Sports Stars We Lost In 2018

There are several sports that involve racing cars very fast, but they're all actually very different and there isn't a lot of overlap between these different types, even if they look basically the same to the non-fan. To start with, there's the NASCAR circuit, IndyCar, and Formula One. Drivers by and large train for just one of them, and stay loyal to the brand. And yet there are historical curiosities like Dan Gurney. Not only is he one of the few drivers who was good enough to race at the top circles (or ovals) of NASCAR, IndyCar, and Formula One, but he's the first person to ever win a race in all three, creating a previously nonexistent Triple Crown for himself. And for good measure, he won the insane Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race in 1967 with team member A.J. Foyt — which is where he started the now common trend of celebrating a big win with a spray of champagne. Gurney died from complications of pneumonia at age 86 in January 2018.

In the 2017 college football regular season, Washington State finished with a 9-3 record, good enough for third place in the highly competitive Pac-12 North and a spot in the Holiday Bowl (where the team lost to Michigan State). Star quarterback Luke Falk lead the way, with some impressive play from backup Tyler Hilinski. He threw more than 200 passes as a freshman and sophomore and started in the Holiday Bowl, as Falk was injured. He was a virtual lock to become the Cougars' first-string QB after Falk's impending graduation. That's a future that will never come. Just a few weeks after the Holiday Bowl, on January 16, 2018, Hilinski missed a team practice, prompting police to stop by his Pullman, Washington, apartment to see if anything was amiss. That's when the body of Hilinksi, only 21, was discovered. He'd apparently administered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A note was found nearby, leading the coroner's office to rule the death a suicide, but the reason for the suicide is unclear.

Jo Jo White accomplished just about everything a world-class basketball player can accomplish. He was a standout at perennial college ball powerhouse Kansas, where he was a two-time All-American and three-time team MVP. He was selected for the 1968 men's Olympic team and won a gold medal. Then the Boston Celtics drafted him with a high first-round pick in 1969, and White delivered on that promise, leading the dynastic team to NBA championships in 1974 and 1976; in the latter, White was named NBA Finals MVP. The Celtics traded him in 1979 after 10 seasons, and he wrapped up his career with stints with the Golden State Warriors and Kansas City Kings ... but returned to Boston to have his jersey number (10) retired in 1982. White's career stats — 17.2 points, 4.9 assists, and 4 rebounds per game — were good enough to get him into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. White died at age 71 in January 2018. According to White's daughter, Meka White Morris, the death was due to pneumonia and dementia, complications from the removal of a benign brain tumor in 2010.

Edwin Jackson was only just getting started in the NFL. A two-sport star as a young 'un — he lettered in football three times and was a state wrestling champion finalist for Westlake High School in Atlanta — Jackson played linebacker at Georgia Southern. But he went undrafted, eventually signing with the Indianapolis Colts and playing in all 16 regular-season games in 2016, where he recorded 42 tackles. The Colts placed Jackson on their injured reserve list for 2017, which set him up to make a big splash in 2018 ... which sadly won't happen because he was killed in a horrific roadside accident. Police believe that around 4 a.m. on February 4, 2018, Jackson's Uber driver, 54-year-old Jeffrey Monroe, pulled over on Interstate 70 in Indianapolis because Jackson was feeling sick. While standing on the side of the road, both men were struck and killed by a pickup truck. Previously convicted drunk driver Manuel Orrego-Savala faces 20 years in prison on charges of causing death while driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident. His blood alcohol level: 0.19, twice Indiana's legal limit. Edwin Jackson was just 26.

The Montreal Expos don't have as storied a history as most other Major League Baseball teams. They never went to a World Series, their best season was shortened by a strike, and they struggled to exist until a move and name change made the team the Washington Nationals. Rusty Staub, however, was the team's very first star and still one of its most beloved people. He landed with the Expos in 1969, the team's first season in the majors, and thus the birth of the MLB in Canada. Staub hit .302 with 29 home runs that year while also serving as a de facto ambassador for Canadian baseball — the man even learned French to endear himself to Quebecois francophone fans, who affectionately nicknamed the redhead "Le Grand Orange." Staub was a six-time All-Star (including all three years he played for Montreal), and he later played for a few more teams, notably the New York Mets. He died of a heart attack at age 73 on March 29, 2018. That just so happened to be baseball's Opening Day, and the Mets paid tribute to him with a moment of silence.

If you ever took a taekwondo class in a strip-mall dojo, then you've got Jhoon Rhee to thank for that. Regarded as "the father of taekwondo" in the United States, Grandmaster Rhee is thus one of the most influential athletes in American history, seeing as how he got countless Americans, either directly or indirectly, to take up martial arts. Born in Korea during Japanese occupation, Rhee emigrated to the United States in the 1950s and in 1962 opened his first American studio in Washington D.C. At its peak, Rhee ran 11 taekwondo centers in the D.C. area. 

