SAVANNAH, Ga. — Larry “Gator” Rivers, who helped combine highschool basketball in Georgia earlier than enjoying for the Harlem Globetrotters and turning into a county commissioner in his native Savannah, died Saturday at age 73.
Rivers died from most cancers, Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis informed the Savannah Morning News. Campbell and Sons Funeral dwelling mentioned Rivers died at a hospital in Savannah.
Rivers was a sophomore on the all-Black Beach High School staff that gained the primary Georgia High School Association basketball match to incorporate Black and white gamers in 1967. Beach 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 College in Missouri and an all-conference guard at what’s now Missouri Western State University 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 informed WTOC-TV that in his tryout for the Globetrotters, staff 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 around this.”
“So I was dribbling around chairs, under tables, doing anything I could do to impress him,” Rivers mentioned.
Rivers got here dwelling to Savannah and obtained concerned locally, 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 associates,” Ellis informed WTOC-TV, calling Rivers “a legend.”
”That was an enormous a part of him, giving to the kids that’s behind him,” Ellis mentioned. “Like he said, ‘Somebody gave to me, and so it’s my job and my responsibility to give back.’ And that’s going to be missing a whole 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 life of accomplishment and chose to spend much of that life serving the people of community.”
Johnson wrote on social media that “Legends never die, so you will always be around, my friend,” including in an official metropolis assertion that Rivers “never forgot Savannah or Beach High School and dedicated endless hours of mentoring and teaching the rules of basketball and life to scores of young people. For this, he will always be remembered.”
Funeral preparations had not been introduced Sunday.
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