Cleaning out the inbox: Passings

The cycle of life never stops and neither does the tributes that we pay to the lives that have recently left us.

Goodbye to Bob Armstrong at the age of 80.
Armstrong spent most of his time in the southeastern territories (mostly in the Georgia, Alabama, and Pensacola areas) over his long career as a top babyface, although not always as the top one in the area as Georgia used him near the top, but not as their number one on that side of the roster.
Armstrong's best remembered run on the national stage was on WTBS in the early 1980s when Armstrong was involved in a program with the then-announcer Roddy Piper as the pair delivered a studio brawl on the Georgia Championship Wrestling show.
Armstrong also served as the on-screen commissioner for Smoky Mountain Wrestling and would team with his sons, Brad, Scott, Steve, and Brian, who is better known as the Road Dog, often during their careers.
Armstrong was the straight-talking (almost always 'good guy' with one exception) wrestler that could get fired up, but unless riled was the even-keeled every man that people knew in real life was a good person, but look out when his temper was riled.
The days of wrestling being populated with Bob Armstrong types are long past and the business is the weaker for it- he'll be missed.


Goodbye to Lute Olson at the age of 85.
Olson's tenure at Arizona resulted in the program's only national championship in 1997 and two other trips to the final four in 1994 and 2001 as Olson built the Wildcats into a national power during his twenty-four years in Tucson.
Arizona won twenty games or more for twenty years in a row, averaged just under twenty-five wins during his tenure, and after missing the NCAA's in his first year, the Wildcats would make the final twenty-three tournaments under Olson.
Before Olson took over at Arizona, he spent nine seasons at Iowa and took the Hawkeyes to their most recent final four in 1980, and in his first college job, Olson replaced Jerry Tarkanian at Long Beach State and spent one season with the 49ers, where Long Beach finished 24-2, ranked as high as third in the country, but was ineligible for the NCAA tournament due to probation from the Tarkanian era.


Goodbye to Clifford Robinson at the age of 53.
Robinson, who was called Clifford by some to differentiate himself from the 1980s, Cliff Robinson, played eighteen years in the NBA for five teams, but mostly with Portland.
"Uncle Cliffy" was named to the All-Star team in 1994 and ranks in the top ten in six career categories with the Trail Blazers while averaging over twenty points per game three times during his Blazer years.
The 6'11 Robinson was an excellent defender and a surprisingly good shooter for a big man during an era when centers rarely shot deep from the outside.
Robinson was also a key building block at the beginning of the Connecticut Huskies turnaround under Jim Calhoun as Robinson helped Connecticut to the 1988 NIT championship.


Goodbye to Jean-Baptiste Mendy at the age of 57.
Mendy held the WBA and WBC lightweight titles on two different occasions in the late 1990s.
Mendy won the vacant WBC title with an upset win over Lamar Murphy in 1996 before dropping the title in his next fight to Stevie Johnston.
Mendy would return to championship status with another surprise win in 1998 over Oruzbek Nazarov for Nazarov's WBA title and defended that title once before a 1999 loss to Julien Lorcy.
Mendy would fight three times in his native France before retiring in 2000.