)Known for an outstanding all-around game but especially for a strong forehand volley, Patty was usually in the top 10 in the world rankings between 1947 and 1957 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., in 1977.But he played sporadically in the United States Nationals at Forest Hills, Queens, never advancing beyond the quarterfinals in singles, and he did not compete in the Australian championships.Patty with Frank Sedgman of Australia after defeating him in the men’s finals at Wimbledon in 1950. His “perfect manners and exquisite tennis style made him a Wimbledon idol for 15 years,” one author wrote. Associated PressPatty was almost invariably described as handsome, elegant and a fashionable dresser. In late July 1950, anticipating Patty’s appearance at Forest Hills in a quest for a third major triumph that year, Allison Danzig, the longtime tennis writer of The New York Times, noted how Gussie Moran had created a sensation wearing a short skirt and lace-trimmed underwear at Wimbledon. “Now men’s tennis has its glamour boy,” he wrote.“Budge Patty has had them swooning on the French Riviera these past few years,” Danzig continued, adding, “It wasn’t fair, that anyone so tall and handsome, with that je ne sais quoi which defies translation but compels capitulation, should spend all of his time on the Continent when he had a good home in California.”But any fans at Forest Hills inclined to swoon over Patty were disappointed. He hurt his ankle playing doubles at Newport in mid-August and was unable to compete in the United States Nationals later that summer.John Edward Patty was born on Feb. 11, 1924, in Fort Smith, Ark. His family moved to the Los Angeles area when he was young.According to the Hall of Fame, he got his nickname when a brother, considering him lazy, called him Budge to make the point that he often failed to do just that.After winning two junior championships, Patty entered the Army Air Forces during World War II. He captured the singles championship at a tournament held for Allied servicemen on the French Riviera in September 1945. Three years later, he made Paris his home.He had a French-born grandmother and an Austrian grandfather, and once remarked how “even as a child I knew I’d like Europe.”Budge attended the 2016 French Open in Paris with his wife, Maria, whom he married in 1961.Henri Szwarc/Sipa, via Associated PressPatty teamed with Pauline Betz to win the 1946 mixed doubles in the French championships and then lost to Frank Parker in the 1949 French singles final before capturing it the following year.He played in every French and Wimbledon tournament from 1946 to 1960. “Budge Patty’s perfect manners and exquisite tennis style made him a Wimbledon idol for 15 years,” E. Digby Baltzell wrote in his book “Sporting Gentlemen” (1995).His most memorable match was a marathon duel with Drobny in the third round of the 1953 Wimbledon championships.Lasting nearly four and a half hours over five sets and 93 games, it ended past 9 p.m. in the fading light when Patty succumbed after squandering six match points.“I could hardly see a thing, and I was so tired I barely knew where I was,” he told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2000, recalling the final moments.At age 33, Patty teamed with 43-year-old Gardnar Mulloy to win the 1957 Wimbledon men’s doubles championship, stunning the Australians Lew Hoad and Neale Fraser, who were in their early 20s.Remaining an amateur for his entire career, Patty won 46 singles championships.He married Maria Marcina Sfezzo, the daughter of a Brazilian engineering magnate, in 1961. She survives him along with two daughters, Christine and Elaine Patty.In an interview with The Times in 1958, Patty, at the time playing four or five months a year while working for a Paris travel agency and enjoying life in Europe, said he did not expect to compete into his 40s.World-class players who did so had never “smoked, drank or gone to bed later than 10 o’clock,” he said. “Me, I’ve preferred to enjoy life.”But 50 years after his double triumph in Grand Slam tournaments, Patty bristled at how he had been depicted in the sports pages.“Tennis players then are like tennis players now,” he told The Telegraph in 2000. “If they see someone wearing a tie, they think he’s strange. It was like, ‘Wow, Budge is wearing a tailored jacket — he must be a secret agent.’ It was ridiculous. I never took any notice.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

