Notable deaths from the sporting world

March & April

 March 1 -- Ray Dorr, former Texas A&M assistant football, died at age 59. Dorr spent 33 years coaching at the collegiate level at Kentucky, Southern California, Washington, Kent State, Southern Illinois and Akron before arriving at A&M. He tutored NFL quarterbacks Warren Moon, Tom Flick, Steve Pelluer, Chris Chandler, Hugh Millen, Rodney Peete, Todd Marinovich and Rob Johnson.

 March 7 -- Ed O'Connor, a Manhattan College basketball star who led the nation in field-goal shooting in 1955 and was the first player from his school drafted by the NBA, died at 68. O'Connor was the first player in school history to score 1,000 points, finishing with 1,271 points, and was the leading scorer on Manhattan's NIT teams in 1953-55.

 March 13 -- Walter Dukes, who helped establish Seton Hall as a college basketball force, died at age 70. He still holds the NCAA single-season rebounding record with 734 in 1952-53, a year in which he led Seton Hall to a 31-2 record and the NIT title. Dukes played with the Detroit Pistons from 1957-63. He averaged 10.9 points and 11.8 rebounds per game.

 March 13 -- Jim Powell, a jockey ranked 54th on the all-time victory list with 3,591, won eight riding titles between 1971 and 1981 at Turf Paradise, died at age 50.

 March 17 -- Henry Kaelarne, a bronze medalist in the 5,000 meters at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, died at age 88.

 March 18 -- Leotis Gillery, who played for the Harlem Globetrotters, died at age 58.

 March 19 -- Gordon Brown, former Scottish and British rugby star, died at age 53.

 March 16 -- Bob Wollek, a winner of the world's premier endurance races at Daytona and Le Mans, died at age 57. Frenchman was to compete in the 12 Hours of Sebring, an event he won in 1985. Having raced for more than 25 years, Wollek's titles included two class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and four overall wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Wollek won the world Porsche Cup a record seven times.

 March 21 -- Billy Ray Smith Sr., who played in two Super Bowls for the Baltimore Colts during 13 seasons in the NFL, died at age 66.

 March 27 -- James Ailinger, the National Football League's oldest former player, died at age 99. Ailinger's NFL career began and ended in 1924, when he played one season as center and nose guard for the Buffalo Bisons, formerly called the Buffalo All-Americans.

 March 28 -- Jim Benton, a two-time All Pro and a member of the NFL's all-decade team for the 1940s, died at age 84. Benton was a part of two NFL championship teams with the Chicago Bears in 1943 and the Cleveland Rams in 1945. He was the first NFL player to have more than 300 yards receiving in a game, a record that stood for more than 40 years.

 March 29 -- George Connor, the last surviving driver who competed in the Indianapolis 500 before World War II, died at age 94. Connor drove seven of his 14 Indianapolis 500s before the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was shut down from 1942-45. His first racing appearance at the track was in 1935 and his best Indy 500 finish was third, in 1949.

 March 31 -- Brian Cole, 22, among the top prospects in the New York Mets' farm system, died when SUV crashed in the Florida Panhandle.

 April 1 -- Jo-Jo Moore, a star outfielder in the 1930s who played in three World Series for the New York Giants, died at age 92. Moore was the leadoff hitter and left fielder for the Giants from 1930-41. He played on six All-Star teams, had an especially strong arm and compiled a career average of .298.

 April 9 -- Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, who led the Pirates to two World Series victories with his tape-measure homers, died at age 61. One of the greatest home run hitters ever, in volume and in distance, Stargell hit 475 homers. With Stargell batting cleanup for most of his 20-year career, the Pirates won World Series championships and NL pennants in 1971 and 1979 and six NL East titles from 1970-79.

 April 11 -- Roy "Cowboy" Petsch, a longtime Wyoming sports official who quarterbacked the Cornhuskers in Nebraska's only Rose Bowl appearance, died at age 82. He played on the 8-2 team in 1940 that lost to Stanford 21-13 in the Jan. 1, 1941, Rose Bowl.