Unlike other major martial arts figures of the mid-century, Rhee, a 10th-degree black belt,  didn't much pursue film work. He starred in just one movie, 1973's When Taekwondo Strikes, alongside his friend, some guy named Bruce Lee. But that's not his legacy — his legacy is introducing a whole new sport to one of the most populous countries on Earth. Rhee's son, Chun Rhee, told the media that his father passed away in April while in hospice care after fighting a long-term illness. He was 86.

Hylton was a solid, competitive, and formidable presence on the race track for years. After working as a mechanic and crew chief in the very early years of NASCAR in the 1950s, he switched to driving in 1964, and just two years later was named the circuit's Rookie of the Year. While he only won two races over his three-decade career, Hylton finished an impressive second in the points standings on three separate occasions. The first was in 1966, his rookie NASCAR year; the other two came in 1967 and 1971 when only Richard Petty could top him. Over a whopping 602 career races, Hylton finished in the Top 10 exactly half of the time. In 2009, Hylton didn't let being 75 years old stop him from racing in the ARCA circuit full-time, where he ultimately started almost 200 races.

In a sad and deeply ironic twist, Hylton died in a car accident in April 2018. He was riding in a truck (hauling a trailer with a race car inside) when, according to the Georgia State Patrol, the driver ran off the road and into an embankment. His 61-year-old son also died in the crash. Hylton was 83.

England is crazy for football, or what we in the States call soccer. Top-flight teams like Arsenal and Manchester United are world-famous, but the national team has only taken home the World Cup once. England claimed that honor in 1966, which was especially sweet because they were also the host country. Ray Wilson was an integral member of that squad.

A speedy and agile left back, Wilson played in every minute of every World Cup game for England. His defensive prowess was just that essential, although he did have a hand in some goals — in the semifinal against Portugal, he delivered a long, difficult pass to star forward Roger Hunt that led to his team's first point of the game. At 31, Wilson was the oldest member of the championship squad, and he left the team in 1968 due to lingering knee problems. He played in English club soccer (which included an FA Cup title with Everton) until he retired in 1971. Then, of all things, he ran a mortuary until 1997. Diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2004, Wilson passed away in 2018 at the age of 83.

A 10th-round draft pick out of Clemson University in 1979, Dwight Clark was a 6'4" receiver who played for the San Francisco 49ers for the entirety of his nine-season NFL career, and he ranks near the top of all-time franchise lists for catches, yards, and touchdown receptions. But Clark will always be remembered by Bay Area sports fans for a play known in NFL lore simply as "The Catch."

There were 51 seconds remaining in the 1982 NFC Championship Game with the Dallas Cowboys comfortably ahead of the 49ers. Quarterback Joe Montana hurled a pass into the back of the end zone, and Clark leaped into the air and caught it by the tippy-tops of his fingers. That put the 49ers up 28-27 and made them NFC champions, on their way to the first of five Super Bowl victories in the '80s and '90s.

On June 4, 2018, Clark's wife, Kelly, announced via her husband's Twitter page that the legendary receiver had died. Clark had lost his nearly two-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 61.

Anne Donovan was one of the most accomplished American basketball players in general, and an icon and ambassador for women's basketball specifically. An imposing, dominant presence on the court (she stood 6'8") who led her Paramus Catholic High School team to two New Jersey state championships, Donovan was the most recruited female player in the country in 1979, with Old Dominion in Virginia winning out over more than 200 other colleges. In 1980, Donovan helped the team log a 37-1 record and a national championship. Over her college career, she averaged 20 points per game, 14.5 rebounds per game, and blocked 801 shots — over 200 more than the men's college record.

Named to the U.S. Olympic team in 1980, the American boycott meant she had to wait until 1984 to win a gold medal. She won then and repeated in 1988. As women's pro basketball in America wasn't very established at the time, Donovan played in Japan and Italy, eventually returning to the U.S. to coach for colleges and in the WNBA. She coached five pro teams overall, notably the Seattle Storm, who won the championship in 2004. But the Olympics came calling once again — at the 2008 Summer Games, the squad led by Donovan crushed an unbeaten Australian team in a surprising 92-65 rout. The basketball Hall of Famer died on June 13 at her home in North Carolina due to complications of a heart ailment. Donovan was 56.

Denis Ten made history for the small Asian nation of Kazakhstan. In 2014, he became the first Kazakh figure skater to ever win a medal at the Winter Olympics. While he finished in ninth place in the short program element of the men's single figure skating competition, he finished a strong third in the free skating portion, enough to get him an overall third place finish, and a bronze medal. He sandwiched the Olympic glory with a silver medal at the 2013 world championships and a bronze at the event in 2015, and competed in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, where he finished in a disappointing 27th place.

