The sports world mourned the loss of many legends in 2023. We remember them here for their contributions to the games - and our enjoyment of them - through the years.

January

Jan. 1 - Art McNally, 97, was the first on-field official inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022. He started as a field judge in the NFL in 1959 and was promoted to referee in 1960. After eight seasons, he became the league's supervisor of officials, a position he held until 1991. As the league grew in stature, he's widely credited with making sure officials' training and professionalism grew in tandem. He's also known as "The Father of Instant Replay."

Jan. 9 - Virginia Kraft Payson, 92, was the only woman among the first group of writers hired by Sports Illustrated magazine when it launched in 1954, covering outdoor pursuits like hunting, fishing, and dog training. In the 1970s, she and her second husband became prominent thoroughbred horse breeders and owners in Kentucky.

Jan. 11 - Charles White, 64, was a star running back at USC, won a national championship in 1978, and the Heisman Trophy in 1979. He remains the Trojans' career rushing yards leader. He played eight seasons in the NFL but only eclipsed 1,000 yards once, his All-Pro season with the Rams in 1987.

Jan. 12 - Gerrie Coetzee, 67, was a uniquely popular boxer with both whites and Blacks in apartheid South Africa. He was the first African boxer to win a world title when he knocked out Michael Dokes in the 10th round in 1983 to claim the WBA heavyweight belt. He lost the belt 15 months later in his first defense when Greg Page knocked him out at the end of a controversial eighth round that may have lasted more than three minutes.

Jan. 15 - Gino Odjick, 52, played 12 seasons in the NHL, primarily with Vancouver where he was beloved as an enforcer on teams coached by Pat Quinn and Rick Ley in the 1990s. Originally from Quebec, he worked with Indigenous communities in B.C. following his playing career.

Jan. 20 - Sal Bando, 78, played 16 seasons in the major leagues as a third baseman. Captain Sal was a member of the 1972-74 Oakland A's who won three consecutive World Series. He was a four-time All-Star and finished second to teammate Vida Blue in MVP voting in 1971.

Jan. 26 - Billy Packer, 82, covered 34 straight Final Fours and was one of the definitive TV analysts during college basketball's rise to prominence in the 1970s and '80s. He worked with Dick Enberg and Al McGuire at NBC, calling the 1979 NCAA Tournament final that featured Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. In 1981, he moved to CBS where he teamed with Verne Lundquist and Jim Nantz until 2008.

Jan. 30 - Bobby Beathard, 86, worked in NFL front offices for 34 years, first as a scout and then as an executive. He was director of pro personnel for the Dolphins for six years, starting with their perfect season in 1972. He became the general manager in Washington in 1978, building two Super Bowl winners with coach Joe Gibbs. He later became the GM in San Diego, where he took the Chargers to their only Super Bowl appearance in 1994.

February

Feb. 13 - Conrad Dobler, 72, played 10 years in the NFL as one of the game's most feared offensive linemen, combining with Dan Dierdorf to create a formidable right side of the line with the St. Louis Cardinals. He made three Pro Bowls during his six years with the Cardinals and was featured on the cover of a 1977 edition of Sports Illustrated as "Pro Football's Dirtiest Player." His 1988 autobiography was titled "They Call Me Dirty."

Feb. 14 - John Veitch, 77, trained Alydar through one of the most riveting head-to-head battles in horse racing history. Alydar finished a narrow second to Affirmed in all three Triple Crown races in 1978. Veitch trained Proud Truth, who won the 1985 Breeders' Cup Classic, and four horses who earned Eclipse Awards as year-end category champion.

Feb. 19 - Greg Foster, 64, was a standard-bearer in track and field for 18 years as one of the world's best sprint hurdlers. He won gold in the 110-meter hurdles at the first three world championships in 1983, 1987, and 1991 and was the Olympic silver medalist in 1984. He was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1998.

Feb. 26 - Terry Holland, 80, is best known as the head basketball coach at Virginia from 1974-90, leading the Cavaliers to two Final Four appearances in the early 1980s, and an NIT championship. The 1981-83 teams won three straight ACC regular-season titles behind star recruit Ralph Sampson. Holland became Virginia's athletic director in 1994 and held the same role at East Carolina from 2004-2013.

March

March 1 - Jerry Richardson, 86, was a rarity in the NFL: a former player who went on to become a team owner. Richardson played for two seasons, winning a championship with the 1959 Colts in his rookie year. He used the championship bonus money to fund his first business and eventually became a food-service industry mogul. He was awarded the expansion Carolina Panthers franchise in 1993, and sold the team in 2018.

March 9 - Otis Taylor, 80, was a wide receiver on the legendary Kansas City Chiefs teams at the dawn of the Super Bowl era. He helped the Chiefs win Super Bowl IV over Minnesota in the last title game before the AFL merged with the NFL. He was runner-up in 1971 NFL MVP voting and earned a first-team All-Pro selection once in each league.

March 10 - Jesús Alou, 80, was the youngest of the three Alou brothers who made it to the major leagues out of the Dominican Republic. He played 15 seasons, primarily with San Francisco and Houston. He earned two World Series rings late in his career with Oakland in 1973 and 1974, which were more than his more accomplished brothers had (Matty earned one with Oakland in 1972).

March 12 - Felton Spencer, 55, spent 12 years in the NBA playing for six teams between 1990 and 2002. After four years at the University of Louisville, he was the No. 6 pick in the 1990 draft by Minnesota. His most notable years were the three seasons he spent in Utah supporting Karl Malone and John Stockton, which included two NBA Western Conference finals appearances in 1993-94 and 1995-96.

March 13 - Glen Weir, 71, was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2009 after starring on the defensive line for Montreal for 13 seasons. He was a member of two Grey Cup winners (1974 and 1977), was a five-time East All-Star, and was All-CFL three times.

March 31 - John Brockington, 74, was the NFL's offensive rookie of the year in 1971 for Green Bay after being drafted ninth overall out of Ohio State. He was also first-team All-Pro, and helped the Packers to their first playoff appearance in the post-Vince Lombardi era the following season. Wear and tear from his physical running style took its toll after a third straight 1,000-yard season and his production dwindled over the final four years of his career.

April

April 4 - Craig Breedlove, 86, spent the 1960s chasing a single goal: the world land-speed record. With Utah's stark Bonneville Salt Flats as his track and his backdrop, he became the first to crack the 400, 500, and 600-mph barriers in successive jet-powered cars (called the Spirit of America that he designed and built). As late as 2018, he was still designing a car to take on the current record of 763 mph.

April 19 - Dave Wilcox, 80, nicknamed "The Intimidator," was a ferocious outside linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers from 1964-74. He was a seven-time Pro Bowler and twice was named first-team All-Pro. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000.

April 27 - Dick Groat, 92, has the distinction of being an MVP baseball player who is also a member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame. He twice earned All-American honors in both sports (playing shortstop and point guard) and was the NCAA basketball player of the year in 1952. Groat briefly tried to pursue the dual track with Pittsburgh and the NBA's Fort Wayne Pistons before being drafted into the Army. Upon his return after two years, he concentrated on baseball. In 1960, he was named the National League MVP and led the Pirates to their first World Series title since 1925. He won another title with the Cardinals in 1964.

April 29 - Larry "Gator" Rivers, 73, starred for the Harlem Globetrotters from 1973-77 and again from 1979-86. He apprenticed under Marques Haynes and Curly Neal as a dribbling specialist and briefly coached the team at the end of his playing career. He opened a basketball academy in 1990 and was a county commissioner in Georgia for the final three years of his life.

April 29 - Mike Shannon, 83, a St. Louis native, was ingrained in the city's baseball culture for almost 60 years. He competed in both baseball and football at the University of Missouri and might have gone on to be a famous quarterback if the sport had paid better. He played right field and third base for the Cardinals from 1962-70 and then broadcast their games from 1972-2021. He was a member of Cardinals teams that won the World Series in 1964 and 1967 and lost to Detroit in seven games in 1968. He won two Missouri Emmy Awards as broadcaster of the year and was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in 2014.

May

May 4 - Petr Klima, 58, scored 30 or more goals six times in his 13 seasons in the NHL. He'd already played four seasons in the Czech league when he broke into the NHL with Detroit in 1985 at the age of 21. He later won a Stanley Cup with Edmonton in 1990. He's one of eight Czech players to score 300 or more goals in the NHL.

May 7 - Larry Mahan, 79, was the first cowboy to win five consecutive all-around world championships in Rodeo Cowboy Association competition. He added a sixth title in 1973, three years after his streak. He also earned two bull-riding world titles. A documentary about him, "The Greatest American Cowboy," won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 1974. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979.