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      in Football

      Rudy Riska, the Heisman Trophy’s Guiding Light, Dies at 85

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      For over 40 years he oversaw the awarding of the prestigious trophy to the nation’s top college football player and helped winners on their “magic carpet ride” in New York.Rudy Riska, who first glimpsed the Heisman Trophy on its pedestal at the Downtown Athletic Club in Lower Manhattan when he was a boy, and who years later became the invaluable guide, counselor and mentor for the young men who won it, died on Sept. 12 in a Brooklyn hospital. He was 85.His daughter Elizabeth Briody said the causes were dementia and pneumonia.For more than 40 years, the self-effacing Mr. Riska ran the organization at the club that awarded the Heisman to the year’s outstanding football player. He oversaw the itinerary of the winners and encouraged them to think seriously about what they would say in their acceptance speeches. He bought tickets to Broadway shows for their families, made reservations at top restaurants and organized the annual Heisman dinner in Manhattan, which drew as many as 2,000 guests.Mr. Riska developed that job as the athletic director of the Downtown Athletic Club, the trophy’s longtime home. He had noticed that no one was supervising the winner’s activities when he was in Manhattan for the award ceremony.“They were just college kids plucked from their campuses and suddenly flown to New York,” he told The New York Times in 2010. “They were often unsophisticated kids. Most had never played on national television. Many had never been on an airplane until they flew to New York. Their heads were spinning.”In 1961, Mr. Riska accompanied the Syracuse halfback Ernie Davis to meet President John F. Kennedy at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, while toting the 45-pound bronze trophy. Four years later, Mr. Riska threw passes at Battery Park to Mike Garrett, the University of Southern California halfback, who wanted to work out.“I realize how much power he had,” said Desmond Howard of the University of Michigan, seen here with Mr. Riska when he won the Heisman in 1991, “but he never put it on display.” Barton Silverman/The New York Times“I got there and Rudy put his arm around me and the rest was like a magic carpet ride,” Eddie George, the Ohio State running back who won the Heisman in 1995, told The Times. “And that was what Rudy wanted. He wanted every winner to remember his weekend forever.”Mr. Riska worked entirely behind the scenes — fans watching the televised annual ceremony would not likely have known his name or face — but the winners understood his importance.“I realize how much power he had, but he never put it on display,” Desmond Howard, the 1991 Heisman winner, said by phone. “When everyone defers to you, you must have power, but he carried himself as someone who served you and took care of all your needs.”Rudolph James Riska was born on Aug. 22, 1936, in Manhattan to Rudolph and Elizabeth (Marecek) Riska. His mother cleaned offices. His family lived for a while near the Downtown Athletic Club, in the financial district, and when he was 11 his father took him to see the Heisman.“I stared at the names engraved on the trophy,” he told The Times. “How lucky can a guy be to end up in a job where those names come to life and they become your friends?”His athletic focus as a youngster was baseball, not football. He threw a no-hitter for Metropolitan High School, which attracted the interest of the Yankees, who signed him to a contract. He played on low-level minor league teams in the Yankee system from 1955 to 1958 and the Baltimore Orioles’ system in 1959. At the Aberdeen, S.D., affiliate of the Orioles, his manager was Earl Weaver, the Orioles’ future Hall of Famer. He compiled a 36-33 record, but chronic bursitis ended his career.“What I think I have been able to do,” Mr. Riska once said, “is guide and protect the Heisman from people who might try to make money the wrong way on it. I like to view myself as the conscience of the Heisman.”Barton Silverman/The New York TimesHe went to work as a salesman for the sporting goods company Rawlings, but after two years he accepted a job with the Downtown Athletic Club. He was soon named to the post of athletic director, the position that John Heisman, the trophy’s namesake, held there until his death in 1936.As athletic director, Mr. Riska developed fitness and sports programs for club members and created events that honored renowned athletes. But it was as the executive director of the Heisman Trophy Trust and the Heisman Foundation that he was largely known.“What I think I have been able to do,” he told The Bay Ridge Paper in 2003, “is guide and protect the Heisman from people who might try to make money the wrong way on it. I like to view myself as the conscience of the Heisman.”He retired in 2004, three years after the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath led the club to close permanently. The trophy, which is awarded by a vote of members of the sports media and past winners, was moved to various locations and is now held at the Heisman Trust’s office in Manhattan.In addition to his daughter Elizabeth, Mr. Riska is survived by his wife, Josephine (Karpoich) Riska, known as Lorraine; another daughter, Barbara Piersiak; and four grandchildren.For a time, 15 or 20 of the past Heisman winners who traveled to New York City for the annual anointing of the newest winner took time off during the weekend to commemorate their achievements at a Blarney Stone bar near the club.“People might have been looking for them, but I’d let them go off by themselves for a couple of hours,” Mr. Riska told The Times. “They would let their hair down with their wives, rubbing shoulders with these blue-collar construction workers. It was a collection of some of the best college football players ever. But they just wanted to hang out with a regular crowd.” More

