Goodbye to Al Attles at the age of 87.
Remembered by most for coaching the Golden State Warriors (in some of the loudest 1970s outfits ever) to the 1975 NBA title with a four-game sweep of the favored Washington Bullets.
Attles spent his entire career with the Philadephia/Golden State Warriors after being drafted in the fifth round in the 1960 draft from North Carolina A&T.
Attles played eleven years for the Warriors as a defensive specialist and point guard and was the Warriors player-coach for the final two seasons of his playing career.
Attles later served as the team's general manager and assistant coach and served the organization in various roles for over sixty years.
Goodbye to Richie Sandoval at the age of 63.
Sandoval was a member of the 1980 Olympic boxing team that boycotted the games due to the decision of then-President Jimmy Carter to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
Sandoval won his first twenty-two fights before upsetting long-reigning and future hall-of-famer Jeff Chandler for the WBA bantamweight title with a fifteenth and final round knockout in 1984.
Sandoval defended the title one time but his problems making weight led to him fighting his next four fights at featherweights in non-title fights.
Sandoval was weight-drained and took several attempts to make the weight in a title defense against Gaby Canizales in March 1986 on a pay-per-view card headlined by Marvin Hagler's final successful title defense over John "The Beast' Mugabi.
Sandoval was viciously knocked down five times in seven rounds with the final knockdown causing Sandoval to lose consciousness for three minutes and eventually needing life-saving brain surgery.
Sandoval was offered lifetime employment by his promoter, Top Rank, on the condition that he never fight again, to which Sandoval agreed and never fought again.
Goodbye to Kevin Long at the age of 69.
Long was the first player to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season in South Carolina history, accomplishing this in 1975.
After being selected by the Jets in round seven in 1977, Long spent five seasons with the Jets with 1978 as his career season, rushing for 954 yards and ten touchdowns.
Long moved to the USFL in 1983, spending all three seasons with the franchise that was in Chicago as the Blitz in 1983, the Western Conference champion Arizona Wranglers in 1984, and the league's final season in Arizona with the merged Wranglers/Oklahoma Outlaws.
Long rushed for over one thousand yards for both the Blitz and Wranglers in his seasons with those teams.
Goodbye to Joe Schmidt at the age of 92.
A Hall of Fame linebacker for the Detroit Lions, Schmidt played thirteen seasons, winning the two most recent NFL championships for the franchise (1953 and 1957), made ten Pro Bowls, and was named All-Pro eight times.
Schmidt was named the Lions head coach in 1966, just one season after retiring, and would be the Lions head man until being fired after the 1962 season.
Schmidt finished with a record 43-34-7 with the Lions and made the playoffs in 1970.
Schmidt was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973.
Goodbye to Al McCoy at the age of 91.
The voice of the Phoenix Suns for fifty-one seasons, McCoy was the final NBA commentator to have his game calls simulcasted for radio and television as the league would no longer allow simulcasts in the mid-2000s and his Phoenix tenure is the longest in NBA history for a commentator.
McCoy is the only radio commentator who I would put in the same class as Cleveland's Joe Tait, as the elite of the business.
McCoy moved to the Phoenix market before the creation of the Suns franchise as the voice of the AAA baseball Phoenix Giants and would work for the Arizona Diamondbacks for the first four seasons of the Diamondbacks' existence.
Goodbye to Mercury Morris at the age of 77.
The three-time Pro Bowl running back won two Super Bowl rings with the Miami Dolphins and for the 17-0 1972 Dolphins, Morris led the NFL in rushing touchdowns, rushed for exactly 1,000 yards, and with Larry Csonka, the duo became the first set of teammates to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
Morris finished his career with an average of 5.1 yards per carry which ranks in the top ten in NFL history as of this writing.
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