May 8 - Joe Kapp, 85, starred in both the CFL and NFL in his 12-year professional football career. In college, he led Cal to Pacific Coast Conference titles in both football (1958) and basketball (1957 and '58). He was a low-round NFL draft pick by Washington, who never offered him a contract. So he took the offer made by Calgary of the CFL. He made his name in the three-down league by leading the BC Lions to a Grey Cup title in their fourth year of existence. In 1967, he opted to sign with Minnesota of the NFL and led to them the franchise's only title, the 1969 NFL Championship. He's a member of both the college football and Canadian football halls of fame.

May 9 - Denny Crum, 86, was head basketball coach at the University of Louisville for 31 years, leading the Cardinals to the Final Four six times and to NCAA Tournament championships in 1980 and 1986. After playing at Pierce College and UCLA in the late 1950s, Crum became head coach at Pierce in 1964 but left to join John Wooden's staff at UCLA in 1969. After three straight titles at UCLA, he was hired by Louisville. He earned three national coach of the year awards and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994 and the college basketball hall in 2006.

May 12 - Don Denkinger, 86, was an American League umpire for 30 years, serving as crew chief for the last 21. He worked the World Series in 1974, 1980, 1985, and 1991 (the last two as crew chief). He also was selected for two AL Division Series, six AL Championship Series, and three All-Star Games. He embraced his biggest blown call from Game 6 of the 1985 World Series by appearing at memorabilia shows and reunions in St. Louis and hung a painting of the game scene in his restaurant in Waterloo, Iowa.

May 14 - Doyle Brunson, 89, literally wrote the book on poker. His early ambitions as a miler and basketball player were derailed by injury, and he started playing in illegal poker games in Texas and around the south while working after college. He was there at the birth of the World Series of Poker in 1970, winning the Main Event in 1976 and 1977 along with eight other championship bracelets. In 1978, he self-published "Super/System," which became the definitive early book on poker strategy. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1988.

May 16 - Marlene (Bauer) Hagge, 89, was one of the 13 women (along with her sister Alice) who founded the LPGA Tour in 1950. She was a precocious junior golfer, making the cut at the 1947 U.S. Women's Open at age 13, the youngest ever at the time. Just 16 when she turned pro, she won 26 LPGA Tour events, eight in 1956 alone. That was the same year of her only major victory, the 1956 Women's PGA Championship, which she won in a playoff over fellow founder Patty Berg. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002.

May 17 - "Superstar" Billy Graham, 79, made a name for himself performing in several wrestling promotions from 1970 through the present, including the early iteration of the WWE. He won three world heavyweight titles in various circuits, and is credited as a prototype for the tan, muscled look, and speaking style of many wrestlers like Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Hulk Hogan. WWE inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2004.

May 23 - Fusaichi Pegasus, 26, was the winner of the 2000 Kentucky Derby in a time that remains among the 10 fastest of the 128 runnings of the race at a mile and a quarter. He raced only three more times after the Derby. Despite finishing sixth in the Breeders' Cup Classic, he fetched a record $70 million in his stud auction.

June

June 3 - Jim Hines, 76, was the first man to officially break 10 seconds in the 100 meters, running 9.95 seconds at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. That record stood for almost 15 years until Calvin Smith ran 9.93 in 1983. Hines and the U.S. men's 4x100 relay also set the world record at the same games. Earlier that year, Hines was drafted by the Miami Dolphins but his career was short-lived. He appeared in 10 games in 1969 and one more for Kansas City in 1970.

June 4 - Roger Craig, 93, had a decent MLB pitching career for 12 seasons but became renowned later as a pitching coach and the father of the split-finger fastball. He didn't invent the pitch but became its best teacher, imparting it to Jack Morris and the other members of the pitching staff that took the Detroit Tigers to the 1984 World Series title. After serving on Sparky Anderson's staff in Detroit, he got a second chance to manage with San Francisco, piloting them for eight seasons including an appearance in the 1989 World Series.

June 10 - Jim Turner, 82, had a 16-year career in the NFL as a placekicker for the New York Jets and Denver Broncos. He kicked three second-half field goals in Super Bowl III, extending a halftime lead in the Jets' monumental 16-7 upset of the Baltimore Colts. He was selected to the AFL's all-time team before it merged with the NFL in 1970. He's also enshrined in the Broncos' Ring of Fame.

June 14 - Homer Jones, 82, an NFL wide receiver for seven seasons, is credited for inventing the spike as a touchdown celebration. After the NFL instituted a fine in 1965 for throwing the ball in the stands, which some players did to celebrate TDs, Jones decided instead to forcefully throw the ball to the ground. Jones was a two-time Pro Bowler and second-team All-Pro in 1968 for the New York Giants.

June 16 - Bob Brown, 81, was a five-time first-team NFL All-Pro at right tackle for the Eagles and Rams during his 10-year career from 1964-73. He was the second overall pick in the 1964 NFL draft after being a unanimous All-American in his senior season at Nebraska. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1993 and joined the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, the same year Nebraska retired his No. 64.

June 19 - Clark Haggans, 46, arrived in Pittsburgh as a fifth-round draft pick in 2000 and didn't become a starting outside linebacker until 2004. But from 2004-06, he formed fearsome defensive bookends with Joey Porter, a period that included the Steelers' last Super Bowl victory. He left for Arizona in 2008 and played his final year with San Francisco.

June 24 - Dean Smith, 91, played football and ran track at the University of Texas, and won a gold medal at the 1952 Olympics as the leadoff runner for the U.S. men's 4x100-meter relay. He made his living, though, as a Hollywood stuntman, doubling for John Wayne, James Garner, and Robert Redford (he even fell out of a second-story window doubling for Maureen O'Hara in the film "McLintock.") He's a member of the Stuntman Hall of Fame and the University of Texas Hall of Fame.

June 27 - Ryan Mallett, 35, had an eight-year NFL career, mostly as backup QB to Tom Brady in New England and Joe Flacco in Baltimore. He made six starts over two seasons for Houston and two for the Ravens following injuries to Flacco and Matt Schaub in 2015. He started a handful of games as a freshman at Michigan but transferred to Arkansas after a coaching change, where he was twice second-team All-SEC and finished seventh in Heisman voting in 2010.

June 30 - Darren Drozdov, 54, played football at Maryland and for three seasons in the NFL but was better known in professional wrestling as Droz. He appeared in six games in 1993 as a defensive tackle for the Broncos. In 1997, he made his pro wrestling debut in the ECW before moving to WWF in 1998 and quickly becoming a member of the Legion of Doom. A severe neck injury from a 1999 bout ended his career and put him in a wheelchair, but he remained with the company as a writer.

July

July 3 - Vince Tobin, 79, spent 30 years in football, primarily as a defensive coordinator in the NFL. He started at the University of Missouri in 1971 and worked his way through the CFL and USFL before landing with the Chicago Bears in 1986. He was named head coach of the Arizona Cardinals in 1996, spending five seasons in the role. In 1998, he led the franchise to its first playoff victory since 1947.

July 6 - Gene Gaines, 85, is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame after playing 16 seasons as a defensive back in the CFL following a standout career at UCLA. He was a CFL All-Star three times, and set a CFL record with a 128-yard kickoff return in a playoff game for Ottawa in 1964. He re-joined Montreal in 1970 as a player and defensive backs coach. In all, he played on four Grey Cup-winning teams: Ottawa (1968, '69) and Montreal (1970, '74).

July 7 - Nikki McCray-Penson, 51, won gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics as a member of the U.S. women's basketball team. She was twice named the SEC's player of the year at Tennessee. She played eight seasons in the WNBA from its inception in 1998 through 2006, and was a three-time All-Star with the Washington Mystics. She was also MVP of the short-lived American Basketball League in 1997. She was a longtime assistant on Dawn Staley's coaching staff at South Carolina before taking on top roles at Old Dominion and Mississippi State.

July 16 - Funny Cide, 23, was the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby in 2003 and is among the small handful of horses to win the Derby and Preakness Stakes before falling short of the Triple Crown in the Belmont. He raced until he was seven and remained popular with fans in retirement. A statue of him was erected in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 2012.

July 25 - Johnny Lujack, 98, led Notre Dame to three national football championships and won the Heisman Trophy in 1947. His college days were interrupted in the middle while he served two years in the Navy during World War II. He lettered in four sports in 1947, was a unanimous All-American in football for the second time, and was named The Associated Press' Athlete of the Year. He played four seasons in the NFL quarterbacking the Chicago Bears. He made two Pro Bowls and was a first-team All-Pro in 1950.

July 25 - Rocky Wirtz, 70, was a third-generation owner and chairman of the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, succeeding his father Bill in 2007. Stars like Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull who'd become estranged from the team during Bill's tenure were welcomed back by Rocky. The franchise - which had only won three Stanley Cups since joining the NHL in 1926, its last in 1961 - had its greatest success on the ice during Rocky's tenure, winning three championships in 2010, 2013, and 2015.

August

Aug. 6 - Gilles Gilbert, 74, was drafted by the Minnesota North Stars in 1969 and made his debut in net the same season. But it wasn't until 1973, after being traded to Boston, that he found his home in the league. He led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup final in 1974 and held the crease until Gerry Cheevers returned from the WHA. They split time for three seasons until Gilbert was traded to Detroit in 1980.

