Derrick Thomas (1967 - 2000)

Born in Miami, Florida, Thomas was raised by his mother. His father, Air Force Captain and B-52 pilot Robert James Thomas, died during a mission in the Vietnam War. Thomas started playing football when he was three years old. He played high school football at South Miami Senior High School. Alongside Cornelius Bennett and later Keith McCants, Thomas spearheaded one of the best defensive lines in college […]

Jack Ramsay (1925 - 2014)

Growing up in Milford, Connecticut, Jack Ramsay was encouraged to participate in sports in grade school by his parents, Anne and John. With his family moving to a Philadelphia suburb, Ramsay graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1942. Years after playing basketball, baseball and soccer in high school, he was inducted into the school’s Wall of Fame […]

Lee Marshall (1949 - 2014)

Lee Marshall (born Marshall Aaron Mayer; November 28, 1949 – April 26, 2014) was a professional wrestling announcer formerly of the American Wrestling Association (AWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Women of Wrestling (WOW!). Marshall joined the broadcast team when the AWA Championship Wrestling show was on ESPN. A big deal was made by Rod Trongard about Marshall being from Los Angeles. During his AWA stint […]

Mel McDaniel (1942 - 2011)

Melvin Huston “Mel” McDaniel was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, a small town in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. McDaniel, the son of a truck driving father, grew up in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He was inspired to play music after seeing Elvis Presley on television. His first interest in music was when he learned the trumpet in the fourth grade, but he soon learned […]

Liz Anderson (1930 - 2011)

Liz Anderson Born Elizabeth Jane Haaby in Roseau, Minnesota in 1930. , she played the family mandolin as a child and also sang in the local church. At age 13, the family moved west to Grand Forks, North Dakota. At the age of 16, Liz was married to Casey Anderson and then had her daughter Lynn a year later. She studied at […]

Jack Greene (1930 - 2013)

Jack Greene Jack Henry Greene was born on January 7, 1930, in Maryville, Tennessee. He learned to play guitar at age ten, and Greene’s first involvement with the music industry came when he was still a teenager, working as a disc jockey at radio station WGAP in Maryville. By the age of 18, Jack Greene was a regular on the Tennessee Barn Dance show on WNOX,Knoxville, Tennessee. […]

Jim Foglesong (1922 - 2013)

Foglesong was born in Lundale, West Virginia. As a teenager, he sang on a local radio show and in quartets and trios into his young adult years. He began his career in the music industry at Columbia Records’ label in 1951, transferring 78 RPM records into LP formats. Over the next 20 years, he worked for RCA-Victor until moving to Nashville in 1970 to head the A&R division at Dot […]

Waylon Jennings (1937 - 2002)

Waylon Jennings Waylon Arnold Jennings was born in Littlefield, Texas, the seat of Lamb County, the son of Lorene Beatrice (née Shipley) and William Albert Jennings. His original birth name was Wayland, meaning land by the highway, but it was changed after a Baptist preacher visited Jennings’s parents and congratulated his mother for naming him after the Wayland Baptist […]

Ray Price (1926 - 2013)

Ray Price was born on a farm near the small, now gone, community of Peach, Near Perryville in Wood County, Texas. He was the son of Walter Clifton Price and Clara Mae Bradley Cimini. His Grandfather James MM Price was an early settler of the area.  Price was three years old when his parents divorced and his mother […]

Pat Tillman (1976 - 2004)

Tillman was born on November 6, 1976, in Fremont, California. The eldest of three sons, with Kevin and Richard as the other two, Tillman excelled at football. He went to Bret Harte Middle School and helped lead Leland High School to the Central Coast Division I Football Championship. Tillman then went to Arizona State University on a football scholarship. Tillman was […]

Andy Granatelli (1923 - 2013)

Anthony “Andy” Granatelli (March 18, 1923 – December 29, 2013) was the CEO of STP (motor oil company) and a major figure in automobile racing events. Granatelli was born in Dallas, Texas. Along with his brothers Vince and Joe, he first worked as an auto mechanic and “speed-shop” entrepreneur, modifying engines such as the “flathead” Ford into racing-quality equipment. During World War II, […]

Earl Morrall (1934 - 2014)

Morrall led Muskegon High School in Muskegon, Michigan, to a state football championship in 1951, setting off a determined recruiting effort by the University of Michigan, the University of Notre Dame and Michigan State University. At that time, the Notre Dame did not participate in post-season bowl games. The efforts of the colleges were enough for the principal of Muskegon High, George A. Manning, to […]

Chuck Noll (1932 - 2014)

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Noll attended Benedictine High School where he played running back and tackle, winning All-State honors. He won a football scholarship to the University of Dayton. Noll was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1953, where he played until his retirement in 1959 at the age of 27. Noll was an assistant coach for the American Football League’s San Diego Chargers and the NFL Baltimore […]

Casey Kasem (1932 - 2014)

Casey Kasem Kasem was born Kemal Amin Kasem in Detroit, Michigan, on April 27, 1932, to Lebanese Druze immigrant parents. They settled in Michigan, where they worked as grocers. Kasem was a graduate of Northwestern High School in Detroit and Wayne State University. Kasem, whose professional radio career started in the mid-1950s in Flint, Michigan, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952 and sent to Korea, where he was a […]

