Saturday, October 26, 2013

Remembering Bill Sharman

Bill Sharman, 87, who died on Friday after suffering a stroke last week, was one of the nicest and very successful people  in the world of sports.
And, it goes without saying that Sharman, who was from Porterville, Calif., played his college basketball at USC and starred for the Boston Celtics in an NBA career that lasted nearly 10 years, culminating with all-time record for consecutive free throws, was one of the best athletes of his era.
After retiring from professional basketball, Sharman coached the Los Angeles Stars of the fledgling American Basketball Assn., before he was hired as  coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Bill coached the Lakers to the 1972 NBA championship, the team's first title in a season that saw the Lakers win 33 games in a row, which is still an NBA record.



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add Sharman: After he retired as general manager of the Lakers, Sharman was a regular on the golf and tennis courses of Los Angeles. One of the golf foursomes he frequented was the Mal Florence tour, a group of golfers from the Los Angeles Times sports department that Sharman played with on the Griffith Park courses.
Florence and Sharman were both members of the basketball hall of fame, Florence having been inducted into the writers wing. On the golf course, Sharman would usually share a golf cart with  Florence. In the golf group it was known as the Hall of Fame cart.


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last add Sharman: He was a gifted athlete with tremendous hand-eye coordination. He had the best short game of any player that joined our golf group. The only person who came close to putting and chipping as well as Sharman was the late Shav Glick, who covered auto racing for The Times for many years.  

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