Aug. 7 - Zenon Andrusyshyn, 76, accidentally found his athletic calling as a kicker when his javelin career went sideways. He was born in postwar Germany but his family settled in Oakville, Ontario. A track scholarship took him to UCLA, but he injured his elbow training for the 1968 Olympics. He walked on to the Bruins' football team and became a two-time All-American punter while also handling placekicking duties. He was cut by the Dallas Cowboys in his first season out of college but signed with Toronto of the CFL in 1971. He spent 12 of the next 16 years kicking and punting in Canada with brief sojourns to the NFL and USFL.

Aug. 14 - Rodion Amirov, 21, made his debut in the KHL at the age of 19 and was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round in 2020. He signed a three-year entry-level contract in 2021 and played two more seasons in the KHL but was never able to suit up for the Leafs or their AHL affiliate. In 2022, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Aug. 14 - Bob Baun, 86, won four Stanley Cups as a defenseman with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1962-64 and 1967. He only scored three goals in 92 playoff games but one stood out: In Game 6 of the 1964 Final, he returned to the ice with a broken ankle and scored the overtime winner against Detroit to force a Game 7, which Toronto won for its third straight Cup. He joined Oakland for a season in 1968 via the expansion draft but eventually finished his career back with the Leafs from 1970-72.

Aug. 17 - Rick Jeanneret, 81, was the voice of the Buffalo Sabres for 51 years, the longest tenure in NHL history. His signature calls like "La-la-la-la-Fontaine!" and "Top shelf, where mama hides the cookies!" helped him become known by fans outside Buffalo. In 2012, he received the Hockey Hall of Fame's Foster Hewitt Memorial Award, ensuring his broadcasting legacy would live on.

Aug. 19 - Maxie Baughan, 85, made nine Pro Bowls and earned six All-Pro selections as an outside linebacker during his 12 seasons in the NFL with the Eagles and Rams (and one comeback season at age 36 with Washington). As a rookie, he was a starter on Philadelphia's 1960 NFL Championship team. In college at Georgia Tech, he started at center and linebacker, was a consensus All-American in 1959, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

Aug. 22 - Alexandra Paul, 31, was a Canadian junior ice dance champion and three-time senior bronze medalist with partner and eventual husband Mitchell Islam. They were fixtures during the heyday of Canadian ice dancing, earning a silver medal at the 2010 world junior championships and competing at the 2014 Olympics along with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, and Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje.

Aug. 23 - Terry Funk, 79, was active in professional wrestling for 50 years in almost every promotion there was. He was a heavyweight champion in ECW, NWA, and USWA, and earned numerous tag-team titles with his brother Dory. Wrestling in 1998 as Chainsaw Charlie and teamed with Mick Foley's Cactus Jack, they defeated the New Age Outlaws at Wrestlemania XIV for the WWE's tag-team belt. Both Funks were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.

Aug. 24 - Bray Wyatt, 36, was a third-generation professional wrestler who started in WWE's development circuit and earned a call-up to the big league for good in 2012. He held a world championship belt three times: the WWE Championship in 2017, and later twice held the Universal Championship performing as The Fiend. He also claimed tag-team championships on Smackdown and Raw.

Aug. 27 - Pat Corrales, 82, spent nine years in the majors as a backup catcher to bigger names like Tim McCarver and Johnny Bench. At age 37, he was named manager of the Texas Rangers, his first of three stints as the bench boss. He had a season and a half leading the Phillies and parts of five seasons in Cleveland. He never managed again but coached for more than 20 more years, including 17 on Bobby Cox's staff in Atlanta. He earned his only World Series ring with the Braves in 1995.

Aug. 31 - Gil Brandt, 91, was the Dallas Cowboys' chief personnel man from their inception in 1960 through Jerry Jones' purchase of the team in 1989. Brandt formed a powerful triumvirate with GM Tex Schramm and head coach Tom Landry as the Cowboys won five NFC championships and two Super Bowls. He is widely credited with modernizing scouting with his innovations spreading across the league.

September

Sept. 4 - Eddie Meador, 86, played with the Los Angeles Rams from 1959-70 as a cornerback and safety, earning two first-team All-Pro nods in his 30s. He still holds the franchise record for interceptions and is tied for fumbles recovered on defense. He was selected to the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 1960s.

Sept. 11 - Point Given, 25, finished fifth in the 2001 Kentucky Derby but went on to win the Preakness and Belmont and two more million-dollar stakes that summer. He was inducted into the racing hall of fame in 2010.

Sept. 12 - Mike Williams, 36, played five seasons at wide receiver in the NFL, four of them with Tampa Bay. He finished second to Sam Bradford in voting for Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2010 after catching 65 balls for 964 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Sept. 18 - Henry Boucha, 72, was a standout Indigenous hockey player from Minnesota who earned an Olympic silver medal and played six seasons in the NHL and WHA. He joined the U.S. national team in 1970, playing in the 1971 world championship and finishing second at the 1972 Olympics. He was drafted in the second round by Detroit of the NHL and first overall by Minnesota of the WHA in 1971. Choosing the NHL, he made his debut following the Olympics and scored in his first game. An injury to his eye from his first season with the Minnesota North Stars derailed his career in 1975. He played half a year in the WHA and tried coming back to the NHL but retired in November 1976.

Sept. 24 - Tim Foley, 75, was an 11-year cornerback who won two Super Bowls with the Miami Dolphins, including the undefeated 1972 team. Foley was a 1969 All-American at Purdue and was a third-round pick in head coach Don Shula's first Dolphins draft class after coming over from Baltimore.

Sept. 30 - Chris Snow, 42, was a sportswriter turned team executive who was an assistant GM with the NHL's Calgary Flames since 2019. He started his career writing for his hometown Boston Globe and left the business in 2006 when the Minnesota Wild hired him as their director of hockey operations. He joined the Flames in 2011. In addition to his work and family, his last four years included his public battle with ALS.

October

Oct. 1 - Tim Wakefield, 57, was the last great knuckleball pitcher in Major League Baseball, pitching for 17 seasons with Pittsburgh and Boston. An eighth-round draft pick of the Pirates in 1988, he made his debut in the majors in 1992, finishing third in NL Rookie of the Year voting - without his signature pitch. He didn't fare well the next two years and was released, but then began working with longtime knuckleball aces Phil and Joe Niekro, and signed with Boston. In his first year with the knuckleball, he finished third in AL Cy Young voting. He became a Red Sox rotation stalwart before retiring in 2011.

Oct. 1 - Russ Francis, 70, was a three-time Pro Bowl tight end and two-time second-team All-Pro with New England in the 1970s and a member of San Francisco's Super Bowl XIX-winning team in 1985. He missed the 1981 season in a pay dispute with the Patriots before signing with the 49ers in 1982. He had a brief pro wrestling career after he retired from football in 1989, appearing at WrestleMania 2 in a 20-man battle royale with wrestling pros and other NFL players.

Oct. 10 - Brendan Malone, 81, only had 100 games in the NBA as a head coach but spent 31 years as a highly regarded assistant in college and the NBA. Notably, he was Chuck Daly's assistant in Detroit when the Bad Boys Pistons won back-to-back NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. When Pistons' great Isiah Thomas became general manager of the expansion Toronto Raptors, he hired Malone as the first head coach. That only lasted one year and Malone's only other stint in the top job was the final 18 games of Cleveland's season in 2005.

Oct. 11 - Walt Garrison, 79, was a fullback and leading pass-catcher for the Dallas Cowboys' first Super Bowl team in 1971. He combined with Duane Thomas and Calvin Hill to power the Cowboys' indomitable rushing attack; the trio ran for 195 yards in the 24-3 win over Miami in Super Bowl VI. Garrison competed in rodeos in the offseason and a knee injury sustained in a steer-wrestling competition forced him retire before the 1975 season after nine years with Dallas.

Oct. 14 - Andy Bean, 70, was a three-time runner-up in golf majors and won 11 times on the PGA TOUR in his career. He was a three-time All-American at Florida and teamed with Gary Koch, Woody Blackburn, and Phil Hancock to win the 1973 NCAA championship. As a pro, he was second to Tom Watson at the 1983 Open Championship and was twice runner-up at the PGA Championship in 1980 and 1989.

Oct. 21 - Betsy Rawls, 95, was one of the early greats of the LPGA Tour, winning eight majors and 55 tournaments overall. She remains sixth in Tour history on both leaderboards. She and Mickey Wright are the only players to win four U.S. Women's Open titles. She was one of the inaugural inductees into the Tour's Hall of Fame in 1967 and was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame 20 years later.