 April 15 -- Jack Elway, the father of John Elway and an innovative college coach in the 1970s and '80s, died at age 69. He was head coach at Cal State-Northridge (1976-78), San Jose State (1979-83) and Stanford (1984-88). In 34 seasons as a head coach and assistant coach in high school, junior college and college, he posted a .650 winning percentage.

 April 16 -- Horace Gwynne, who won Olympic boxing gold for Canada in 1932, died at age 88. The bantamweight fighter won all but one of his 31 amateur bouts and was undefeated as a pro.

 April 16 -- Romeo A. "Roe" Laramee, a retired corrective therapist credited with inventing wheelchair basketball, died at age 86.

 April 17 -- Ted Rasberry, a community activist who owned two baseball teams in the final years of the old Negro American League, died at age 89. In 1946, he founded an all-black team, the Grand Rapids Black Sox. He purchased the Negro American League's Kansas City Monarchs and Detroit Stars in the 1950s. The league, down to six teams at the time, officially folded in 1960.

 April 17 -- Arthur A. Seeligson Jr., a San Antonio millionaire oilman and horse owner whose bay colt Avatar won the Belmont Stakes in 1975 died at age 80. He was part owner of Hialeah Racetrack in Florida, and also served as co-chairman of the effort to approve pari-mutuel wagering in Texas in 1967.

 April 19 -- Charlie O'Hearn, the oldest living former Yale football player, died at age 99. O'Hearn earned nine varsity letters playing three sports at Yale before graduating in 1924. He captained the hockey and baseball teams and was a kicker in football.

 April 19 -- Hal Haig Prieste, America's oldest Olympian who once stole the original Olympic flag, died at age 104. Prieste won a bronze medal in platform diving at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, placing third behind teammate Clarence Pinkston and Erik Adlerz of Sweden. Prieste briefly appeared at the 2000 Sydney Games, where he returned his souvenir -- the original Olympic flag.

 April 20 -- Bert Sutcliffe, who scored more than 2,700 test runs and was considered one of the best left-handed batsmen to play cricket, died at age 77. Sutcliffe finished his 24-year career that started in 1942 with figures of 17,447 runs at 47.41 in first-class cricket, and 2,727 runs at 40.1 in tests.

 April 24 -- Johnny Valentine, a former professional wrestler whose career was shortened by injuries in a 1975 plane crash, died at age 72. Valentine was U.S. heavyweight champion in October 1975, when a plane carrying him and four others ran out of fuel and crashed. He sustained a broken back, foot and hand and never wrestled again.

 April 25 -- Viktor Bannykov, the famed Ukrainian goalkeeper who played for the Soviet national team in the 1960s and 1970s and was recognized as the best Soviet goalkeeper, died at age 62.

 April 25 -- Clive Davies, who took up long-distance running at age 57 and was still breaking records at age 70, died at age 85. Davies set 46 U.S. and world age-group records in distances ranging from 1 mile to 60 kilometers (37.2 miles), all between the ages of 59 and 70. Perhaps his greatest performance was the 1982 Boston Marathon at age 66. Davies clocked 2 hours, 43 minutes, 56 seconds.

 April 25 -- Michele Alboreto, 44, a one-time Formula One star, was killed when the Audi he was test driving crashed in eastern Germany. Alboreto broke into Formula One with the Tyrrell team in 1981 and won his first race in Las Vegas that year and again in Detroit two years later. He was hired by Ferrari in 1984 and a year later nearly became the first Italian to win the drivers' championship in more than 30 years. He finished second behind Alain Prost of France.

 April 28 -- Andy Phillip, a Hall of Famer who was an All-American at the University of Illinois and was the first National Basketball Association player to record 500 assists in a season, died at age 79. Phillip was the playmaker on Illinois' "Whiz Kids" teams in the early 1940s. His 500 assists came in 1952 while playing for both the Philadelphia Warriors and Fort Wayne Pistons. He helped the Boston Celtics to their first of 16 championships in 1957.