JAN. 1: John Franks, 78, a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award as North America's most outstanding thoroughbred owner. Franks won the Eclipse Award in 1983, 1984, 1993 and 1994.
JAN. 4: James E. "Doc" Counsilman, 83, coached Indiana to six NCAA swimming championships.
JAN. 5: Tug McGraw, 59, the zany relief pitcher who coined the phrase "You Gotta Believe" with the New York Mets and later closed out the Philadelphia Phillies' only World Series championship. He played on three World Series teams during his 19-year career.
JAN. 9: Yinka Dare, 32, the New Jersey Nets' first-round draft pick in 1994. The 7-foot Nigerian center played 110 games in four seasons with the Nets, averaging 2.1 points and 2.6 rebounds.
JAN. 20: Don Shinnick, 68, the NFL's record-holder for career interceptions by a linebacker. Shinnick, who had 37 interceptions with the Baltimore Colts from 1957-69, played on NFL championship teams in 1958 and 1959.
JAN. 24: Leonidas da Silva, 90, soccer great credited with inventing the bicycle kick. The kick made him the first superstar of professional soccer in Brazil. Da Silva, later known as the "Black Diamond," was the top scorer with eight goals at the 1938 World Cup, where Brazil came in third.
JAN. 25: Fanny Blankers-Koen, 85, Dutch athlete who won a record four gold medals in track and field at the 1948 Olympics. The International Association of Athletics Federations in 1999 honored her as the best female athlete of the 20th century.
JAN. 27: H.B. Haggerty, 78, a professional wrestler who turned snarling actor and stuntman. Haggerty briefly played for the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions and later became a pro wrestler under the name "Hard-Boiled" Haggerty in the 1950s and 1960s.
JAN. 28: Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, 80, an NFL Hall of Famer and later the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin. He earned his nickname for his running style as a halfback and receiver for the Los Angeles Rams from 1949-57.
JAN. 28: Russell "Sox" Walseth, 77, the winningest men's basketball coach at the University of Colorado. He came out of retirement to guide the Colorado women's team from 1980-83. He is believed to be the first person to coach both the men's and women's teams at the same NCAA school.
JAN. 31: Eleanor Holm Whalen, 91, a two-time swimming gold medalist in the 1932 Olympics. Whalen was dismissed from the U.S. Olympic team set to compete in Berlin in 1936 because she was caught drinking champagne and shooting dice on the ocean liner en route to Europe. Whalen, who won 21 U.S. swimming titles, never returned to the Olympics as a competitor.
FEB. 3: Richard Dennis Powell, 92, one of the last surviving executives of the Negro Leagues. Powell was the business and general manager of Baltimore's Elite Giants, one of black baseball's most popular teams in the 1930s and 1940s.
FEB. 14: Marco Pantani, 34, the last cyclist other than Lance Armstrong to win the Tour de France, was found dead in a hotel room in the city of Rimini, Italy. He became Italy's most popular cyclist, especially after he won cycling's two greatest races, the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, in 1998.
FEB. 17: Shirley Strickland de la Hunty, 78, Australia's most prolific Olympic track medalist. Competing as Shirley Strickland, she won an Australian-record seven Olympic medals and was the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic titles. She won the 80-meter hurdles at Helsinki in 1952 and defended her title at the 1956 Melbourne Games. Her seven Olympic medals included three golds.
MARCH 2: Marge Schott, 75, the tough-talking, chain-smoking owner of the Cincinnati Reds who won a World Series and was repeatedly suspended for offensive remarks.
MARCH 6: Tabasco Cat, 13, winner of the 1994 Preakness and Belmont Stakes.
MARCH 14: Norb Hecker, 76, the first coach of the Atlanta Falcons and winner of eight NFL championship rings.
MARCH 18: Gene Bearden, 83, a knuckleballer who completed a remarkable rookie season by closing out the Cleveland Indians' last World Series championship in 1948.
MARCH 21: Matthew Gribble, 41, an Olympic swimmer who once held the world record in the 100-meter butterfly. Gribble won two NCAA titles at the University of Miami and set a world record for the 100 fly in 1983.
MARCH 22: Russell Reineman, 86, the seller of War Emblem less than a month before the horse won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Reineman, a longtime horse enthusiast, didn't believe War Emblem was good enough to run in the 2002 Kentucky Derby. So he sold the nearly black colt to the late Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Salman's Thoroughbred Corp. for $900,000 in April 2002, keeping a 10 percent stake. Twenty-five days later, War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby, the first of three $1-million races he would win for trainer Bob Baffert.