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      in Soccer

      Jimmy Greaves, English Soccer Star, Is Dead at 81

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      He was the first player to lead scoring in England’s top league for three straight seasons, but he may be best known for one game he missed: the 1966 World Cup final.Jimmy Greaves, one of the greatest goal scorers in English soccer, has died. He was 81.Tottenham Hotspur, where he played for nine years, announced his death on Sunday but did not say where he died or cite the cause.Greaves suffered a minor stroke in 2012. His family thought he had made a full recovery, but he had a more severe stroke in 2015.An all-around striker as adept with his head as he was with either foot, Greaves scored 44 goals in just 57 matches for England.But even though he was the first player to lead scoring in England’s top league for three straight seasons, he may be best known for one game he missed: the World Cup final.Greaves was England’s star striker going into the 1966 tournament on home soil. But he was injured in a first-round match against France and surrendered his place in the lineup to Geoff Hurst.Hurst scored the only goal in England’s quarterfinal win over Argentina and kept his place on the team at the expense of Greaves. Hurst earned lasting fame by scoring the first hat trick in a World Cup final; Greaves famously sat impassively on the bench as England celebrated their 4-2 win over West Germany at the final whistle.Substitutions were not permitted at the time and squad members didn’t receive medals, as they have at World Cups since 1974. A campaign by fans led to the presentation of medals to Greaves and 10 other members of the squad, known as the “forgotten heroes,” in 2009. Greaves sold his 18-carat medal at auction in 2014 for £44,000 (about $60,000).“It was devastating for me that I didn’t play in the final,” Greaves said in 2009. “I always believed that we would win the World Cup and I’d be part of it, but I wasn’t.”Greaves in 2013. After his soccer career ended, he moved into television.Action Images/Action ImagesJames Peter Greaves was born on Feb. 20, 1940, in East London. He began playing for Chelsea when he was 17.At 20 years and 290 days, he became the youngest player to tally 100 league goals in English soccer. He scored 41 times, a club record, in the 1960-61 season to secure a lucrative move to A.C. Milan.He scored nine goals in 12 games with Milan but did not settle in Italy, instead ending his brief stay to return to London with Tottenham, where he would spend the next nine years and score 266 goals in 380 games, a club record.Tottenham’s manager, Bill Nicholson, paid £99,999 for Greaves — to spare him the pressure, he said, of being England’s first 100,000-pound player.The move apparently worked: Greaves scored a hat trick in his opening match, a 5-2 win over Blackpool, and helped Tottenham retain the Football Association Cup.In 1963, he scored twice in a 5-1 win over Atletico Madrid in the European Cup Winners Cup, a victory that made Tottenham the first British side to win a European trophy. He was the first division’s leading scorer — a feat he would repeat in 1964, 1965 and 1969.Greaves switched to West Ham in 1970, traded for his former England teammate Martin Peters. He retired at the end of the season with a record total of 357 goals in 516 league matches.He made a brief comeback for the nonleague club Barnet in 1978, but soon quit again and moved into television. He was a presenter of the long-running Saturday show “Saint and Greavsie” in Britain with the former Liverpool player Ian St. John.Information on survivors was not immediately available. More

