Don Smerek, defensive lineman from ’80s-era Cowboys, passes away at 66

From @ToddBrock24f7: Smerek’s rollercoaster of a career saw him get shot in the chest and come back to play 6 more seasons, including through the 1987 strike.

The Cowboys family has lost one of the unsung mainstays of its teams of the 1980s.

Defensive lineman Don Smerek passed away earlier this week at the age of 66. Cancer was listed as the cause of death for the onetime undrafted free agent out of Nevada.

The versatile Smerek saw just seven seasons of action in the NFL, but he packed an entire roller coaster of a career into that time.

After joining the Cowboys in 1980, he missed out on his rookie season thanks to broken ribs suffered in training camp. Then in 1981, a knee injury put him on injured reserve, but the worst was yet to come. Four weeks after that injury, Smerek was shot in the chest while in the parking lot of a Dallas restaurant. Amazingly, he made a full recovery and was back in the huddle just 11 months later.

The 6-foot-7-inch Smerek played both defensive end and defensive tackle, though he was considered a pass-rushing specialist anytime he was on the field. Mostly a backup, he filled in at various points for an injured John Dutton, a just-retired Harvey Martin, and Hall of Famer Randy White during his 1984 holdout.

And when Smerek considered quitting football, it was White who convinced him to stay for a few more years. Like White, he was one of the few players who crossed picket lines to continue playing through the three-week NFLPA strike of 1987.

“He was a great teammate, a great person,” White said of Smerek. “He was just solid as a football player, and I can always count on him. He would come in on third downs and rush the passer, and the thing about Don as a football player, he was 100 percent.”

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After Smerek did finally retire in 1988- just before what would be coach Tom Landry’s final season- he and White remained good friends and fishing buddies.

Don Smerek finished his NFL career with 69 regular-season game appearances- all with the Cowboys- and 14.5 sacks. He also played in five postseason contests.

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Former Cowboys offensive lineman Char-ron Dorsey passes away at 46

From @ToddBrock24f7: After playing for a national champ FSU team and blocking for a Heisman winner, he opened holes for Emmitt Smith in a short Cowboys tenure.

A former Cowboys offensive lineman from the Dave Campo era has passed away at the shockingly young age of 46.

Char-ron Dorsey died earlier this week following complications from a stroke. Though his NFL career was an abbreviated one, Dorsey remained involved in the game as a coach at the middle and high school levels in the Jacksonville area, where he grew up.

Dorsey was a seventh-round draft pick in 2001 out of Florida State, where he played on an undefeated national championship squad and received All-ACC honors blocking for Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke.

His rookie summer with the Cowboys got off to a rocky start, though, with the 390-pound lineman leaving camp at one point after feeling pressure from coaches to drop some weight and improve his play. He returned and went on to see action in nine games during the 2001 season, including two starts (for an injured Solomon Page) late in a disappointing year for the 5-11 Cowboys.

2001 was Dallas’s first season without Troy Aikman, so Dorsey spent much of his playing time blocking for running back Emmitt Smith (in his final 1,000-yard season) in a run-heavy Cowboys offense that failed to find a real rhythm with first-year quarterback Quincy Carter.

Dorsey was waived after the Cowboys’ 2002 season opener and immediately picked up by the Houston Texans, who were playing their inaugural season. He would play in two games that year and logged one more start before being released. Dorsey made one more attempt to latch on to a roster with the New York Giants in 2003, but he missed all of training camp rehabbing from knee surgery and never made the team.

“Teams want offensive lineman to be pretty big. Maybe I got too big,” Dorsey once said in an interview.

“I battle this every year. I get question after question every year about it. It gets to the point where you get tired of hearing about it.”

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Dorsey returned to his native Florida and began coaching in youth programs, helping lead multiple programs to prominence. Over a 10-season tenure at his own alma mater, Matthew Gilbert Middle School went 87-5 and won three championships. Taking over a program in 2018 that hadn’t had a winning season in a decade, he led Parker High School to a district title in his second season.

“He’s had an impact on so many kids that have had the opportunity to make it to the next level,” said Michael Holloway, who had coached alongside Dorsey for nearly 20 years.

“No kid could come to him and tell him something that he didn’t understand. He could relate to them. I think he saved some kids,” added athletic director Brad Bernard. “If a kid came up to him and said they were going through hard times, he encouraged them to fight through it because he went through it.”

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Former Cowboys WR Golden Richards passes away at 73

From @ToddBrock24f7: The former second-round deep threat made a memorable TD catch in Super Bowl XII. He passed away from congestive heart failure at 73.

The Cowboys organization has lost one of its first generation of Super Bowl stars.

Wide receiver Golden Richards passed away on Friday of congestive heart failure at the age of 73.

