From Kobe to Maradona, a year of staggering losses in sports

The year started with the shocking death of Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash. The world lost several other sports icons in 2020.

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Sports

December 30, 2020 - 9:12 AM

Fans walk by photos of Kobe Bryant in the United Center after Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash in January. Photo by Chicago Tribune / TNS

There were so many this year.

Sports in 2020 was an unending state of mourning. It was as if every week, sometimes days, another luminary fell, bringing a cascade of condolence and remembrance.

It began New Year’s Day, a harbinger of what the year held, with the deaths of David Stern and Don Larsen. Not long after came a seismic jolt, the helicopter crash of Kobe Bryant in the fog-shrouded California hills that reverberated across sports and across continents.

Deep into the year, a bookend to Bryant, Diego Maradona died from a heart attack in Argentina weeks after brain surgery, the waves of grief rippling across soccer. It seemed a whole wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame was ripped away — Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, Joe Morgan, Phil Niekro. Football lost a big piece of its heart: Don Shula, Gale Sayers, Paul Hornung, Bobby Mitchell. Gone from college basketball was John Thompson, as imposing and important a coach as any.

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