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      in Football

      Mick Tingelhoff, Vikings Hall of Fame Center, Dies at 81

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      He started in 240 consecutive games and played in four Super Bowls, providing pass protection for quarterback Fran Tarkenton.Mick Tingelhoff, the Hall of Fame center who started in 240 consecutive games in his 17 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings and who played in four Super Bowls, died on Saturday at an assisted living facility in Lakeville, Minn. He was 81.The cause was Parkinson’s disease with dementia, his wife, Phyllis, said.Tingelhoff, who played at center and linebacker for three seasons at the University of Nebraska, wasn’t selected in the N.F.L.’s 1962 draft. But the Vikings signed him, envisioning him as a linebacker.They shifted him to center in their second preseason game, and he became an anchor of their offensive line. He was selected for the Pro Bowl in six consecutive seasons and named a first-team All-Pro five times in the 1960s. Listed at 6 feet 2 inches and 237 pounds, he was quick on his feet and tough enough to block burly defensive linemen.When Tingelhoff retired after the 1978 season, he ranked No. 2 in N.F.L. history for starting in consecutive games, behind his teammate Jim Marshall’s 270 straight starts at defensive end. The current record is held by quarterback Brett Favre, who started in 297 consecutive games. Tingelhoff and quarterback Philip Rivers, who retired after the 2020 season, are tied for No. 3.“Mick and Jim were our two leaders,” Bud Grant, who coached the Vikings of Tingelhoff’s time, told The Star Tribune of Minneapolis when Tingelhoff was selected for the Hall in 2015 in the senior category, for players who had been retired for many years.“It’s hard for me to talk about Mick without Marshall, and Marshall without Mick. Mick was an introvert. Jim was an extrovert. They were different personalities, but really respected and our best players. If I said, ‘Jump,’ they would be the first ones to jump and everybody else would have to jump with them.”Tingelhoff (53) protecting quarterback Fran Tarkenton (10) during Super Bowl IX in New Orleans in 1975.Harry Hall/Associated PressTingelhoff played on an offensive line that helped the Vikings claim 10 divisional titles from 1968 to 1978. He provided pass protection for Fran Tarkenton, the scrambling quarterback, and he opened holes for running back Chuck Foreman, who had three consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons (1975-1977). He took on opponents’ middle linebackers, most notably Joe Schmidt of the Detroit Lions, Ray Nitschke of the Green Bay Packers and Dick Butkus of the Chicago Bears.He played on teams that lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the January 1970 Super Bowl, the Miami Dolphins in 1974, the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1975 and the Oakland Raiders in 1977.Tarkenton, a Hall of Famer, spoke on Tingelhoff’s behalf at his 2015 Hall of Fame induction in light of his cognitive problems. “Mick’s a man of little words but a lot of action,” said Tarkenton, who choked up and shed tears. The emotional ceremony was attended by many of Tingelhoff’s former teammates, his wife and other family members and friends.While it’s not clear why Tingelhoff had to endure a lengthy wait to gain entrance to the Hall, in Canton, Ohio, the center position is not a glamour spot and he never won a Super Bowl championship ring.Henry Michael Tingelhoff was born on May 22, 1940, in Lexington, Neb., the youngest of six children of Henry and Clara (Ortmeier) Tingelhoff. He grew up on a family farm and played at center and linebacker for Lexington High School, but his parents never attended his games.“Dad thought football was a waste of time,” Tingelhoff recalled in 2015. “They weren’t real happy that I got a scholarship to Nebraska. They wanted me to stay on the farm.”In addition to his wife, Phyllis (Kent) Tingelhoff, he is survived by their sons Michael and Patrick, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.After leaving pro football, Tingelhoff worked in commercial real estate.Bud Grant called him “one of the greatest Vikings of all time.” More