Richards is perhaps best remembered for his fourth-quarter touchdown catch in Super Bowl XII that capped the scoring at 27-10 and earned the Cowboys a championship win over Denver. But despite an abbreviated NFL tenure, he still stands in the franchise’s top 50 in terms of receiving yards and the top 30 in touchdown receptions.

Born and raised in Utah, Richards was a three-sport star who started his collegiate career at BYU and then finished at Hawaii. He was selected by the Cowboys in the second round of a 1973 draft that also brought Billy Joe DuPree, Harvey Martin, and Drew Pearson to Dallas.

By his second season, Richards was named a starter at wide receiver over Bob Hayes, the former Olympic track champion whose jersey number Richards had worn in college. He quickly grew into a role as the offense’s deep threat, enjoying a career high that season in touchdowns.

Richards was targeted just once in the Cowboys’ Super Bowl X loss to Pittsburgh but put up no other stats. He was on the brink of a similarly meager outing in Super Bowl XII, sitting at two targets, one catch, and nine yards as the final quarter got underway.

Up 20-10 with seven minutes to go, Cowboys head coach Tom Landry went for the dagger, calling a halfback option play that saw Robert Newhouse lob an unlikely 29-yard throw to Richards, who reeled in the pass as he crossed the goal line for one of the most memorable plays of the franchise’s first 20 years.

Richards was traded to Chicago early in the 1978 season that followed. He played 20 games for the Bears and then signed with Denver in 1980. He never played in a game as a Bronco, as a season-ending injury in his first camp forced him into a premature retirement.

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A stint as host and producer of an ESPN outdoors show followed his gridiron days. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011, with doctors pointing to his football career as a contributing cause. A 2022 fall caused a hip fracture and required four surgeries, according to family members, and expedited a decline in health.

“My uncle Golden passed away peacefully this morning,” Lance Richards wrote on social media, per ProFootballTalk. “I will forever remember going hunting and talking Dallas Cowboy football. He was a kind and sweet soul, and I’m so happy he’s not suffering anymore.”

Golden Richards played in 66 games for the Cowboys over six seasons. He has 90 receptions and 1,650 yards on his Dallas résumé, with 16 touchdowns.

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11-time PGA Tour winner Andy Bean dies at 70 following recent surgery

Bean’s lungs were badly damaged from a bout with COVID-19.

Andy Bean, an 11-time PGA Tour winner who underwent a double lung replacement last month, has died following complications from the surgery. He was 70.

Bean won 11 times on the PGA Tour and captured three titles on the PGA Tour Champions. He turned pro in 1975 after an illustrious career at Florida, where he was a three-time All-American and helped the Gators win the NCAA men’s golf title in 1973.

Bean’s lungs were badly damaged from a bout with COVID-19, according to a Facebook post by friend Alan Pope. He underwent surgery at Advent Health Hospital in Orlando last month.

He was born March 13, 1953, in Lafayette, Georgia, near the Georgia-Tennessee border, a mere 35 miles from Chattanooga. His family then moved to Jekyll Island, Georgia, when he was a teenager before settling in Lakeland, Florida, where he graduated from Lakeland High School. Bean competed in high school golf against Fred Ridley, a standout at nearby Winter Haven High.

Bean officially retired from golf after the 2014 season, a car accident in 2011 and ongoing injury issues with his wrists taking their toll.

He is survived by his wife, Debbie, and the couple’s three daughters, Ashley, Lindsay and Jordan. Funeral services are pending.

International golf course architect Ron Kirby dies at 90

Ron Kirby worked on hundreds of courses around the world in various roles.

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Golf course architect Ron Kirby, whose top-rated efforts included Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland and Apes Hill in Barbados, died Thursday in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was 90 years old when overcome by a quick illness, and he was still working on a golf project.

Kirby worked on hundreds of projects around the world, both as solo jobs and in tandem with some of the biggest names in golf design.

A native of Beverly, Massachusetts, Kirby got into golf as a boy, serving as a caddie, a caddie master and on a grounds crew. He studied agriculture at the University of Massachusetts-Strockbridge before going to work for golf architect Dick Wilson. He later joined the crew for Robert Trent Jones Sr., working on courses in the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean.

Kirby – a member of the America Society of Golf Course Architects – started his own firm in 1970 with consulting partner Gary Player. Kirby sold that firm to Golden Bear Inc. and joined Nicklaus Design Services, working for Jack Nicklaus as overseer of European projects.

The ASGCA wrote that throughout Kirby’s career, he was accompanied on projects by his wife, Sally, who died in 2021. Their travels set the tone for Kirby’s autobiography, “We Spent Half Our Lives on the Wrong Side of the Road.” Kirby is survived by children Faye, Ron Jr. and Beverly.

Golf course architect Ron Kirby (Courtesy of the American Society of Golf Course Architects)

“Ron Kirby was one of a kind, or perhaps I should Ron and Sally Kirby were two of a kind,” ASGCA president Brit Stenson said on the organization’s website. “His positive impact on golf course architecture in countries around the world will serve as a professional legacy, but it was Ron’s enduring relationship with Sally that many of us will long remember.”