Mel Allen (1913 - 1996)

Allen was born in Birmingham, Alabama. (Biographer Stephen Borelli noted that he added the second middle name Avrom after his deceased grandfather.) He attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of the Kappa Nu Fraternity as an undergraduate. During his time at Alabama, Israel served as the public address announcer for Alabama Crimson Tide football games. In 1933, when the […]

Ryan Paul Freel (1976 - 2012)

Freel attended Tallahassee Community College and was selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1994 amateur entry draft, but did not sign. A year later, he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 10th round of the 1995 amateur draft. Freel played 6 seasons in the Toronto minor league system before making his Major […]

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (1937 - 2014)

Carter was born in Clifton, New Jersey, the fourth of seven children. He acquired a criminal record and was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault, having stabbed a man when he was 11. Carter escaped from the reformatory in 1954 and joined the Army. A few months after completing infantry basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was sent to West Germany. While in Germany, Carter […]

Don Gibson (1928 - 2003)

Don Gibson was born in Shelby, North Carolina, into a poor working-class family, and he dropped out of school in the second grade.  His first band was called Sons of the Soil, with whom he made his first recording in 1948.  In 1957, he journeyed to Nashville to work with producer Chet Atkins and record “Oh Lonesome Me” and “I Can’t Stop Loving […]

Thurman Munson (1947 - 1979)

Munson was born in Akron, Ohio to Darrell Vernon Munson and Ruth Myrna Smylie, the youngest of four children. His father was a World War II veteran who became a truck driver while his mother was a homemaker. When he turned eight, the Munson family moved to nearby Canton, Ohio. He was taught how to play baseball by his older brother Duane, and usually played […]

Sean Taylor (1983 - 2007)

Sean Taylor was born in Florida to Pedro Taylor, a policeman, and Donna Junor. He spent his early years growing up with his great-grandmother Aulga Clarke in Homestead, Florida and later moved to his father’s home at the age of 10. He grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Miami, on a street lined with candy-colored houses. […]

Ruby Dee (1922 - 2014)

Ruby Dee Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922, to Gladys Hightower and Marshall Edward Nathaniel Wallace, a cook, waiter and porter. After her mother left the family, Dee’s father remarried, to Emma Amelia Benson, a schoolteacher. Dee was raised in Harlem, New York. She attended Hunter College High School and went on to graduate from Hunter College with a degree inromance languages in […]

Millard Fillmore (1800 - 1874)

Millard Fillmore Fillmore was born in a log cabin in Moravia, Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, on January 7, 1800. His parents were Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard. Millard was the second of nine children and the eldest son. He later lived in East Aurora, New York in the southtowns region south of Buffalo. Though Fillmore’s ancestors were Scottish Presbyterians on his father’s side and English dissenters on […]

Franklin Pierce (1804 - 1869)

Franklin Pierce Pierce’s drinking worsened his health in his last years, and he grew increasingly spiritual. He had a brief relationship with an unknown woman in mid-1865. During this time, he used his influence to improve the treatment of Davis, now a prisoner at Fortress Monroe in Virginia. He also offered financial help to Hawthorne’s […]

James Buchanan (1791 - 1868)

James Buchanan Buchanan was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan’s Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761–1821), a businessman, merchant, and farmer, and Elizabeth Speer, an educated woman (1767–1833). His parents were both of Ulster Scots descent, the father having emigrated from Donegal, Ireland in 1783. Buchanan had six sisters and four […]

Martin Van Buren (1782 - 1862)

Martin Van Buren Martin Van Buren was born in the village of Kinderhook, New York, on December 5, 1782, about 25 miles (40 km) south of Albany, New York. His father, Abraham Van Buren (1737–1817), was a farmer working with slaves, was the owner of six slaves, and was a tavern-keeper in Kinderhook. Abraham Van Buren supported the […]

John Tyler (1790 - 1862)

John Tyler John Tyler became the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845) when William Henry Harrison, his running mate, died in April 1841. He was the first Vice President elevated to President after the death of a predecessor. Dubbed “His Accidency” by his detractors, John Tyler was the first Vice President to be elevated […]

James Polk (1795 - 1849)

James Polk 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise (dark horse) candidate for president in 1844, defeating […]

Andrew Jackson (1767 - 1845)

Andrew Jackson 7th United States President. When he threw his hat in the ring and decided to run for the presidency, Andrew Jackson the “Hero of New Orleans” was the most popular man in the country and even received a “favorite son” endorsement from Tennessee delegates. Detractors had a field day after his marriage to […]

William Henry Harrison (1773 - 1841)

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison was born February 9, 1773, the youngest of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth (Bassett)’s seven children. They were a prominent political family who lived onBerkeley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the last president born as a British subject before American Independence. His father was a planter and a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–1777), who signed […]

Skeeter Davis (1931 - 2004)

Skeeter Davis Davis was the first of seven children born to William Lee and Sarah Rachel Roberts Penick, in Dry Ridge, Kentucky. Because her grandfather thought that she had a lot of energy for a young child, he nicknamed Mary Frances “Skeeter” (slang for mosquito). In 1947, the Penick family moved to Erlanger, Kentucky, where Skeeter met Betty Jack […]