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      in Football

      Sam Cunningham Dies at 71; Fostered Integration on the Football Field

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      As one of three Black players in the U.S.C. backfield, he led the team to a stunning win in 1970 over Coach Bear Bryant’s all-white Alabama. He would go on to star for the New England Patriots.Sam Cunningham, a fullback for the integrated University of Southern California football team that in 1970 trounced Coach Bear Bryant’s all-white Alabama squad, died on Tuesday at his home in Inglewood, Calif. He was 71.His wife, Cine (Ivery) Cunningham, confirmed his death but did not cite a cause.Cunningham, a sophomore, was playing his first game for U.S.C. on Sept. 12, 1970, at Legion Field in Birmingham. For the Trojans it was a journey into the Deep South to a state that had been governed, and would be again, by the fiery segregationist George C. Wallace.Cunningham, whose nickname was Bam, formed an all-Black backfield with the quarterback Jimmy Jones and the tailback Clarence Davis. Cunningham, a backup player, was the game’s unexpected star, running for 135 yards on 12 carries and scoring two touchdowns in the Trojans’ 42-21 victory.For Alabama, it was a humiliating loss on the way to a 6-5-1 record — but it was also a lesson to Bryant that his Crimson Tide would falter in the future without Black players. He knew that already, having recruited Wilbur Jackson, a running back. But as a freshman, Jackson was not allowed to play for the varsity and watched the game at the stadium.Cunningham called the game a “tipping point” in the struggle for civil rights in sports. He told the U.S.C. athletics website in 2016 that it showed “that things should be equal on the football field as they should be in all other parts of life, but that’s not always the case.”The next year, Jackson and John Mitchell, a defensive end, integrated the Alabama team, which went 11-1 (including a win over U.S.C.). The team’s only loss was to Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.Richard Lapchick, a human-rights activist and the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, said Bryant knew he needed to recruit Black players to stay competitive.In a phone interview, Lapchick said that Bryant had confided in Eddie Robinson, the longtime coach of the historically Black Grambling State University in Louisiana, about the impact of his team’s loss to U.S.C.“Eddie told me how often Bear talked to him about what the game meant,” Lapchick said, “and what Sam meant to his ability to integrate.”By 1977, Alabama had 17 Black football players on scholarship.Samuel Lewis Cunningham Jr. was born on Aug. 15, 1950, in Santa Barbara, Calif. His father was a railroad worker. His mother, Zoe (Ivory) Cunningham, died when he was young; he was raised by his father and stepmother, Mabel (Crook) Cunningham, a nurse.Sam and his brothers, Anthony, Bruce and Randall, a future quarterback with the Philadelphia Eagles and three other N.F.L. teams, were all athletic. Sam was introduced to organized sports in elementary school, where he played basketball, baseball, volleyball and flag football.He was recruited by Coach John McKay to U.S.C. and, in his three seasons on the team, gained 1,579 yards on 337 carries. He scored four short-yardage touchdowns in the Trojans’ 42-17 victory over Ohio State in the 1973 Rose Bowl, which wrapped up a 12-0 season. That year’s team was ranked No. 1 in college football.Cunningham was selected by the New England Patriots with the 11th overall pick in the 1973 N.F.L. draft. In his nine seasons with the team, he accumulated 5,453 rushing yards, including 516 in his first season, a Patriots rookie record, and 1,015 in 1977, making him the second Patriot to exceed 1,000 yards in a season. He sat out the 1980 season in a contract dispute, which prompted the Patriots to trade him to the Miami Dolphins. But he failed the team’s physical and returned to the Patriots shortly before the 1981 season.“Sam ‘Bam’ Cunningham was one of my favorite players throughout the ’70s, and my sons all loved him,” the Patriots’ owner, Robert Kraft, said in a statement. “After I bought the team in 1994, it was my honor to welcome him back to the team on multiple occasions, recognizing him as a 50th-anniversary team member and again for his induction into the Patriots Hall of Fame.”Cunningham became a landscape contractor after his playing career ended.In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughter, Samahndi Cunningham; and his brothers.Cunningham joined Jones and Davis in the backfield early in the first quarter of that historic 1970 game against Alabama.“I didn’t go into any game looking to change history, even though history has a tendency to be changed by things of that nature,” he told The Santa Barbara Independent this year. “I always tried to play to the best of my ability, and that’s what I did that evening. I was put in the right spot and got touched by the hand of God.” More

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      Keith McCants, Football Star Laid Low by Drugs, Dies at 53