Oct. 26 - Bingo Smith, 77, is one of seven players whose number is retired by the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was drafted sixth overall in 1969 by the San Diego Rockets but joined Cleveland the next season via the expansion draft. He was part of the core that helped the Cavs rise in relevance until they made the playoffs for the first time in 1976 and won their first series in seven games over the Washington Bullets, who'd gone to the NBA Finals the previous year. He remains in the top 10 in several franchise categories, including sixth in points scored.

Oct. 28 - Adam Johnson, 29, was a member of the University of Minnesota-Duluth's 2017 Frozen Four team that finished runner-up to Denver. He signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins out of a tryout camp and played 13 games in the NHL in 2019. After a couple more seasons in the AHL, he went overseas, playing in the German and British leagues. His on-ice death brought worldwide attention to the issue of neck guards and player safety.

Oct. 30 - Frank Howard, 87, stood 6-foot-7 and was nicknamed the "Washington Monument" during his mid-career seasons with baseball's Senators. He broke in with the Dodgers in 1958 and was named NL Rookie of the Year in 1960. Following the 1964 season, L.A. shipped Howard to Washington as part of a package, and it was in the nation's capital that he turned into a star. He made four consecutive All-Star Games from 1968-71, hit 40 or more home runs three times, and led the league twice.

November

Nov. 2 - Walter Davis, 69, was a standout basketball player at North Carolina and with the NBA's Phoenix Suns. In his senior season at UNC, he led the Tar Heels to the 1977 Final Four, where they lost in the final to Marquette. He was the No. 5 pick in the draft by the Suns and went on to appear in six All-Star Games in 11 seasons. He remains the franchise leader in points and his No. 6 was retired in 1994. He rounded out his career with four seasons in Denver and Portland.

Nov. 11 - D.J. Hayden, 33, played nine seasons in the NFL at cornerback with Oakland, Detroit, Jacksonville, and Washington. His college career began at Navarro College where he helped the Bulldogs to the national junior college championship in 2010. He transferred to Houston for his final two years and was named all-conference in his senior season. The Raiders made him the 12th overall pick in the 2013 draft.

Nov. 12 - Roman Cechmanek, 52, had a brief but notable career as a goaltender in the NHL with Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He didn't arrive in the NHL until the age of 29 despite his accomplishments at home in Czechia with HC Vsetin and the national team. He was Dominik Hasek's backup on the 1998 Olympic gold-medal team and led his country to the 2000 world championship title. He made the leap to the NHL for the 2000-01 season, where he quickly took over the No. 1 job in Philly, finishing second in Vezina Trophy voting and fourth in the Hart race. He and teammate Robert Esche shared the Jennings Trophy for fewest team goals against with Martin Brodeur in 2003. He was traded to the Kings before the season-long lockout in '04 and decided to play in Europe after it ended.

Nov. 14 - Peter Seidler, 63, the grandson of legendary Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, carried on his family's tradition in baseball as the managing partner of the San Diego Padres ownership group from 2012 until his death. He was beloved in San Diego for spending on players to make the Padres competitive with the Dodgers in the NL West. Seidler, who was a private equity fund executive, partnered with MLB to buy Rawlings, the league's supplier of baseballs, in 2018.

Nov. 15 - Ken Squier, 88, was the voice of NASCAR telecasts for 21 years, starting with the first live telecast of the Daytona 500 in 1979. He began as a pit reporter for CBS's NASCAR coverage in 1971 and was the primary race caller for CBS until 1997 and for TBS until 1999. After he left the booth in 1999, he remained host of TBS's prerace studio show for another year. He called a variety of sports, including working for CBS's coverage of the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics.

Nov. 16 - Johnny Green, 89, was a 6-foot-5 rebounding savant who starred at Michigan State after a stint in the Marines and played 14 seasons in the NBA. He averaged 16.9 points and 16.4 rebounds a game in three seasons with the Spartans. The Knicks made him the No. 5 pick in the 1959 NBA draft, and he played there for six seasons, earning three All-Star selections. He later played with Baltimore, San Diego, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Kansas City. His No. 24 was retired by MSU in 1992.

Nov. 20 - Willie Hernández, 69, pitched for 13 seasons in the majors and won both the Cy Young and MVP awards in the American League in 1984. He broke in with the Chicago Cubs in 1977 and was traded to Philadelphia in 1983. During spring training in 1984, he was acquired by Detroit along with Dave Bergman in a deal that locked in the roster that would start the season 35-5 and win the World Series. Hernandez threw 80 games in relief that year, covering 140 innings. He was 9-3 with a 1.90 ERA and 32 saves.

Nov. 23 - Harald Hasselbach, 56, played professional football for 11 seasons, four in the CFL with Calgary and seven in the NFL with Denver. The defensive end won three league championships: the 1992 Grey Cup and Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII following the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

Nov. 25 - Terry Venables, 80, had a 15-year career as a player in the upper levels of English soccer and moved almost immediately into managing teams for the next 40 years. Venables made his initial first-division appearance with Chelsea in 1959. He later played with Tottenham starting in 1966, with Queen Park Rangers in 1969, and Crystal Palace in 1974. He retired from play in the middle of the 1974-75 season and immediately moved into a coaching role for third-division Palace in the back half of the campaign. He was elevated to manager in 1976. From there, he led a raft of teams including QPR, Barcelona, Spurs, as well as England's and Australia's national teams.

December

Dec. 9 - Frank Wycheck, 52, played tight end in the NFL for 11 seasons. After being drafted by Washington in 1993, he landed with the Houston Oilers in 1995 and became their primary starter for the rest of his career. He was selected to three straight Pro Bowls from 1998-2000. He is best remembered for initiating the Music City Miracle in the 2000 AFC wild-card game when he lateraled the ball to Kevin Dyson on a kickoff that was returned for a touchdown with three seconds left.

Dec. 14 - George McGinnis, 73, was a basketball star in Indiana in his younger days, winning a high school state championship in 1969, earning All-American status in his one year at the University of Indiana, then leaving early to sign with the ABA's Indiana Pacers, where he led them to the league title in his first two seasons. After four years with the Pacers, he opted to move to the NBA. He averaged 22 points and 12 rebounds in three seasons with Philadelphia and teamed with Julius Erving to take the Sixers to the NBA Finals in 1977. His 11-year pro career wound down back in Indiana, now an NBA squad. The Pacers retired his No. 30 and he was selected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.

Dec. 17 - Eric Montross, 52, was a 7-foot center who was a three-year starter for Dean Smith at North Carolina and then played eight seasons in the NBA. Montross was the season's leading scorer on a balanced Tar Heels squad that defeated Michigan's Fab Five in the 1993 NCAA Final. He earned second-team All-American honors in his final two years and was selected ninth overall by Boston in the 1994 NBA Draft. After a successful rookie season, he never found his foothold in the pros and ended up being traded five times. He retired in 2003 because of a foot injury.

Dec. 19 - Ed Budde, 83, was the left guard for the legendary Kansas City Chiefs teams that won two AFL championships and defeated Minnesota in Super Bowl IV. He was a first-round draft pick in both leagues coming out of Michigan State in 1963. He earned five AFL All-Star nods and made two NFL Pro Bowl appearances after the 1970 merger. He was selected to the first team of the all-time All-AFL squad and was elevated to the Chiefs Ring of Honor in 1984.

Dec. 21 - Paula Murphy, 95, was the first woman licensed to race funny cars in the NHRA and set an assortment of straight-line speed and speed-distance records in her driving career. STP brought her to the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1963, where she set a women's land-speed record of 161 mph. A year later, Goodyear sponsored her attempt, which she improved to 226 mph. She started in drag racing in 1964 in southern California, competing for more than a decade. She was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1992. The Motorsports Hall of Fame enshrined her in 2017.

Dec. 27 - Herb Kohl, 88, was the owner of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks from 1985-2014. His family started in the grocery business and built it into a conglomerate of grocery and department stores. He was also a four-term U.S. senator for the state of Wisconsin. Kohl purchased the Bucks when the owners were looking to sell and it was feared out-of-town interests would purchase and move the team.

Guy Spurrier is theScore's features editor.

Copyright © 2023 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The sports world mourned the loss of a few legends in 2022. We remember these 60 for their contributions to the games - and our enjoyment of them - through the years.

Jan. 1 - Dan Reeves, 77, was a running back for the Dallas Cowboys from 1965-72 but was better known as an NFL head coach, spending 23 years in stints with the Broncos, Giants, and Falcons from 1981-2003. Three of his Denver teams reached the Super Bowl in the 1980s, as did his Atlanta team in 1998, but all lost. He won one Super Bowl each as a player and an offensive coordinator.

Jan. 5 - Ralph Neely, 78, was an offensive tackle for 13 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys from 1965-77. He was a three-time first-team All-Pro from 1967-69. In the 1970s, he moved from right tackle to left tackle, protecting Roger Staubach's blind side and opening holes for the likes of Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison, Robert Newhouse, and Tony Dorsett. In his final season, the Cowboys won Super Bowl XII over Denver. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's all-1960s team.