Horrifyingly, Ten died in July 2018 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, when he was attacked by two men attempting to steal the mirrors off his car. It turned physical when one of the men stabbed the skater in the thigh. Denis lost several liters of the blood as a result, and he was rushed to a hospital, where, after three hours in critical condition, he died. The Olympic figure skater was 25.

In the late 20th century, America's biggest enemy was the Soviet Union, and the WWF (now WWE) responded with Soviet heels like Nikolai Volkoff, who the organization called "one of the greatest villains sports-entertainment had ever seen." He'd even enter his matches singing the Soviet National Anthem and ask spectators rise to their feet. (They responded about how you'd expect.) Volkoff had his biggest success as a tag team wrestler, teaming up with fellow enemy of the state the Iron Sheik, squaring off against all-American good guys like Hulk Hogan and Sgt. Slaughter. Together they won the WWF Tag Team Championship at the very first WrestleMania in 1985, and Volkoff also wrestled as a group with the Executioners, alongside fellow legends Big John Studd and Killer Kowalski. He was enshrined in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.

But "Nikolai Volkoff" was a character, played by a real guy named Josip Peruzovic, born in Croatia in 1947. His wife, Lynn, told the Associated Press that she found him unresponsive in July. The former wrestler was 70; he had a history of heart problems. His old tag team partner, the Iron Sheik, movingly memorialized the man on Twitter, calling Peruzovic "My best friend. My partner. My brother. We get more heat than anyone on Earth. I trust him with my life. He take care of me when I was down. I miss you forever."

Stan Mikita retired after a 22-season NHL career in 1980, and decades later he remains the all-time leading scorer in Chicago Blackhawks franchise history with 1,467 points. (That puts him in a very impressive 14th place on the all-time NHL list.) In other words, he's probably the most legendary player on one of the oldest and most storied teams in American sports. Mikita first hit the ice in 1958 for the Blackhawks and played his entire career in Chicago. He'd eventually capture two Hart Trophies (the NHL's MVP award), four Art Ross Trophies (for leading the league in scoring), two Lady Byng Memorial Trophies (for sportsmanship), and perhaps best of all, the 1961 Stanley Cup championship.

But to the hockey non-enthusiast, Mikita is probably best remembered as a part of Wayne's World. Originally, the film was set in Aurora, Ontario, near where star and co-writer Mike Myers grew up, and the metalhead characters would hang out at a Tim Hortons — the chain of donut shops named for a hockey legend. Then the setting changed to Aurora, Illinois, just outside Chicago ... leading producers to switch the Tim Hortons to a "Stan Mikita's Donuts," reflecting Mikita's legendary status in the Windy City. Mikita has a cameo in the first film as a donut shop customer, and a donut shop drive-thru speaker in the second film was modeled in his image. Mikita's family announced that the Hall of Famer died on August 7 at the age of 78.

Tommy McDonald, a two-time All-American (1955 and 1956) never lost a game when he played for the Oklahoma Sooners in college — the squad was in the midst of a 47-game winning streak. He finished third in Heisman Trophy voting (losing to Paul Hornung of Notre Dame), but the Philadelphia Eagles selected him way down in the third round of the 1957 NFL Draft. Listed at just 175 pounds (and later, 178 pounds), every other team thought McDonald was far too small to play in the big leagues.

McDonald suited up for five teams, but his best years came in the City of Brotherly Love, where in 1960, he teamed up with quarterback Norm Van Brocklin to hand the legendary Vince Lombardi his only championship game loss. The Eagles eked out a 17-14 NFL title game win over the Green Bay Packers that year. The following season, McDonald exploded, leading the league with 1,144 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns. McDonald retired in 1968 after 12 seasons, in which he was a Pro Bowl selection six times. Thirty years later, McDonald became the smallest player ever enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

McDonald's death was announced on September 24, 2018. The football great was 84.

NASCAR is one of the most popular spectator sports today, which the association's chairman and CEO Jim France attributes in large part to the on-track performance of driver David Pearson in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. France said in a statement that Pearson "helped set the stage for NASCAR's transformation into a mainstream sport with national appeal."

After coming up in South Carolina's dirt track circuit, Pearson gave professional stock car racing a try ... and became NASCAR's Rookie of the Year in 1960. The following year, he gave the sport one of its most incredible moments. He won the 1961 World 600 in Charlotte despite blowing a tire in the final moments of the race, lurching over the finish line with a wire rim scraping on the ground. In 1966, he won 15 of 42 races, and in the '70s it seemed like races were often a two-man contest between Pearson and Richard Petty. "The Silver Fox" (Pearson's hair went gray early) edged out "The King" in the 1976 Daytona 500, for example, while his career total of 105 wins is second only to Petty's. (But to be fair, he only started in about half as many races as did Petty.)

In a 1999 Sports Illustrated poll of 40 motorsports experts, Pearson was named NASCAR Driver of the Century. In 2011, he was enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The Silver Fox passed away on November 12, 2018, at the age of 83.