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      At one time the N.F.L.’s highest-paid defensive player, he left the league after six seasons and fell into a spiral of addiction, homelessness and desolation.In N.F.L. parlance, Keith McCants was a “can’t miss.” A relentless and powerful athlete, he was a first-team all-American linebacker at Alabama and was drafted fourth overall in 1990 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His success seemingly guaranteed, the team made him the highest-paid defensive player in the league.But McCants soon became known by a less flattering N.F.L. moniker: “draft bust.” Days after being chosen by the Buccaneers, he had knee surgery. A year later, he had to learn a new position when he was moved from linebacker to defensive end. The injuries and frustrations mounted as he tried to meet people’s outsized expectations.His promise unfulfilled, the Buccaneers released McCants after three years. He spent three more seasons with the Houston Oilers and Arizona Cardinals before he left the league, his money and celebrity diminished. What remained was an overpowering addiction to painkillers, and eventually to other drugs, that consumed the rest of McCants’s life and turned him into a cautionary tale.After decades of drug abuse, numerous arrests, dozens of surgeries and years living on the street — all punctuated by brief stretches of sobriety — McCants was found dead early Thursday morning at his home in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 53.The cause appeared to be a drug overdose, but Amanda Sinni, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, said the department was awaiting a report from the medical examiner’s office.In and out of rehabilitation and eager to share his story to warn others away from drugs, McCants all but predicted his demise in 2015, when he was interviewed by The New York Times.During six seasons in the N.F.L., Keith McCants became addicted to painkillers, and later went to jail, lived on the street and battled depression. He was interviewed by The New York Times in this 2015 video.Josh Ritchie for The New York Times“I live one day at a time; I’m a recovering addict,” he said. “Tomorrow’s not promising. If I die today or tomorrow, I’m all right with that because I’m comfortable with me. My goal is to help people who can’t help themselves, to turn their negatives to positives, to give them hope. That’s what I sell.”McCants did not just talk about his struggles with substance abuse. He pointed the finger squarely at the N.F.L. Coaches, he said, pushed players to perform without regard to their long-term health. Team doctors handed out painkillers like candy to mask injuries and get players on the field. And when players were unable to perform, he said, the league turned its back and focused on younger replacements.“I will continue to tell the truth, how they got me hooked on drugs,” he said. “I feel it’s my duty as a retired player to explain the difference between being hurt and being injured.”McCants in a game against the Indianapolis Colts in 1992, when he was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was with Tampa Bay for three seasons before being released, his promise unfulfilled.Scott Halleran/Allsport, via Getty ImagesAlvin Keith McCants was born on April 19, 1968, in Mobile, Ala. His father abandoned him when he was young; he was raised by his stepfather, James Turner, who worked for the city, and his mother, Cinderella Turner, a cook. He is survived by two sons, Keith Jr. and David; two daughters, Aysha and Kera; two brothers, Robert and Anthony; and two sisters, Angie and Denise. He was married and divorced twice.Widely scouted while at Murphy High School in Mobile, McCants enrolled at Alabama, home to one of the country’s premier football programs. He left for the pros after his junior year, a bold but contentious step at the time. He said he opted out of his senior year because he did not want to risk further injuries that might shorten his career, and because he needed to provide for his family while he could.Some experts predicted that McCants could have been chosen first overall in the draft; he was ultimately picked fourth, one slot ahead of Junior Seau, a linebacker from the University of Southern California who played for 20 years and was elected posthumously to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2015. Seau killed himself in 2012 and was later found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head.The Buccaneers had losing records each of McCants’ three years in Tampa, which heightened the scrutiny of his performance and his paychecks. (He received a record $2.5 million signing bonus as part of a five-year $7.4 million deal.) McCants lived the life of a celebrity player, spending freely. He said that he was preyed upon by financial advisers and others and lost $17 million.He played in 88 games in his career and recorded 13.5 quarterback sacks and one interception.After he left the N.F.L., McCants, who studied criminal law in college, became the first Black marine police officer in Alabama when he joined the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. He joked that he found it hard to arrest people because they often recognized him from his playing days and said they were fans of his.Yet the power of his addiction proved strong. He lived on the street in Tampa for two years in the early 2000s, worked as a pimp and drug dealer, and spent time in jail, where he once tried to hang himself. He spent stretches in numerous rehabilitation facilities, only to succumb to drugs again once he got out, as he recounted in his 2018 memoir, “My Dark Side of the N.F.L.”In recent years, seemingly at peace with his fate, he tried to warn others by talking about his financial troubles, his run-ins with the law and the pain — emotional as well as physical — that he buried with drugs.“I’m not too much worried about Keith McCants,” he said. “I’m more worried about the people that’s coming after Keith McCants.” More