Basketball legend Rivers, longtime Globetrotter, dies at 73
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Larry “Gator” Rivers, who helped combine highschool basketball in Georgia earlier than enjoying 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 instructed 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 received the primary Georgia Excessive Faculty Affiliation basketball match 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 instructed 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 see 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 acquired 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 don’t know after we weren’t pals,” Ellis instructed WTOC-TV, calling Rivers “a legend.”
”That was an enormous a part of him, giving to the youngsters that’s behind him,” Ellis mentioned. “Like he mentioned, ‘Someone gave to me, and so it’s my job and my accountability to offer again.’ And that’s going to be lacking a complete lot.”
Rivers’ dying 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 individuals of his neighborhood.”
Johnson wrote on social media that “Legends by no means die, so you’ll at all times be round, my buddy,” 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 individuals. For this, he’ll at all times be remembered.”
Funeral preparations had not been introduced Sunday.