Jan. 10 - Don Maynard, 86, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987. He was a receiver for 16 pro seasons, including one with the NFL's New York Giants out of college and one with Hamilton in the CFL, before signing with the AFL's New York Titans (later renamed the Jets). He spent 13 with them, including their Super Bowl season in 1968. When he retired in 1973 after a season in St. Louis, he was pro football's leading receiver with 633 catches, 11,834 yards, and 88 touchdowns. He was the first player to eclipse the 10,000-yard mark.

Jan. 11 - Don Sutherin, 85, is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. The defensive back/kicker won four Grey Cups as a player (two with Hamilton and two with Ottawa) and later won three more titles as a coach. He spent two seasons in the NFL and was also a member of Ohio State's 1957 national championship team, kicking the winning field goal in the Rose Bowl.

Jan. 15 - Joe B. Hall, 93, was the head basketball coach at Kentucky from 1972-85. He led the Wildcats to eight SEC regular-season titles, 10 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, and three Final Fours. His 1976 team won the NIT championship, and the 1978 squad took the NCAA title. He was elected to the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.

Jan. 18 - Lusia Harris, 66, won three straight women's national championships at Delta State in the 1970s and was the tournament MVP all three times. She was a member of the U.S. team that won the silver medal in the first Olympic women's basketball tournament in 1976. In 1977, the New Orleans Jazz selected her in the seventh round of the NBA draft, although she declined to attend training camp. She is the first Black woman enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. This year, a documentary about her called "The Queen of Basketball" won the Academy Award for best short subject.

Jan. 21 - Clark Gillies, 67, was a member of the Islanders' Trio Grande line with Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier that led New York to four Stanley Cups championships from 1980-83. He remains fourth all-time in goals for the Islanders franchise (304), fifth in assists (359), fourth in points (663), and seventh in penalty minutes (891). He was a popular fixture with fans around the team in retirement. The Islanders retired his No. 9 in 1996, and he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2002.

Feb. 2 - Bill Fitch, 89, coached in the NBA for 25 seasons with five teams, reaching the summit with the 1981 champion Boston Celtics. He started in the NBA as the coach of the expansion Cavaliers. Following his four years in Boston, he took the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1986, and later coached the Nets and Clippers. He was a two-time coach of the year, and ranks fourth on the NBA's all-time coaching list with 2,050 games.

Feb. 19 - Charley Taylor, 80, was selected in the top 10 in both the NFL and AFL draft in 1964 out of Arizona State. Washington took him at No. 3 and he enjoyed a 13-year career there, first as a halfback and then as a wide receiver. He made eight Pro Bowls, was first-team All-Pro in 1967, and was a member of the 1972 team that lost Super Bowl VII to the perfect-season Dolphins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1984.

Feb. 19 - Emile Francis, 95, played in the NHL for six seasons after World War II but made a bigger name as a coach and executive with the Rangers, Blues, and Whalers from the mid-1960s until he retired in 1993. He coached the Rangers for 10 seasons from 1965-75, taking them to the Stanley Cup final in 1972. He later spent three seasons behind the bench in St. Louis. He is credited with expanding grassroots hockey in the U.S. by starting junior B leagues in the eastern U.S. and in the St. Louis area.

Feb. 24 - John Landy, 91, was the second person to break the four-minute mile, doing so two months after Roger Bannister in 1954. At a race in Finland, Landy eclipsed Bannister's record by 1.5 seconds with a clocking of 1:57.9. Later that year, he and Bannister jointly broke the four-minute mark again as Bannister won the race at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver. Landy represented Australia at the Olympics in 1952 and at the 1956 Games in his hometown of Melbourne, earning the bronze medal in the 1,500 meters.

Feb. 25 - Dick Versace, 81, was the head basketball coach at Bradley for eight seasons, winning the NIT title in 1982. He then joined Chuck Daly's staff in Detroit before becoming the head coach of the Indiana Pacers from 1988-90. He later joined the Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies as director of basketball operations and general manager.

March 4 - Shane Warne, 52, was a cricket bowler for Australia's national team from 1992-2007, which earned him numerous accolades including induction into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2013. He competed in nearly 350 Test and one-day international matches, and was a member of Australia's World Cup-winning team in 1999.

March 8 - Johnny Grier, 74, joined the NFL as an official in 1981 and became the first Black referee in 1988. He worked his only Super Bowl in 1988, which was his final game as a field judge (now called the back judge). He worked 15 playoff games in his career, with his biggest assignment as a referee coming in the 1993 AFC championship game. He retired from on-field duties in 2004 because of leg injuries.

March 14 - Scott Hall, 63, was a WWE Hall of Fame wrestler who fought under the ring name "Razor Ramon" and under his own name in WCW. He was WWE's intercontinental champion in the mid-1990s and was also a founding member of the Hall of Fame collective nWo.

March 15 - Jean Potvin, 72, played in the NHL as a defenseman for five teams from 1970-81. He played eight of those seasons with the New York Islanders, where he suited up with his brother Denis, the Hall of Famer, for seven of them. He has his name on the Stanley Cup as a member of the 1980 and 1981 championship teams, although he didn't appear in the playoffs in those seasons.

March 16 - Ralph Terry, 86, pitched for the New York Yankees in eight of his 12 major-league seasons, earning two World Series titles in 1961 and 1962. He was the MVP of the 1962 Series for winning Game 5 and pitching a four-hit complete-game shutout in Game 7 in which he successfully protected a 1-0 lead over the final five innings on the road at Candlestick Park.

March 18 - John Clayton, 67, was a long-time NFL reporter who gained notoriety nationally after joining ESPN in 1995. He was selected for a spot in the writers' wing of the Hall of Fame in 2007 by the Pro Football Writers Association.

March 28 - Eugene Melnyk, 62, purchased the Ottawa Senators from near bankruptcy in 2003 and watched them reach the Stanley Cup final in 2007, as well as the conference final in 2017. His hockey-ownership path began in the Ontario Hockey League in 2001 and extended to the American Hockey League in 2016. As an owner and breeder, his horses have won all three of the Canadian Triple Crown races, and Sealy Hill won the fillies' Triple Tiara in 2007 and was Canada's horse of the year. Melnyk was twice named Canada's thoroughbred owner of the year.

April 3 - Tommy Davis, 83, was an 18-year major leaguer, most notably with the Dodgers, with whom he won three World Series championships in 1959, 1963, and 1965. Davis won the National League batting title in 1962, and his .346 average and 153 RBIs from that season remain club records.

April 3 - Gene Shue, 90, played for 10 seasons in the NBA with Philadephia, New York, and Baltimore, and spent six highly productive years with the Pistons franchise. He was a five-time All-Star with Detroit from 1958-62 and earned a first-team All-NBA selection in 1960. He coached in the league for another 22 years with the Bullets, Sixers, and Clippers franchises, earning two trips to the Finals and two coach-of-the-year awards. In the early 1990s, he was the general manager of the Sixers for two seasons.

April 7 - Rayfield Wright, 76, played for 13 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys as an offensive tackle on their legendary teams of the 1970s. He was a three-time first-team All-Pro, six-time Pro Bowler, and member of the Super Bowl-winning teams from the 1971 and 1977 seasons. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

April 15 - Mike Bossy, 65, only played 10 seasons in the NHL but left an indelible mark. His 573 goals were fifth all-time when he retired, and he was a key member of the New York Islanders' run of four straight Stanley Cup victories. He was named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1982 and scored the Cup-winning goals in 1982 and 1983. Bossy, Alex Ovechkin, and Wayne Gretzky are the only players to record nine 50-goal seasons; he and Gretzky are the only ones with five 60-goal campaigns. He entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991 and had his number retired by the Islanders in 1992. Back and knee injuries forced him to retire at the age of 30. His last job was as an analyst on TVA Sports broadcasts.

April 21 - Daryle Lamonica, 80, played 12 seasons in the AFL and NFL as the first great quarterback in Raiders history. Coming out of Notre Dame, he was a 24th-round selection by Buffalo in the 1963 AFL draft, and Green Bay took him in the 12th round in the NFL. He was never able to supplant Jack Kemp as the Bills starter and was traded to Oakland before the 1967 season. He was the AFL player of the year in 1967 and 1969, and took the Raiders to three straight AFL championship games. The 1967 team steamrolled the Oilers in the title game but lost to Green Bay in Super Bowl II.

April 22 - Guy Lafleur, 70, had a 17-year Hall of Fame career in the NHL, primarily with Montreal, with which he won five Stanley Cups; he later came out of a three-year retirement to play with the Rangers and Nordiques. He was a first-team All-Star for six straight years, was voted the outstanding player in the league three times by his peers, and won the Hart Trophy in 1977, the second of three consecutive seasons in which he led the league in scoring. When he retired in 1991, he was seventh all-time in goals (560) and eighth in points (1,353).

