Notable deaths in 2021 - Sports and music

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 30th of December, 2021. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: we continue with our series on notable people who died this year.

So many made a profound impact in sports and music, like football coach Bobby Bowden, Dodgers manager Tommy LaSorda, and Michael Nesmith of the Monkees.

REICHARD: WORLD senior correspondent Katie Gaultney reports now on a few more who left their mark.

AUDIO: [Basketball]

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Just two days into the New Year, basketball great Paul Westphal breathed his last.

WESTPHAL: There’s no ultimate victory in sports. My parents taught me that when they told me about the true nature of life.

That’s Westphal delivering his Hall of Fame induction speech in 2019. He won a championship with the Boston Celtics, but spent most of his career with the Phoenix Suns, both as a player and coach. After his pro career ended, Westphal coached at Southwestern Baptist Bible College and Grand Canyon University.

WESTPHAL: Following Jesus—I chose to give my life to Jesus. It would allow me to ride the ups and downs of life with the understanding that whatever happens on earth is only a prelude to eternity.

The Hall of Fame basketball player died of brain cancer at age 70.

From the basketball courts in Arizona to the baseball fields of Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.

ANNOUNCER: Henry Aaron steals the headlines when he hits his 500th home run of his career. (Crack!) It comes against the Giants.

A Hall of Fame baseball slugger who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, Hank Aaron died January 22 at age 86. He started out in the Negro Leagues in the Southern Association, where black players had to stay in separate accommodations. Striving through racial prejudice, he then played 23 years in the majors, mostly with the Braves. As he chased Ruth’s record, some fans reviled him with racist taunts and hate mail.

In his 1982 Hall of Fame induction speech, Aaron acknowledged that his success came on the heels of black players who blazed a trail for him, like Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella.

AARON: They proved to the world that a man’s ability is only limited by his lack of opportunity.

A convert to Catholicism, Aaron told Guideposts, “I need to depend on Someone who is bigger, stronger, and wiser than I am. I don’t do it on my own. God is my strength.”

Turning from sports to music.

SONG: “Stop in the Name of Love,” The Supremes

On February 8th, the world lost one of the original Supremes, Mary Wilson, who died at the age of 76. She stayed with the Motown girl group until it disbanded in the late 1970s. Wilson showcased many talents during her career. Beyond singing, she appeared on Dancing with the Stars in 2019. And she was a New York Times bestselling author, writing several books about the Supremes.

And now to Irv Cross, an NFL player who was a coach at the same time.

CROSS: Being a player coach is obviously a very unusual position to be in. What it simply means is you know enough about the game to be able to coach and teach other people about it, but in the same sense, you still have enough physical skill to be able to perform on Sunday afternoon.

That’s Cross talking to colorful interviewer Leta Powell Drake in 1978. Cross spent most of his football career with the Philadelphia Eagles before launching an iconic, 14-year TV broadcast career. He was the first black sports analyst on network TV, anchoring NFL Today.

MUSSBERGER AND CROSS: Irv, we’ve got a lot about standing rookies, George Rogers doing a number today for the Saints./ Oh, having a big day indeed, Brent. You know, 220 first year men on NFL rosters last week, and 37 of them started…

SONG: NFL Today theme

Cross was a Christian and wrote in his memoir, “There hasn’t been one problem I’ve ever had that wasn’t addressed in the Bible. To me, to solve any issue, you turn to Jesus Christ.”

From athletics to acrobatics.

SOUND: Circus music

The last surviving member of the stunt performing troupe The Flying Wallendas died in March. Carla Wallenda was 85 years old.

She first appeared on the high wire when her parents carried her across on a bicycle when she was just 6 weeks old.

HARVEY: Yes! (music)

Her final public performance came in 2017, at age 81. She did a handstand atop an 86-foot sway pole, much to the excitement of a giant crowd and TV host Steve Harvey below.

HARVEY: Miss Carla Wallenda! Eighty-one years old!

And in May, we bid farewell to the man who brought us “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

SONG: “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” B.J. Thomas

Country/pop singer B.J. Thomas died this May at age 78. Thomas appeared in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and reached number one on the pop charts. He also made a name for himself in Christian music. He grew up flexing his musical chops in the church choir, but in adulthood, he fell into drug and alcohol dependency. That put his marriage in jeopardy. Then, in 1976, he made a profession of faith and reconciled with his wife, Gloria, who had become a Christian just a month before. His wife and three daughters survive him.

For our last entry of the day, one of the most influential names in music that you might not recognize.

SONG: “He’s Everything to Me,” Ralph Carmichael’s Young People (1967)

Composer Ralph Carmichael died on October 18th at the age of 94.

In the 1960s and 70s, Carmichael earned the title “Father of Contemporary Christian Music” for layering jazz and pop-rock styles over church music. His experiments in Christian music created controversy, and some churches dubbed him a heretic for bringing guitars and big-band style music into places of worship.

He caught a break in the 1950s when his musical chops gave him entree to Capital Records. The company asked Carmichael to arrange a Christmas album for Nat King Cole. The result was The Magic of Christmas, an album with a secure place in the annals of holiday classics.

SONG: “The Christmas Song,” Nat King Cole

On top of his work with big names like Cole, Bing Crosby, and Rosemary Clooney, Carmichael wrote more than 300 gospel songs and scored movies like The Blob and The Cross and the Switchblade.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Katie Gaultney.

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