JAN. 3: Sid Gillman, 91, who coached the Rams, Chargers and Oilers.
JAN. 9: Will McDonough, 67, Boston Globe sports writer and columnist for more than 40 years.
FEB. 12: Haywood Sullivan, 72, the only person to serve as an owner, general manager and player for the Boston Red Sox.
FEB. 13: Former welterweight champion Kid Gavilan, 77, who became a star and television regular.
FEB. 17: Steve Bechler, 23, Baltimore Orioles pitcher. He died of heatstroke after complaining of dizziness during spring training.
APRIL 15: Leonard Tose, 88, former Philadelphia Eagles owner who by his own estimate gambled away $50-million and was forced to sell the team in 1985.
MAY 4: David Woodley, 44, former Miami Dolphins and LSU quarterback who started in Super Bowl XVII.
MAY 8: Sam Lacy, 99, sports editor of The (Baltimore) Afro-American weekly newspaper since 1944 and a key figure in the integration of Major League Baseball.
MAY 8: Dottie Ferguson Key, 80, played for 10 seasons with the Rockford Peaches in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
MAY 14: Hall of Famer Dave DeBusschere, 62, forward on the Knicks' 1970 and '73 championship teams and a major-league pitcher with the White Sox in 1962-63.
JUNE 9: Spectacular Bid, 27, winner of the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness. He won 26 of 30 starts.
JUNE 18: Hall of Fame outfielder Larry Doby, 79, first black player in the American League and seven-time All-Star in a 13-year career, almost all of it with the Cleveland Indians.
JUNE 21: Roger Neilson, 69, Hall of Famer who coached eight NHL teams.
JUNE 22: Leonard Koppett, 79, Hall of Fame baseball writer whose career spanned nearly six decades in New York and the San Francisco Bay area.
JULY 5: New York Rangers forward Roman Lyashenko, 24, committed suicide while vacationing at a beach resort in Antalya, Turkey.
JULY 15: Tex Schramm, 83, general manager who helped build the Cowboys into "America's Team."
JULY 27: Patrick Dennehy, 21, murdered Baylor basketball player. Coach Dave Bliss tried to cover up alleged NCAA violations by telling assistant coaches and players to say Dennehy had been dealing drugs.
AUG. 11: Herb Brooks, 66, Olympic hockey coach who led the U.S. team to the "Miracle on Ice" gold-medal victory over the Soviet Union in 1980 and the 2002 team to a silver.
AUG. 23 - Bobby Bonds, 57, father of slugger Barry Bonds, one of the first major-leaguers to combine home-run power with base-stealing speed. He hit 332 home runs and stole 461 bases for the Giants, Yankees, Angels, White Sox, Rangers, Indians, Cardinals and Cubs.
SEPT. 25: George Plimpton, 76, "participatory journalist" whose fumbling exploits included boxing, trapeze flying and, most famously, playing third-string quarterback in training camp for the 1963 Detroit Lions. He chronicled it in Paper Lion.
SEPT. 28: Althea Gibson, 76, who broke the color barrier in tennis in the 1950s as the first black woman to win Wimbledon and U.S. national titles.
OCT. 5: Dan Snyder, 25, Atlanta Thrashers center who died six days after he was involved in a car crash with teammate Dany Heatley.
OCT. 12: Bill Shoemaker, 72, who rode four Kentucky Derby winners and finished with 8,883 wins.
OCT. 22: IRL racer Tony Renna, 26, died after crashing during a test drive at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
NOV. 5: Dernell Stenson, 25, Reds outfielder, shot and apparently run over in Chandler, Ariz.
NOV. 18: Ken Brett, 55, major-league pitcher for 14 seasons, brother of Hall of Famer George Brett, and the youngest-ever World Series pitcher (19 years, one month), for Boston in 1967.
NOV. 22: Warren Spahn, 82, Braves Hall of Fame pitcher, a 14-time All-Star who won more games than any other left-hander in history, 363 in 21 seasons with 20 or more wins 13 times.
DEC. 9: Norm Sloan, 77, coached North Carolina State to the 1974 NCAA basketball title. The Wolfpack was 27-0 in 1973 but barred from the NCAA Tournament because of probation related to his recruitment. Sloan left the Wolfpack in 1980 for Florida, where his nine seasons were marked by scandal, landing the Gators on probation.
DEC. 15: Keith Magnuson, 56, a former player and coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, died in a three-car auto accident.
DEC. 17: Otto Graham, 82, Hall of Fame quarterback with the Cleveland Browns (AAFC 1946-49; NFL 1950-55) who led them to a championship game in every season he played.