May 10 - Bob Lanier, 73, was a seven-time All-Star center for the Detroit Pistons in the 1970s. The No. 1 overall pick after leading St. Bonaventure to the Final Four in 1970, he averaged 22.7 points and 11.8 rebounds in nine full seasons with Detroit, but the team only made the playoffs four times. He finished his career with five campaigns in Milwaukee, helping them to the Eastern Conference final in 1984, his last season. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.

May 12 - Gino Cappelletti, 88, spent his entire 11-year playing career with the Patriots organization and later served as a game analyst on radio for another 28 seasons. He was the AFL player of the year in 1964 when he did double-duty as a receiver and placekicker, and was a five-time Pro Bowler. He still holds the Patriots record for points in a game, as he caught two TD passes, kicked four field goals, and added four extra points in a 42-14 win over the Oilers in 1965.

May 20 - Roger Angell, 101, had a long career as a writer and editor at The New Yorker but is best known for his baseball writing. He published six baseball books through the years, in addition to his essays about the game in the magazine. He received the first PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing in 2011, and earned the J. G. Taylor Spink Award from the Baseball Writers Association of America and the Hall of Fame in 2014.

May 24 - Thomas Ulsrud, 50, skipped Norway's entry at 12 world curling championships, winning in 2014 on his 10th try. He also earned a silver and three bronze medals at the event. He competed in three Olympics including the 2010 Games, when he lost to Canada's Kevin Martin in the final and the team first wore Loudmouth Golf pants that became a Norwegian staple.

June 17 - Hugh McElhenney, 93, was a member of the 49ers' Million Dollar Backfield in the mid-1950s and went on to play 13 seasons in the NFL with late-career stops in Minnesota, New York, and Detroit. When he retired in 1964, he had compiled the third-highest all-purpose yards total in league history. He went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1970 and the College Football hall in 1981.

June 22 - Tony Siragusa, 55, had a 12-year NFL career as an interior defensive lineman, first with Indianapolis from 1990-96 and then with Baltimore through 2001. He was a key cog in the Ravens' all-time great defense that backstopped their Super Bowl XXXV victory. His big personality gave him a second career as a sideline reporter with Fox from 2003-15.

June 22 - Bruton Smith, 95, started his auto racing empire as a race promoter in the early 1950s competing with NASCAR. He made his first big splash by building Charlotte Motor Speedway with partner Curtis Turner in 1959. He repurchased Charlotte in 1973 and founded Speedway Motor Sports in 1994, which now owns and operates 11 race tracks.

June 27 - Marlin Briscoe, 76, was an unlikely choice to be the first Black starting quarterback in NFL history as an unheralded 14th-round draft pick in 1968 from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. But the opportunity presented itself in the fourth quarter of a September game in his rookie year in Denver, and he grabbed it. He started five games that season. Seeking to continue to play quarterback, he asked for his release and jumped to the AFL, but never started another game at QB. Instead, he became an accomplished receiver in Buffalo for three seasons, earning an all-star nod in 1970. He spent the next three years back in the post-merger NFL with Miami, winning two Super Bowls.

June 29 - Jim Pappin, 82, had a 14-year NHL career including five with Toronto, seven with Chicago, and the last two with the California/Cleveland franchise. He was a member of the Maple Leafs' 1964 and 1967 Stanley Cup-winning teams, scoring four goals in the six-game final in 1967 against Montreal. With the Black Hawks, he was a member of the well-regarded MPH line with Pit Martin and Dennis Hull.

July 4 - Hank Goldberg, 82, had a long career at ESPN as an NFL analyst, and a football and horse racing handicapper. He began both his media and betting careers as an aide to Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder in the 1970s, and became the Miami Dolphins' color analyst on radio in 1977, a spot he held until 1991. He had a daily radio show in Miami from 1978 through 2007.

July 6 - Bryan Marchment, 53, was a rugged defenseman who played for 17 years in the NHL with nine teams, most notably San Jose and Edmonton. He amassed 44 goals, 2,409 penalty minutes, and was plus-35 in 1,010 regular-season and playoff games. He later rejoined the Sharks organization as a scout after he retired from playing in 2006.

July 21 - Jim Lynch, 76, was a standout linebacker at Notre Dame in 1965 and 1966, and played 11 seasons in the NFL with Kansas City. Lynch was the defensive captain of Notre Dame's 1966 national championship team, a unanimous All-American, and earned the Maxwell Award as the country's top player. As a pro, he was a starter on the Chiefs' team that won Super IV, earning him a spot in the team's Hall of Fame. In 1992, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

July 31 - Bill Russell, 88, won 11 NBA championships in his 13 years with the Boston Celtics, tied for the most ever won by a player in any major North American sport. He was a player-coach for the last three titles. He was a five-time most valuable player and a 12-time All-Star. He is one of four players to appear on all four NBA anniversary teams (25th, 35th, 50th, and 75th). He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975 and subsequently named to the FIBA and college basketball halls. Before his pro career, he led the University of San Francisco to two straight national titles in 1955 and 1956, and the U.S. to gold at the 1956 Olympics. The NBA has retired his No. 6 league-wide.

Aug. 2 - Vin Scully, 94, was the preeminent voice of baseball on TV and radio for nearly seven decades. He called Dodgers games continuously from 1950-2016, first on radio and then on television, starting in Brooklyn and moving with them to Los Angeles. He also worked a number of network jobs, calling an NBC TV Game of the Week, working World Series in both mediums, and doing NFL games and golf for CBS. He received the Ford Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, was a four-time National Sportscaster of the Year, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Aug. 15 - Pete Carril, 92, used the so-called Princeton Offense to its greatest effect as the men's head coach at the school from 1967-96. He took the Tigers to 13 Ivy League championships, 11 NCAA tournaments, and two NITs, winning the NIT in 1975. In 1989, they nearly became the first No. 16 seed to win in the first round, losing 50-49 to Georgetown. In his final season, Princeton upset defending champion UCLA in the first round. Following his retirement from Princeton at age 66, he worked for the NBA's Sacramento Kings as an offensive assistant for three stints until 2011.

Aug. 20 - Tom Weiskopf, 79, was a major name in golf in the 1970s, winning 12 of his 16 titles in the decade. He won the Open Championship, Canadian Open, and World Series of Golf in 1973, and another Canadian Open in 1975. Between 1969 and 1975, he finished second at the Masters four times. He joined the Senior Tour in 1993 and won the 1995 U.S. Senior Open.

Aug. 24 - Len Dawson, 87, had trouble landing a starting spot in the NFL before jumping to the AFL in 1962 and leading the Dallas Texans to the league title. He joined Kansas City the next season and stayed for 14 years. He led the Chiefs to the AFL title in 1963 and to Super Bowl I. The Chiefs were the last AFL winner of the Super Bowl when it was a contest between the rival league champions. Dawson had a long media career as the sports director at a Kansas City TV station, as the host of HBO's Inside the NFL, as a color analyst for NBC for six years, and then as the analyst for Chiefs games on radio for more than 30 years.

Sept. 19 - Maury Wills, 89, was one of baseball's greatest base-stealers - the first modern-era player to swipe more than 100 bases in a season. His 1962 season earned him the National League MVP crown when he hit .299 and stole 104 bases to edge out Willie Mays. He was a five-time all-star shortstop in his time with the Dodgers and earned two Gold Gloves. The Dodgers won three World Series with him in 1959, 1963, and 1965. He played two seasons in Pittsburgh after being traded. He was taken in the expansion draft by Montreal but was traded back to L.A. where he spent his final four seasons.

Oct. 13 - Bruce Sutter, 69, won the 1979 National League Cy Young Award and was a six-time all-star in his 12-year major-league career with the Cubs, Cardinals, and Braves. In the era when relievers regularly threw 100 or more innings, Sutter led the NL in saves five times. He earned three saves in the playoffs as a member of the St. Louis team that won the 1982 World Series. He retired with 300 saves, which was the third-highest career total at the time, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in the Class of 2006. He was the first pitcher to enter the Hall without ever starting a major-league game. The Cardinals retired his number, 42, the same year.

Oct. 19 - Charley Trippi, 100, was an all-around threat on offense, defense, and special teams with Georgia in the 1940s and was an early NFL star with the Chicago Cardinals from 1947-55. Georgia won the national championship his sophomore year in 1942, and after two years serving in World War II, he returned to win the Maxwell Award in 1946 and finish second in Heisman Trophy voting. He signed for $100,000 to join the Cardinals' Million-Dollar Backfield and helped them to the 1947 NFL championship by playing on both sides of the ball and returning kicks. He entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 1959 and the Pro Football Hall in 1968.

Oct. 28 - Vince Dooley, 90, was involved in football at the University of Georgia for more than 40 years, starting as head coach in 1964 at the age of 31. He was the head coach for 25 seasons and won 201 games, six SEC titles between 1966 and 1982, and one national championship in 1980 with a roster led by freshman running back Herschel Walker. Dooley also became an athletic director in 1979, a role he maintained until 2004. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994.