APRIL 4: George Bamberger, 80, a former major-league pitcher who managed Milwaukee's "Bambi's Bombers" teams in the late 1970s. Bamberger, who also managed the New York Mets, was the Baltimore Orioles' pitching coach from 1968 to 1977, helping produce AL Cy Young Award winners four times with Jim Palmer and Mike Cuellar.
APRIL 6: Gene Karst, 97, baseball's first public relations official when he worked with the St. Louis Cardinals' "Gas House Gang" of the 1930s. In 1931, Karst was hired to write features about the Cardinals for small-town newspapers.
APRIL 7: Robert Sangster, 67, an owner and breeder whose impact on horse racing extended around the world. Sangster's horses won 27 European Classics, include the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe three times. He also owned the 1984 Breeders Cup' Mile winner Royal Heroine and 1980 Melbourne Cup winner Beldale Ball. It was Sangster who helped persuade Steve Cauthen to ride in Britain after the American jockey guided Affirmed to the 1978 Triple Crown.
APRIL 8: Bruce Edwards, 49, a caddie whose struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease inspired longtime boss Tom Watson at the 2003 U.S. Open. Edwards was present for many of Watson's most memorable triumphs, including a magical opening round at last year's U.S. Open. The 53-year-old Watson shot a 5-under 65, matching his best score ever at the Open.
APRIL 22: Pat Tillman, 27, Arizona Cardinal safety who traded in a multimillion-dollar contract to serve as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. He was killed in action.
APRIL 30: Joseph Cullman, 92, a former chairman of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Cullman was considered a pioneer of women's tennis, helping start a women's pro tour in 1970.
MAY 14: Torsten Johansson, 84, Swedish tennis star who set a record by shutting out two opponents at Wimbledon in 1946. Johansson played for the Royal Tennis Club in the early 1940s and won more than 100 national titles for the club, a record that still stands.
MAY 16: Dan Allen, 48, coached the Holy Cross football team from a wheelchair during the 2003 season.
MAY 16: Jim Colclough, 68, original member of the Boston Patriots and one of the top receivers in franchise history. In his nine seasons in the American Football League, all with the Patriots, Colclough had 283 receptions for 5,001 yards and 39 touchdowns.
MAY 16: John Frank Patterson Sr., 83, Hall of Fame harness racing trainer and driver. Patterson trained and raced multiple world-record holder Overtrick, who won the Little Brown Jug, one of the sport's major races, in 1963 in Delaware, Ohio. He also raced Merrie Annabelle, who set four world records and broke a milestone in the sport in 1958 by becoming the first filly to log a 2-minute time on a mile-long course in Lexington, Ky.
MAY 22: Alexander Jiminez Woodley, 71, track coach who produced champions such as John Carlos, Charles Foster, Ira Davis and Steve Riddick. As head coach of the Philadelphia Pioneer Educational-Athletic Development Club, Woodley won five consecutive USA track and field national championships.
JUNE 8: Ronalda Pierce, 19, a Florida State basketball player who died from an aneurysm. Pierce just completed her freshman season with the Seminoles, averaging 5.3 points and 3.5 rebounds a game.
JUNE 9: Ralph Moody, 86, a racing pioneer and Hall of Famer who won 93 races as a car owner on NASCAR's top circuit. Between 1958 and 1972, Moody was a partner with John Holman in the Holman-Moody Racing shop that consistently put drivers in the winner's circle. Moody also won five races as a driver in 1956-57.
JUNE 9: Roosevelt Brown, 71, a Hall of Fame offensive tackle who starred for the New York Giants in the 1950s and '60s. A 27th-round draft pick out of Morgan State in 1953, Brown was the Giants' starting right tackle for 13 years. Playing at 255 pounds, tiny by today's standards, he was voted to the All-NFL team for eight consecutive seasons and selected to nine Pro Bowls.
JUNE 10: Rowland Haddock Jr., 31, died after his dragster swerved and flipped over a guardrail after a NHRA test run at Pecan Park Road track in Jacksonville.
JUNE 17: Gerry McNeil, 78, won two Stanley Cups as a goaltender with the Montreal Canadiens. McNeil won his first Cup in the 1952-53 season and was part of the 1956-57 team that won the second of five straight NHL titles.
JUNE 25: Karol Kennedy Kucher, 72, a member of the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame who won the silver medal with her brother in skating pairs in the 1952 Winter Olympics.
JUNE 25: C.J. Hart, 93, helped create the country's first commercial drag strip.
