BCSP Notes . . .

Alabama State basketball player Deshean Porchea collapsed and died last week after playing in a pickup game on campus.

The 19-year-old sophomore passed out Wednesday afternoon after walking off the court and never regained consciousness, the university said. University spokeswoman Janel Bell said an autopsy was being performed Thursday to try to determine the cause of death. Alabama State planned a candlelight vigil Thursday

"He was just a good all-around kid," said ASU coach Lewis Jackson, who heard the news while on a recruiting trip in Florida. "He played with a contagious fire that carried over to his teammates. He was a good person. It is a great loss to our team and our university."

Porchea, a reserve guard, averaged 2.1 points on the team that won the Southwestern Athletic Conference regular-season title.

School officials said Porchea had seemed in good spirits before passing out, and there was nothing unusual about his behavior.

"Absolutely no one saw this coming there were no signs," ASU President Joe Lee told the Montgomery Advertiser. "This was a kid who was in the best shape of his life. He was in tremendous shape. The team had just come off a SWAC championship just a month ago. There was no reason for this. It's just baffling."

Lide status uncertain at SIAC

The status of Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Commissioner Dr. William Lide is uncertain after press reports of his suspension surfaced last week.

Lide was out of the SIAC office in Tucker, Ga., on Monday and Tuesday of this week and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful. This was after The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News reported last week he had been suspended by the president's of the 12-member conference pending an audit of the league's finances. Lide was also absent from the SIAC's Spring Championships last week held in Tuscaloosa.

Calls to SIAC Council of Presidents chairman, Dr. Benjamin Payton of Tuskegee, had not been returned at press time. SIAC Communications Director Harry Stinson III, stood by the conference office's statement last week that the office was still "running as usual with Dr. Lide at the helm." In the newspaper story last week, Stillman athletics director Curtis Campbell confirmed that athletic officials at member schools have been informed that Lide has been placed on administrative leave. Other athletic officials at member schools referred all inquiries to Payton.

Pioneering coach Will Robinson succumbs

Will Robinson, who was the first black coach of a Division I college basketball program and a legendary evaluator of talent in both basketball and football, died on Monday. He was 96.

Robinson, who won 15 letters in four sports before graduating from West Virginia State in 1937, made history when he became the first black Div. I basketball coach, leading Illinois State in the 1970s. He died in a nursing home in the Detroit suburb of Harper Woods, said Detroit Pistons spokesman Matt Dobek. Robinson had been sick for 15 months and in a nursing home for more than a year, Dobek said.

He joined the Pistons as a scout in 1976 and discovered Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman, key players on Detroit's 1989 and 1990 NBA championship teams coached by Chuck Daly who took the job after Robinson declined former general manager Jack McCloskey's offer.

Robinson was a coach at Chicago's DuSable High School and was the first black high school coach in Michigan, coaching at both Miller and Pershing High Schools. He also joined Spencer Haywood, a member of his Detroit Pershing 1967 state championship high school team who had left the University of Detroit to sign with the ABA's Denver Rockets, in a successful legal challenge to the NBA's ban on underclassmen.

"He lived (96) years of greatness," Haywood said. "I wouldn't even exist, and all these players ­ Julius Erving to LeBron James and Kevin Garnett ­ they wouldn't have been able to do what they did," if not for Robinson's actions.

Scouting part-time for the Detroit Lions for 22 years, Robinson scoured black colleges in the South for talent. His finds included Jackson State cornerback Lem Barney, who went on to a Pro Football Hall of Fame career.

Heading the Illinois State basketball program from 1970-75, Robinson coached the Redbirds to a 78-51 record without a losing season. His best player was Doug Collins, the school's first consensus All-American who was taken by Philadelphia with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1973 NBA draft and now serves as a color commentator for NBA games.

Veteran administrator, coach J. D. Marshall passes

Former Fayetteville State athletic director J. D. Marshall, a member of the FSU and National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Halls of Fame, passed Tuesday morning.

Marshall, 78, was athletic director at FSU from 1980 to 1989 before his retirement in 1995. He previously served as head football coach (1965-73) and athletic director at Livingstone and at Virginia Union.

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