Oct. 31 - John McVay, 91, is best known as the head of football administration for the San Francisco 49ers during their heyday from 1979-94. The franchise won five Super Bowls in that span, three under head coach Bill Walsh and two under George Seifert. McVay led the drafts that netted players such as Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Ronnie Lott, Ricky Watters, Roger Craig, and Charles Haley. McVay's grandson, Sean, is the current head coach of the Rams.

Nov. 3 - Ray Guy, 72, remains the only player who was exclusively a punter to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was also the first punter to be selected in the first round of the NFL draft, going 23rd to the Oakland Raiders. It was a fruitful pick as Guy led the league in yards per punt in three of his first five seasons and made the Pro Bowl in seven of his first eight. He was a three-time first-team All-Pro from 1976-78 and was particularly known for his hang time. He was an All-American as a senior at Southern Miss and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004.

Nov. 6 - Peter McNab, 70, enjoyed a 14-year career as a center in the NHL with Buffalo, Boston, Vancouver, and New Jersey. He spent his formative years in San Diego where his father Max, who played three NHL seasons himself, was the coach of the minor-pro team. McNab earned a baseball scholarship to the University of Denver but ended up playing hockey there instead. Following his playing career, he re-joined the Devils as the color commentator on TV starting in 1987–88. After eight years, he moved back to Denver to become the first color analyst for Avalanche games, a job he held until his death.

Nov. 24 - Borje Salming, 71, was one of the elite defensemen in the NHL in his prime from 1974-80 with Toronto. He was a first-team year-end all-star in 1976-77, and a second-teamer in the other five seasons. He finished in the top four in Norris Trophy voting each season, and was runner-up to Larry Robinson in both 1977 and 1980. He anchored the Maple Leafs' blue line for 15 seasons, concluding his NHL career with one season in Detroit. He also played three seasons with Brynas before jumping to the NHL and spending three more with AIK before retiring for good. In 1996, he became the first European-raised player elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame and was selected among the top 100 players of the NHL's first 100 years.

Nov. 30 - John Hadl, 82, had a 16-year career as one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL, 11 of them coming with San Diego and the remainder with the Rams, Packers, and Oilers. He was a two-time All-American at Kansas as quarterback/halfback in 1960 and 1961, and was drafted by both the NFL and AFL in 1962. He selected the Chargers and was Tobin Rote's backup on the 1963 AFL championship team. From 1964-69, Hadl established himself and was a four-time AFL all-star. In 1973, he took the Rams to the playoffs and earned his only nod as an NFL first-team All-Pro. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994.

Dec. 1 - Gaylord Perry, 84, was well-known in his 22-year major-league pitching career for having not only a vast repertoire of pitches, but as a leading practitioner of deploying foreign substances on the ball. (He was only ejected from a game for this once, in 1982.) After breaking in with San Francisco in 1962, he went on to pitch with Cleveland, Texas, San Diego, the Yankees, Atlanta, Seattle, and Kansas City. He won 314 games with a career ERA of 3.11 and is one of 19 pitchers who reached 3,000 strikeouts. He was the AL Cy Young winner in 1972, his first year with Cleveland, and became the oldest player to win a Cy Young in 1978 in his age-39 season with the Padres. He was sent to the Hall of Fame in the class of 1991.

Dec. 4 - Nick Bollettieri, 91, was perhaps the most well-known professional tennis coach, establishing his eponymous tennis academy in 1978 in Bradenton, Fla., which is now the multi-sport IMG Academy. Bollettieri notably coached Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, and Jim Courier as they reached No. 1 in the world, and also trained Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova, Mary Pierce, Jelena Jankovic, and Max Mirnyi. The Williams sisters often trained for Grand Slams at the academy. He was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2014.

Dec. 6 - Mills Lane, 85, is best known for presiding over the second Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield bout in 1997, in which Tyson was disqualified for biting Holyfield's ear twice. He started refereeing boxing matches in 1971 and parlayed his later fame into a TV career as the star of the syndicated courtroom show "Judge Mills Lane" (he was a lawyer and judge in real life) from 1998-2001, and as the voice of his own regular character on MTV's "Celebrity Deathmatch." He was enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013.

Dec. 10 - Paul Silas, 79, simply did it all on the basketball court, from being California's Mr. Basketball in 1960 at age 17, to returning to the sidelines to coach the Charlotte Bobcats in 2010 at age 67. He was a second-round draft pick by the St. Louis Hawks in 1964 after being a second-team All-American at Creighton. He played 16 seasons in the NBA as a high-rebound power forward with the Hawks, Suns, Celtics, Nuggets, and SuperSonics. He was twice an all-star and earned three rings, two of which came with Boston in 1974 and 1976, and the other with Seattle in 1979. His first head coaching job was with the Clippers in 1980 and he spent 23 seasons on the sidelines, 12 as head coach. His son, Stephen, is now the head coach of the Houston Rockets.

Dec. 10 - Grant Wahl, 49, was a sportswriter best known for his work covering soccer in the U.S. and around the world. He got his start at Sports Illustrated, where he wrote about college basketball, soccer, and the Olympics. He also worked in TV, covering soccer with Fox and then CBS. In 2020, he launched his own independent site to cover the sport. He wrote two books, "The Beckham Experiment" and "Masters of Modern Soccer."

Dec. 12 - Mike Leach, 61, was the head football coach at three major college programs between 2000 and 2022. In 21 seasons, his teams went to 17 bowl games while he earned four conference coach of the year awards and took home national coach of the year awards in 2008 and 2018. He got his start in coaching at small colleges starting in 1987 before becoming the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Kentucky in 1997. In 1999, he joined Bob Stoops' staff as the OC at Oklahoma. In 10 seasons as the head coach at Texas Tech, he was 84-43, and the 2008 team rose as high as No. 2 in the AP poll while going 11-2. He took over the program at Washington State in 2012, staying for nine seasons, and his 2017 and 2018 teams both rose into the top 10 in the AP poll. In 2020, he joined the program at Mississippi State.

Dec. 21 - Franco Harris, 72, was the primary ball carrier for the Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty that won four Super Bowls in the 1970s. He had a modest college career at Penn State but was selected 13th overall by Pittsburgh in the 1972 draft. He made an immediate impact, rushing for 1,055 yards and 10 touchdowns to earn offensive rookie of the year honors and a second-team All-Pro nod. He had eight 1,000-yard seasons in his 11 years with the Steelers and was selected to nine Pro Bowls. He was named the MVP of Super Bowl IX after rushing for 158 yards in the 16-6 win over Minnesota. He was third in career rushing yards (12,120) and touchdowns (91) when he retired after a final season in Seattle in 1984. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Dec. 24 - Kathy Whitworth, 83, holds what may be an unbreakable record: 88 LPGA Tour victories in her career, six more than fellow Hall of Famer Mickey Wright (and six more than PGA Tour all-time leader Sam Snead). She won her first in 1962 and 52 more in the decade; she won her last event in 1985. In between, she was the LPGA player of the year seven times in a span of eight years and the tour money leader in eight seasons. She won six majors, including the LPGA Women's Championship three times. She passed the World Golf Hall of Fame qualifying standards in 1975 and was officially enshrined in 1982.

Dec. 29 - Pele, 82, started playing first division soccer in Brazil at the age of 15 and was on the national team by 16. By the time he was 21, he was so important to Brazil that all attempts by European teams to sign him were rebuffed. He led Brazil to World Cup titles in 1958, 1962, and 1970. His club team, Santos, is the only Brazilian side to win the state, league, and continental trophies in a single year (1962). Santos won Brazil's Serie A championship six times in the 1960s. He holds a Guinness world record for most goals scored in all competitions, including friendlies: 1,279 in 1,363 games. In 1975, he left Brazil to sign with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, setting attendance records in his three seasons and opening up America to other world legends. Following his playing career, he was Brazil's Minister of Sport for a time in the 1990s but was more known as an ambassador of sport in different forms.

To read about more sports personalities who died in 2022, visit our extended list.

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Joel Quenneville has resigned. Stan Bowman has resigned. Al MacIsaac is out too. The independent report into the Chicago Blackhawks sexual abuse scandal reopened old wounds and forced a group of seven executives and coaches to reckon with 11 years of inaction. But as quickly as the scandal exploded this week, the furor will die down now that small measures of justice have been meted out.

The news cycle moves so fast that Quenneville's resignation Thursday afternoon was already giving way Thursday night to speculation about whether John Tortorella would be hired to take over in Florida.

That's how it always goes. Behavior is exposed, people are outraged, prices are paid, but life continues as people return to their own self-interests. Change is promised, but it never seems to arrive in any demonstrable way.

On Wednesday, Kyle Beach told TSN's Rick Westhead that he hoped the release of the report from the independent investigation would make a difference.

"I hope that this entire process can make a systematic change to make sure this never happens again," Beach said. "Because it not only affected me as a young adult and now as a 31-year-old man, but it also affected kids because it was not handled in a correct way."

