February 26, 2009 will certainly live in infamy among Chicago sports fans as two beloved legends passed away yesterday. 

I'm old enough to remember Norm Van Lier as a player and let me tell you, he was old school even then.  Partnered with my favorite Bull of all-time, Jerry Sloan, Van Lier played tenacious defense on a team that featured the likes of Bob Love, Chet Walker, Tom Borewinkle, Bob Weiss et. al and coached by Dick Motta.  These boys could really "d" it up back then.

The closest any of these teams came to glory was losing to Milwaukee in 1974 and Golden State in 1975 in the Western Conference finals.  They were entertaining then, though.  And this is back when basketball was a sport where people actually played defense and passed the ball once in awhile.

I've only lived in Chicago for two years since 1979, so my memories of Norm Van Lier as a broadcaster are far less vivid.  What I have seen, I've enjoyed and I've always considered him "Charles Barkley on Valium", an honest, direct broadcaster with little regard for the reaction his words have upon the ears of sensitive players and team officials.

I am not old enough to remember Johnny "Red" Kerr as a player or a a coach, but I do remember him vividly as a broadcaster.  Of all of the analysts in Chicago, I always ranked him right up there at the top.  I still get chills thinking about that day I was driving from Lafayette, IN to Indy for a fund raiser when Michael Jordan buried "the shot" over Craig Eloh and Red went absolutely out of his mind.  What a great call that was.  I always thought Red's best work is when he worked with Chicago's greatest basketball announcer ever, Jim Durham.

I also got to listen to Red a lot on my lifeline to Chicago sports, superstation WGN.

Goodbye and thanks, gentlemen.  You legion of fans left behind mourn your loss, comfort your family and hope to reunite someday in that big Chicago Stadium in the sky.