Basketball legend Larry ‘Gator’ Rivers, longtime Globetrotter, dies at 73 : NPR

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Larry “Gator” Rivers, who helped combine highschool basketball in Georgia earlier than taking part in for the Harlem Globetrotters and changing into a county commissioner in his native Savannah, died Saturday at age 73.

Rivers died from most cancers, Chatham County Fee Chairman Chester Ellis advised the Savannah Morning Information. Campbell and Sons Funeral Residence mentioned Rivers died at a hospital in Savannah.

Rivers was a sophomore on the all-Black Seaside Excessive Faculty crew that gained the primary Georgia Excessive Faculty Affiliation basketball event to incorporate Black and white gamers in 1967. He blossomed into an all-state participant, graduating from the Savannah highschool in 1969 and occurring to be a small faculty All-American at Moberly Junior School in Missouri and an all-conference guard at what’s now Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph.

He went on to play and coach for 16 years with the Harlem Globetrotters, reuniting for a time with highschool coach Russell Ellington.

Rivers as soon as advised WTOC-TV that in his tryout for the Globetrotters, crew legend Marques Haynes led Rivers right into a closet storing tables and folding chairs, handed Rivers a basketball and mentioned “Let’s have a look at you dribble round this.”

“So I used to be dribbling round chairs, beneath tables, doing something I may do to impress him,” Rivers mentioned.

Rivers got here house to Savannah and obtained concerned in the neighborhood, volunteering in colleges, selling the rebuilding of neighborhood basketball courts and opening the non-profit youth mentorship group Gatorball Academy to show basketball.

Rivers ran for the county fee in 2020 as a Republican and was elected with out opposition after the Democratic nominee was disqualified over a earlier felony conviction.

“I do not know once we weren’t buddies,” Ellis advised WTOC-TV, calling Rivers “a legend.”

“That was a giant a part of him, giving to the youngsters that is behind him,” Ellis mentioned. “Like he mentioned, ‘Any individual gave to me, and so it is my job and my accountability to offer again.’ And that is going to be lacking an entire lot.”

Rivers’ loss of life introduced condolences from U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and others. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp mentioned Rivers “led a lifetime of accomplishment and selected to spend a lot of that life serving the folks of his group.”

Johnson wrote on social media that “Legends by no means die, so you’ll at all times be round, my pal,” including in an official metropolis assertion that Rivers “by no means forgot Savannah or Seaside Excessive Faculty and devoted limitless hours of mentoring and instructing the foundations of basketball and life to scores of younger folks. For this, he’ll at all times be remembered.”

Funeral preparations had not been introduced Sunday.