For decades, though, sports' history of sexual abuse has run like clockwork. Despite dozens of scandals, young athletes' dreams and aspirations can be twisted grotesquely by predators operating not just in the shadows but in plain sight.

It shouldn't be up to Beach, Sheldon Kennedy, Simone Biles, dozens more American gymnasts, and Bo Schembechler's son to bare their souls to get the rest of us to pay attention.

The Blackhawks situation makes it obvious that many of these scandals come down to a failure of leadership. Quenneville and Bowman can lose their jobs, but those punishments do nothing to prevent the next scandal.

What would real change look like? We know the Blackhawks had a corporate policy in place in 2010 when Beach made his complaint. The policy meant nothing if the Blackhawks leaders could simply put it aside until it was more convenient. The policy did nothing if the perpetrator could be quietly dismissed without an investigation. Policies alone can't be the answer.

"Posters and buttons and policies and procedures don't change culture," Kennedy told the Canadian Press this week. "Until sport makes this a priority as they do winning, they'll never have the change that I think people expect from them."

Over the weekend, I came across an interview with Julie Lalonde, who trains people to overcome the bystander effect. Throughout this week, I kept returning to this idea as an explanation for the inaction by Blackhawks management. The bystander effect most often relates to attacks in progress; the more people who witness an attack, the theory goes, the more likely it is that no one will attempt to intervene out of fear and self-interest.

In fact, people choose not to get involved for myriad reasons. Apart from the bystander effect, Lalonde believes the lack of intervention in difficult situations is "about a lack of empathy. We’re not socialized to have empathy for anyone who is in crisis." There is also research suggesting that poorly executed sexual harassment training makes men more likely to blame victims. It's important to find a way out of this mess.

In 2010, Kyle Beach was not in immediate physical danger when Blackhawks management learned about his complaint, but the report outlines that skating coach Paul Vincent recognized that Beach seemed "distraught" the week after the incident with Aldrich. Vincent says that he reported what he knew about Beach, along with allegations that Aldrich had committed sexual misconduct involving a second player, to team president John McDonough, Bowman, MacIsaac, and mental skills coach James Gary - four of the seven men who would be involved in the bigger meeting several days later.

Still, none of the seven men, who all had some measure of power within the organization, felt it was up to them to go any further. Quenneville was concerned about "upsetting team chemistry" and wanted to "focus on the team and the playoffs," according to other people in the meeting. Bowman abdicated his own responsibility by pointing a finger at McDonough in his statement this week.

Better leaders, even if they didn't act on the information the same day, would have reflected on it and quickly intervened. Better leaders would believe that a player's allegation of (at minimum) sexual misconduct by a coach is a potential cancer that ought to be biopsied. But no one felt the urgency to step forward to protect one of their players and initiate an investigation. They were more than willing to sacrifice Kyle Beach to the altar of the Stanley Cup.

"I just don't get why one guy couldn't just stand up and say, 'You know what, no, this is wrong,'" Tortorella said Thursday during a panel discussion on ESPN.

It's easy for all of us to second-guess and believe we would have acted better. But nothing is going to change unless every person in a position of leadership decides to seek out training to overcome the bystander effect. Leaders' top priorities should include not just meeting business objectives, but keeping their team members safe. Until more leaders accept this responsibility, sports will continue to cycle through abuse scandals.

On Sunday in Canada, Showcase will air the finale of the series "Dr. Death," which dramatizes the case of a narcissistic and unskilled surgeon who botched dozens of spinal surgeries in the Dallas area in the 2010s. (The series is a Peacock+ original and available on that streaming service in the U.S.)

It intersects with the Blackhawks scandal in respect to the way that large organizations deal with removing troublesome employees. Large organizations, almost by definition, are obsessed with liability, doing whatever it takes to avoid having to pay penalties for bad acts perpetrated in their name.

In the case of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, two hospitals quietly shuffled him out the door without official, public reprimands, allowing him to continue to butcher spinal surgeries in tragic ways. He was not reported to any licensing board and was also given legally truthful yet vague letters of recommendation that allowed him to gain surgical privileges from his next employer.

People were maimed because leadership at a couple of large hospitals took the expedient route to rid their organizations of Dr. Death. It's easier to pass the problem to someone else than to deal with it yourself.

The Blackhawks are clearly guilty of doing this as well. It's galling that Aldrich has a Stanley Cup ring. It's galling that he got to have the Cup for a personal day of enjoyment. It's galling that Quenneville wrote him a glowing performance review dated at the end of June 2010. It all demonstrates a shallow pool of empathy in the organization. At least Blackhawks ownership has formally requested to remove Aldrich's name from the Cup. But that doesn't make up for the people he went on to harass and abuse, most notably the high school student in Houghton, Michigan.

The Blackhawks failed to follow their own policy and investigate Beach's complaint. Allowing Aldrich to resign without an investigation meant there was no documentary trail that could have warned other organizations before hiring him. The whole episode needs to be an object lesson in the catastrophic consequences of not taking responsibility for the care and safety of the people in your organization and recognizing the duty to make sure there aren't future victims.

The Blackhawks failed so many people in 2010, and that failure spread outside their circle. If anything is going to change, it won't come from policies and punishments after the fact. Change has to come from leaders having empathy and taking responsibility, and it has to come at the moment when it means the most.

Guy Spurrier is the features editor at theScore.

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Tim Peel became Twitter's main character Tuesday night when he inadvertently opened the curtain to what NHL referees think and act upon in games. The league was swift in its punishment of Peel but left unaddressed the larger disgruntlement fans have with officiating.

There has always been a disconnect between what the paying customers see and the seemingly inexplicable events that are triggered by game officials on the court/field/ice.

During the Red Wings-Predators game, a hot mic appeared to catch Peel saying that makeup calls and "evening things out" do exist in the NHL. The league banished Peel for the final few weeks of the regular season, though the 53-year-old was scheduled to retire anyway.

But Tim Peel's dismissal is not just an NHL story. It ought to be a reminder to all leagues that accountability from the participants in major professional sports doesn't stop with teams and the players. Leagues have rules about making players available to the media but fail to hold themselves and their game officials to the same standard.

The NBA is the most progressive with its last two-minute reports and the decision to keep the bubble addition of courtside microphones for referees to explain which elements of a play they are reviewing. Leagues otherwise make officials available for postgame interviews only in rare circumstances.

Leagues have always placed a cloak of secrecy around their game officials and the way they're managed. And anything that is shielded from the public (via their agents in the media) can go off the rails.

The public generally believes that game officials put their thumb on the scale in the name of "fairness," such as makeup calls to cover over a previous bad call. The public also generally believes that established players are treated more favorably than rookies and stars in many sports can get away with just about anything.

Offensive holding calls noticeably dropped in the NFL in 2020 - only 477 were called in regular- and postseason games versus 732 in 2019. The difference represented nearly 2,500 fewer yards lost. The league briefly addressed the trend after Week 1, with Walt Anderson, the senior vice president of officiating training and development, telling NFL.com that officials were instructed to only call "clear and obvious" penalties.

The transparency is fine, but it doesn't explain why holding penalties specifically dropped 35% when penalties overall dropped only 16%.

If the NFL wants to goose offensive production, it should just say so. Otherwise, fans are left to draw their own conclusions.

You can easily point to your own example in any sport. Baseball umpires, for example, made up their own strike zones for years. In the '90s, umpires' strike zones became so distorted that we eventually reached Game 5 of the 1997 National League Championship Series. Marlins starter Livan Hernandez famously struck out 15 Braves. Umpire Eric Gregg's strike zone was so wide that hitters had no choice but to try to swing and foul off unhittable pitches off the plate.

Joe Brinkman's strike zone in Game 6 of the 1995 World Series was similarly bloated. This is not to denigrate those two umpires. But the strike zone was more art than science in the 1990s and people knew it.

Through much of the 1970s, National League umpires wore chest protectors inside their shirts while the American League maintained the practice of using the balloon protectors held in front of them. The leagues operated separately back then, with their own presidents and league offices and umpiring crews. It all gave rise to the public perception that NL umps could properly call strikes at the knees, while encumbered AL umps had a high strike zone.

There are any number of ways to erode the public's confidence in the outcome through inconsistent officiating.

Calling the strike zone has gotten better in the data age, partly because broadcasts now show the location of pitches during every at-bat. Holding umpires accountable resulted in a more consistent product.

All of this is not to say that game officials need to be scrutinized by reporters after every game. But leagues can bolster public confidence in the games. Game officials should be as accountable to the public as any other participant in the game. And when their bosses judge that their work falls short of the standard, the public deserves to know what punishments have been meted out.

As North American jurisdictions decriminalize sports betting, confidence in the product becomes paramount. Leagues have decided they want to profit from betting. In return, they need to continue to lift the veil draped over their game officials.

Guy Spurrier is theScore's features editor.

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