From Kobe to Maradona, a year of staggering losses in sports
By FRED LIEFDecember 29, 2020 GMT
There were so many this year.
Sports in 2020 was an unending state of mourning. It was as if every week, sometimes days, another luminary fell, bringing a cascade of condolence and remembrance.
It began New Year’s Day, a harbinger of what the year held, with the deaths of David Stern and Don Larsen. Not long after came a seismic jolt, the helicopter crash of Kobe Bryant in the fog-shrouded California hills that reverberated across sports and across continents.
Deep into the year, a bookend to Bryant, Diego Maradona died from a heart attack in Argentina weeks after brain surgery, the waves of grief rippling across soccer. It seemed a whole wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame was ripped away -- Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, Joe Morgan, Phil Niekro. Football lost a big piece of its heart: Don Shula, Gale Sayers, Paul Hornung, Bobby Mitchell. Gone from college basketball was John Thompson, as imposing and important a coach as any.