Goodbye to Morgan Wootten at the age of 88.
Wootten was the all-time winningest high basketball coach when he retired in 2002 (Wootten was passed by Robert Hughes in 2005) from DeMatha High in Hyattsville, Maryland.
Wootten had been mentioned many times as a coach that even standouts such as Red Auerbach and John Wooden were listed as admirers of Wootten abilities.
Wootten's DeMatha teams were consistently ranked with the best in the nation and DeMatha would place over a dozen players in the NBA, including Adrian Dantley, Kenny Carr, Danny Ferry, and Sidney Lowe along with coaching the current host of The NFL Today, James Brown.
DeMatha often tussled with Baltimore Dunbar for the best team in the DMV area and I remember watching Lefty Driesell's coaches show on Saturday mornings and listening to a voice-over ad for the perennial "city title" (even though they didn't play in the same city) game which almost always matched DeMatha and Dunbar.
Wootten was often mentioned in various coaching searches for major college positions, most notably Georgetown before the Hoyas hired John Thompson Sr. and was actually offered the job at North Carolina State in 1980 after Norm Sloan left to coach Florida.
Wootten has a short appearance in the ESPN 30 for 30 on the 1983 Wolfpack that details the offer and after Wootten turned the Wolfpack down, their second choice was hired- Jim Valvano.
Wootten reportedly only coveted one job that would have made him leave DeMatha- the head job at Maryland, but Wootten was never offered the Terrapins head job as in 1969 Maryland AD Jim Kehoe told then-Davidson coach Lefty Driesell that if he didn't accept the job at Maryland on the same night that North Carolina's Charlie Scott had just beaten Davidson at the buzzer in the Elite Eight that Kehoe was going to offer the job to Wootten.
Wootten was the choice of many Maryland fans and alumni to replace Driesell in 1986 after the Len Bias tragedy, but Wootten wasn't even given an interview as Maryland Chancellor John Slaughter hired another high school coach in Dunbar's Bob Wade on the word of rival Georgetown's coach John Thompson.
Wootten would have a popular choice, while Wade was not as he was known to pull his Dunbar players away from Maryland and towards Georgetown, due to his dislike of Driesell and friendship with Thompson.
Wade's tenure would be a disastrous three-year run that saw Wade win 36 of 86 games and place the program on NCAA probation for illegal benefits and lying to the NCAA.
Slaughter's decision is still puzzling in hindsight, can you imagine Michigan's chancellor going to Ryan Day for advice on hiring Michigan's football coach?
Goodbye to Chris Doleman at the age of 58.
Doleman, who made eight Pro Bowls, spent his best years with the Minnesota Vikings and might be best known for his terrorizing of Joe Montana in the Vikings 36-24 surprise of the top-seeded San Francisco 49ers in the 1987 playoffs.
Doleman finished with two sacks but was so devastating in his pass rush in that upset that in the middle of the game, San Francisco coach Bill Walsh was forced to take Joe Montana out of the game uninjured in favor of the lefthanded Steve Young simply because the righthanded Montana couldn't see Doleman coming.
Doleman finished the 1989 season with an NFL record 21 sacks, a record which stood until Jared Allen broke the record by one sack in 2011 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2012.
Goodbye to Willie Wood at the age of 83.
Another member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Wood was the free safety on all five of Vince Lombardi's championship teams in Green Bay.
Wood was a first or second all-pro in nine of his eleven seasons and made the Pro Bowl on eight occasions as he spent his entire career with the Packers.
Wood finished his career with 48 interceptions, which is second in Packer history and after his playing career ended following the 1971 season, Wood would become the head coach of the Philadelphia Bell in the abbreviated second season of the World Football League.
Wood would also coach the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL for a season and a half in 1980 and 1981 before being fired after an 0-10 start in 1981.
Wood was the first black head coach in CFL history during his stint with the Argonauts.
Goodbye to Dwight "Dynamite" Davison at the age of 64.
One of the few Detroit contenders of the 70s and 80s that wasn't connected with Emanuel Steward's Kronk Gym, Davison was a top middleweight contender and twice was at the doorstep of receiving a title shot against champion Marvin Hagler before losses prevented the Hagler fight from happening.
Davison defeated rugged Curtis Parker, who was undefeated at the time and former title challenger and 1972 Olympic gold medal winner Sugar Ray Seales to move into either the top or second-ranked contender position, depending on if you preferred Davison or Mustafa Hamsho for the spot.
Davison then was outboxed by the unheralded Robbie Epps and dropped in the rankings before rising again with a win over Wilford Scypion.
The decision over Scypion moved Davison into a WBC eliminator against Tony Sibson in England with the winner fighting Hagler next, but Sibson walked down a surprisingly meek Davison to win a decision.
Davison never contended again, although he did score an eighth-round knockout over fellow Detroit native and future IBF super-middleweight champion Lindell Holmes in Las Vegas.
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