Kirby’s last completed designs were a full makeover of Apes Hill that debuted last year, plus a nine-hole par-3 course at Apes Hill.

“He was an incredible man, always with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes who had an abundance of rich friendships from the dozen plus countries he worked in globally,” Roddy Carr, a famous Irish golfer who was instrumental in Kirby being selected to design Old Head Golf Links in Ireland and Apes Hill Barbados, said in a media release announcing Kirby’s death. “Ron lived a rich and full life and did what he loved doing right to the end – recently sketching golf holes in Denmark.”

South Africa’s John Bland, five-time PGA Tour Champions winner, dies at 77

John Bland won multiple titles in South Africa and on what is now the DP World Tour.

South African golfer John Bland, who won twice on the DP World Tour before coming to prominence in the U.S. on PGA Tour Champions, has died. He was 77.

Bland’s death was announced by the Sunshine Tour, of which he claimed the circuit’s Order of Merit title four times and he ranked fifth in career wins with 21. He died Tuesday at a hospital in George, South Africa “after a battle with cancer,” the Sunshine Tour said.

Born Sept. 22, 1945, in Johannesburg, Bland turned pro in 1969 and won his first of 36 titles at the 1970 Transvaal Open. He won the South African PGA Championship in 1977 over Gary Player, one of three victories that year and a total he matched again in 1983 when he claimed the European Tour’s Benson and Hedges International over Bernhard Langer.

In a professional career that spanned more than 40 years, he didn’t compete in the U.S. until turning 50 but quickly proved his mettle with five senior titles and more than $7 million in earnings. He won in his second start as a Monday Qualifier, earning exempt status for a year and went on to be named Senior PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 1996 after winning four times and finishing third on the money list. Some of his best duels were with Jim Colbert, who finished second to Bland in four of his five victories on the circuit. Bland also won three times on the European Senior Tour.

“It’s so hard to post the utterly devastating news that John Bland, my traveling companion of so many years and mentor has passed away,” fellow South African golfer Tony Johnstone tweeted. “He was so much more than a friend and words don’t express the true meaning of ‘brother’.”

Bland is survived by his wife, Sonja, three children – John-Mark, Bonney and Candice – and three grandchildren. He died with family and bulldog Handsome by his side.

The Sunshine Tour said Bland was “one of the most loved and respected South African sportsmen.”

Jim Ferree, first living logo of PGA Tour Champions, dies at 91

The original PGA Tour Champions logo was modeled after Ferree.

Jim Ferree, who won two Champions tour events and the 1958 Vancouver Open on the PGA Tour, died Tuesday. He was 91 years old.

Born June 10, 1931, in Pinebluff, North Carolina, Ferree learned the game from his father, Purvis, a long-time golf professional who also played occasionally on the PGA Tour between the 1930s and 1960s.

Ferree graduated from North Carolina and was widely regarded as one of the best tee-to-green players of his generation. Putting was often a struggle. He also wore trademark knickers and a flat hat.

He joined the PGA Tour Champions in 1981 (then known as the Senior PGA Tour). Then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman chose Ferree to be the model for the knickers-wearing player on that Tour’s logo and, thus, created a living logo. Ferree is often cited as one of the players who was instrumental in helping get PGA Tour Champions off the ground. The Champions tour named Ferree its Comeback Player of the Year in 1993 after he recovered from prostate cancer. He won twice on that circuit—at the 1986 Greater Grand Rapids Open and the 1991 Bell Atlantic Classic. He played in 407 official events and added 12 runner-up finishes in a career that concluded in 2002. Yet he still stayed active, playing every year in the Demaret Division of the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, winning that division with partner Miller Barber in 2003.

While still active on PGA Tour Champions, he became the head pro at Westmoreland Country Club in Pennsylvania, and in 1991, he became the first golfer inducted into the University of North Carolina’s Hall of Fame.

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Former Notre Dame Athletic Director Gene Corrigan Dead at Age 91

Gene Corrigan is responsible for hiring perhaps the two best coaches in Notre Dame’s recent history in Lou Holtz and Muffet McGraw.

One of my favorite things that has happened since I took over managing Fighting Irish Wire back in October is that things you thought you were aware of or hip to get magnified ten-fold.

That could be assistant coaches being hired or fired, recruiting information or simply something from the history of Notre Dame.

I’ll be honest here (I always am but that’s a way to transition myself out of my comfort zone a bit):

I had no idea who Gene Corrigan was until his death at 91 years old was announced Saturday.

Some quick research helped me discover he wasn’t just the former commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, but was Notre Dame’s athletic director from 1981 to 1987.