JULY 5: Rodger Ward, 83, two-time Indianapolis 500 champion. Ward won in 1959 and 1962, during a six-year span in which he finished no worse than fourth.
JULY 11: Joe Gold, 81, founder of Gold's Gym that became known worldwide in the sport of bodybuilding and drew the likes of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gold later established World Gym, which Schwarzenegger endorsed.
JULY 24: Lowell "Cotton" Fitzsimmons, 72, winner of 832 games in 21 seasons as an NBA coach. Fitzsimmons had coaching stints with five teams: Phoenix, Atlanta, Buffalo, Kansas City and San Antonio. He had a 832-775 (.518) record in the NBA, ranking him 10th in career victories.
JULY 26: Ruben Gomez, 77, winner of baseball's first regular-season game on the West Coast. Gomez started the first game in San Francisco history, beating Don Drysdale and the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers 8-0 on April 15, 1958. The right-hander was 76-86 with a 4.09 ERA for the Giants, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Minnesota. He pitched from 1953-62, and then returned to make seven relief appearances for the Phillies in 1967, when he was the oldest player in the majors at 39.
AUG. 3: Bob Murphy, 79, Hall of Fame broadcaster who covered the New York Mets from the team's inception in 1962 until his retirement after the 2003 season. Murphy worked as a baseball broadcaster for 50 years.
AUG. 4: Milton Green, 92, a former world-record hurdler who boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. While at Harvard in 1935 and 1936, Green tied the world record of 5.8 seconds in the 45-yard hurdles four times. He also tied the world record of 7.5 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles in 1936. Green, considered a lock for the U.S. Olympic team, boycotted the Berlin games because of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
AUG. 6: Phil Johnson, 78, Hall of Fame trainer who won the 2002 Breeders' Cup Classic with long shot Volponi. Johnson bred, owned and trained Volponi, who won the $4-million BC Classic at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Ill., at 43-1 odds.
AUG. 10: James Stillman Rockefeller, 102, the oldest known U.S. Olympic medal winner. He was the captain of Yale University's eight-man rowing team with coxswain that won gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
AUG. 11: Joe Falls, 76, a longtime sports writer for the Detroit News and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
AUG. 12: George Yardley, 75, a former member of the Detroit Pistons who became the first player in the NBA to score 2,000 in a season.
AUG. 19: Edgar Dame, 76, set several world speedskating records over an eight-year career in the 1940s and 1950s.
SEPT. 5: John "Red" Cochran, 82, a scout and former NFL player and assistant coach who spent 42 years with the Green Bay Packers. Originally brought to Green Bay by Vince Lombardi in 1959, Cochran worked 12 years as an assistant for the Packers and the last 30 as a scout.
SEPT. 9: Rosie Gacioch, 89, female baseball pioneer. Gacioch joined the All-American Girls Baseball League in 1944 and played for the Rockford Peaches from 1945-54. She led the league in triples in 1946 as an outfielder and became a pitcher in 1948, winning 20 games in 1951.
SEPT. 13: Glenn Presnell, 99, star for the Detroit Lions in the 1930s and later spent 28 years as a college head coach and athletic director at Eastern Kentucky.
SEPT. 19: Pete Cutino, 71, coached California to eight water polo collegiate national championships. Cutino was 519-172-10 during his 26 years as Cal's water polo coach.
SEPT. 21: Larry Phillips, 62, stock car racer. His career included five Winston Racing Series National Short-Track championships and seven regional NASCAR championships. In one season, Phillips won 38 of the 40 Winston Racing Series events.
SEPT. 23: Billy Reay, 86, a player on two Stanley Cup championship teams with Montreal and the winningest coach in Chicago Blackhawks history with 516.
SEPT. 26: Dean Kutz, 48, a jockey who rode more than 2,800 winners during almost 30 years at tracks in the Upper Midwest and Kentucky. Kutz won 2,835 races and his mounts earned more than $33.6-million.
SEPT. 28: Christl Cranz-Borchers, 90, a two-time Olympic gold medal skier for Germany. She remains Germany's most-decorated women's skier.
SEPT. 30: Mildred McDaniel Singleton, 70, Olympic gold medalist and one of the world's top female athletes of the 1950s.
OCT. 2: Norm Schachter, 90, refereed the first Super Bowl and the first Monday Night Football game. His NFL career began in 1954 when commissioner Bert Bell hired him at $100 a game with a guarantee of seven games. The weekend job went on to last 22 years.