That made me realize that hey, Gene Corrigan is responsible for hiring perhaps the two best coaches in Notre Dame’s recent history in Lou Holtz and Muffet McGraw.

I had no idea that Corrigan had three children graduate from the University of Notre Dame, or that one of them, Kevin, had been the lacrosse coach at Notre Dame since 1998.

It’s fascinating to read about a man who graduated from Duke in 1952 then got his start in coaching by leading the basketball, soccer and lacrosse teams of Washington and Lee in 1955.

From there he took a job at the University of Virginia where he spent time again coaching a variety of sports before becoming athletic director at Washington and Lee.

That led him again to Virginia where he was athletic director for a decade before a decade before he took the Notre Dame A-D job, replacing the legendary Edward “Moose” Krause.

I also didn’t know until reading Eric Hansen’s piece Saturday that Lou Holtz was anything but a knockout hire at his time and had been coming off a 6-5 season at Minnesota at the time of his hiring.

Corrigan would go on to commission the ACC after leaving Notre Dame in 1987 through 1995 when he became president of the NCAA.

Corrigan clearly lived an incredible life and oversaw the Notre Dame athletic department at an incredibly fascinating time.

Even if I didn’t know anything about him a day ago, he impact on Notre Dame athletics is clearly without end.

All the best to those who knew him and if you’re like me and didn’t even know of him until now, here’s to hoping you also learned a bit about his important legacy to Notre Dame and college sports.

Former Cowboys tight end Gavin Escobar dies in climbing accident

Escobar played four seasons in Dallas and had recently become a firefighter in California. He leaves behind a wife and two children. | From @ToddBrock24f7

A former Cowboys tight end has died in a rock climbing accident in California. Gavin Escobar, 31, was one of two individuals identified by Riverside County sheriffs after an incident within the San Bernardino National Forest.

Escobar was a second-round draft pick in 2013 out of San Diego State. He played four seasons with the Cowboys, compiling 333 yards and eight touchdowns on 30 receptions over 62 games played.

Unable to make much of an impact on the same roster as Jason Witten, Escobar was released after the 2016 season. He went on to stints with the Chiefs, Ravens, Browns, and Dolphins, but didn’t amass any further stats. It was the end of Escobar’s NFL career, though he went on to play for the San Diego Fleet in the short-lived AAF in 2019.

Escobar, a New York native, had become a firefighter in Long Beach earlier this year and lived in Huntington Beach.

According to a KESQ report, a report of “hikers down” came in just past noon on Wednesday. Crews attempted a rescue but determined that both victims had died at the scene. It’s not yet known if Escobar and his companion were ascending or descending when an accident occurred, or if they died under some other circumstances.

Gavin Escobar leaves behind a wife and two children.

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Ernie Zampese, Cowboys OC for Super Bowl XXX win, passes away, age 86

The offensive genius was credited with designing the famed “Air Coryell” offense in San Diego, and eventually won a Super Bowl in Dallas. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Ernie Zampese, the longtime assistant coach who served as offensive coordinator in Dallas from 1994 to 1997 and then returned for a second stint with the team as a consultant, has passed away.

The 86-year-old spent nearly three decades on NFL coaching staffs, but his crowning achievement was helping to lead Troy Aikman and the 1995 Cowboys to a win over Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XXX, the third championship in four years for the dynasty.

Aikman paid tribute to Zampese earlier Monday with a post on Instagram.

“Lost a good one today,” Aikman wrote. “Ernie Zampese was one of the brightest offensive minds in the history of the game – many of his offensive concepts are still being used to this day. He was my offensive coordinator in Dallas from 1994-’97. One of my most memorable moments was winning Super Bowl XXX in Tempe, AZ in 1995 and Ernie getting the Super Bowl ring that had alluded [sic] his HOF career. A friend and mentor to so many.”

Prior to joining the Cowboys, Zampese rose to prominence with the San Diego Chargers. While there, he helped create the famed “Air Coryell” offense for quarterback Dan Fouts, a prolific scheme that led the NFL in passing yards six times in his seven seasons with the team. (The year they didn’t lead the league, they finished second.)

Chargers head coach Don Coryell got most of the credit for the offense that bore his name, but even he called Zampese “the best offensive coach I know.”

Norv Turner, who had his own very successful run as Cowboys OC, echoed that sentiment.

Yet, for all his football brilliance, Zampese never helmed a team of his own, at any level of the sport.

“He had no real ambition to be a head coach,” Turner said, per Mortensen. “He just wanted to coach. He loved teaching, creativity, game plans.”

Just two months ago, Zampese was named a recipient of one of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural Awards of Excellence.

Zampese’s son Ken, currently the quarterbacks coach for the Washington Commanders, accepted that award in Canton over the summer on Ernie’s behalf. Ken was reportedly excused from the Commanders by Washington head coach Ron Rivera over the weekend to visit his ailing father.

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