OCT. 6: Johnny Kelley, 97, a two-time Boston Marathon champion who became a beloved figure by running it a record 61 times. Kelley, a former Olympian and member of the USA Track & Field, National Distance Running and Road Runners Club of America halls of fame, won America's oldest marathon in 1935 and 1945 and finished second a record seven times.
OCT. 10: Ken Caminiti, 41, the 1996 NL MVP who later admitted using steroids during his major-league career. His 15-year career ended in 2001, five seasons after he led the Padres to a division title and was an unanimous pick for MVP. Caminiti batted .272 with 239 homers and 983 RBIs with Houston, San Diego, Texas and Atlanta.
OCT. 17: Ray Boone, 81, a two-time All-Star and patriarch of a three-generation baseball family. Boone played from 1948-60 with six teams and was followed into the big leagues by son Bob and grandsons Bret and Aaron. Boone was an infielder who had a career .275 batting average, with 151 home runs and 737 RBIs. He was an All-Star third baseman for Detroit in 1954 and 1956.
OCT. 20: Joseph Dorsey Jr., 69, a boxer who won a 1957 legal fight against a Louisiana law that banned interracial bouts. The interracial boxing ban was passed in 1956 and Dorsey challenged it the next year, arguing that it was unconstitutional and deprived him as a black boxer of the opportunity to earn about $10,000 a year. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1958 that the law violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.
OCT. 26: Bobby Avila, 78, a three-time All-Star who won the American League batting title in 1954, becoming the first Hispanic player to win the crown. He played second base for the Cleveland Indians from 1949-58 and also was with the Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Braves and Boston Red Sox during 11 seasons in the big leagues.
OCT. 26: Don Kennedy, 97, led St. Peter's basketball team from a small-time program to major college status during his 22 years as coach. Kennedy came to St. Peter's in 1950 and is still the winningest men's coach in its history with a 323-195 record. He led the Peacocks to three NAIA tournaments and five appearances in the National Invitation Tournament.
NOV. 3: Sergei Zholtok, 31, Nashville Predators center. Zholtok, playing for Riga 2000 in Latvia, left the game about five minutes before it ended and collapsed in the locker room.
NOV. 5: Al Onofrio, 83, former football coach at Missouri who also helped design defenses for Dan Devine for more than a decade.
NOV. 8: Lennox Miller, 58, Olympic sprinter who won a silver medal in 1968 and a bronze in 1972 in the 100-meter dash for Jamaica. At USC, Miller ran the anchor leg on a sprint relay team including O.J. Simpson, Earl McCullouch and Fred Kuller that set a world record in the 440-yard relay (38.6 seconds) in 1967. Miller also set the world record in the indoor 100-yard dash in 1969.
NOV. 9: Emlyn Hughes, 57, former England and Liverpool captain who was one of the greatest English soccer players of his generation. Nicknamed "Crazy Horse" for his energetic playing style, Hughes also was England's captain 23 times in his 62 international games.
NOV. 17: Alexander Ragulin, 63, defenseman on the great Soviet hockey teams of the 1960s and 1970s and a three-time Olympic champion.
NOV. 21: Tom "Trooper" Washington, 60, died after collapsing while coaching the first game of a new ABA team.
NOV. 27: Gunder Hagg, 85, set the mile world record in 1945 and held it until Roger Bannister broke the four-minute barrier. Hagg broke 15 world marks in middle distance running and set no less than 10 world marks over three months in 1942.
DEC. 4: Tom Fitzgerald, 53, coach of NCAA soccer champions in Division I and II. He also coached the Columbus Crew of MLS. Fitzgerald, the University of Tampa soccer coach, led the team to the Division II championship in 1994 and the Final Four three times. In 2002, he led UCLA to the NCAA national title, becoming the third person to win a championship in the top two divisions.
DEC. 24: Johnny Oates, 58, managed the Texas Rangers to their first three postseason appearances. Oates spent six seasons with the Rangers, guiding them to the playoffs in 1996, 1998 and 1999. He also managed the Baltimore Orioles from 1991-94. Oates, a left-handed hitting catcher, played for five teams in his major league career, starting with the Orioles in 1970.
DEC. 26: Reggie White, 43, one of the greatest defensive players in NFL history. White played a total of 15 years with Philadelphia, Green Bay and Carolina. He retired in 2000 as the NFL's all-time leader in sacks with 198. A member of the NFL's 75th anniversary team, White was elected to the Pro Bowl a record 13 straight times from 1986-98. He was the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year in 1987 and 1998.
