🏈 Just got a note that Kevin Turner has passed ...
- Thread starter TerryP
- Start date
planomateo
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PhillyGirl
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bama alum
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Just saw that Johan Cruyff, one of the world's greatest soccer players, died today as well.
Edit: And now Gary Shandling?!?
Sang Lyda and now KT. I posted on Facebook earlier about KT and what I thought of him as a player and person. He was a tough SOB that punished opposing LBs when they tried to fill a hole, soft hands to lead BAMA receptions in '89, a great guy that treated everyone ( scholly or walk on) with respect. He fought the good fight and shed more light on to ALS, CTE, and concussions. Rest in peace my friend!
PhillyGirl
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planomateo
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Kevin is a good example of it not being better to go quickly. Look how many people he had a positive impact on since his diagnosis. Sure it would have been easier and maybe less painful emotionally for his family and friends, but they were able to get alot of time with him. He fought like hell and made the best of his diagnosis. I commend him for his strength, character, courage, and overall outlook these last few years.
We lost a good one.
We lost a good one.
planomateo
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Alabama17Tide
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CECIL HURT: Remember Turner, Lyda for how they lived
Cecil Hurt | Sports Editor
Kevin Turner played for the Crimson Tide from 1988-91. He also played in the NFL for nine seasons with the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles. He passed away Thursday.
There is no good timetable for losing a friend. There is an ache at their passing, whether those losses come at regular intervals or, as often seems to be the case, when one loss piles on top of another so quickly that the pain seems to compress itself into a single numbness, an inseparable sadness.
Over the past three days, two deaths happened, taking away not one but two fine men, different in some ways but united in many others, particularly by a love of the University of Alabama. Even more, though, the two were shining examples of how the world of athletics, sometimes flawed and sometimes fierce, can produce individuals who compete fearlessly, work tirelessly and yet retain the kind of fundamental decency and gentleness of spirit that would shine through it all.
Kevin Turner was a former football star at UA and in the NFL. Henry Lyda was a certified athletic trainer for many sports at Alabama over a long career, most notably basketball but also golf and track and any other sport where his help was needed. They were known to their friends, a wide circle that included myself for half my years now, as "KT" and "Sang" and I can hardly recall an instance where anyone called them anything else. Their paths surely crossed during KT's football career -- even though Sang didn't technically work with football by the late 1980s and early '90s, he cared about all players regardless of sport. But beyond any friendship they might have had, they are linked for me in a memory of the way they lived.
KT was more famous, probably. Such is the nature of Alabama football, and the more quiet, behind-the-scenes role of the athletic trainer, even from those days when that job constituted far more than tending to the injured and encompassed everything from making travel arrangements to being sure everyone was fed. The image that KT projected wasn't just the good player, although he was certainly that. Even more, he was a versatile player and one who put "team" ahead of "self." When he played fullback under Bill Curry, in Homer Smith's wonderfully innovative offense, he was a lithe, elusive pass receiver. When Gene Stallings, to whom "fullback" meant something entirely different took over, KT didn't complain. He adapted to the new role, becoming a tough, physical back, a persona that carried him all the way to the NFL.
Sang probably could have gone on to the NBA, or the NFL, if he had wanted. He was widely respected and honored by his peers and fellow trainers. But I'm not sure he ever harbored any ambition to move away from Tuscaloosa and a job he truly loved. In all the years I knew Sang, I never heard a cross or angry word -- although you could get a disapproving look out of him if you happened to speak favorably of a couple of easy-to-guess SEC rivals.
But, like KT, Sang was willing to do whatever it took, to take any role that might help the team he worked for or, in KT's case, played for. It's telling that Thursday's remembrances from KT's NFL teammates, Patriot or Eagle, sound just the same as the memories that his Alabama teammates shared. He was that kind of teammate and, like Sang, that kind of man.
I hadn't seen KT much recently as he fought against the unspeakable cruelty of ALS, but he was always the same person I met as he was fresh out of Prattville High School, fighting to find a way to make his situation into something that would help someone else. I did see Sang last month when Alabama basketball played in Baton Rouge. He always made it a point to come by press row and speak, to ask about a column or an article I'd written recently, taking time to make someone else feel good.
About two weeks later, Sang was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A month or so after that, he was gone.
Sudden or lingering, the loss of a friend always comes with its own heartache. This week doubled that. The fact that it was two such good, humble decent men multiplied that by a thousand times. I'll miss them both because I knew them. The world will miss them both because there are too few, far too few, of their kind.
Cecil Hurt | Sports Editor
Kevin Turner played for the Crimson Tide from 1988-91. He also played in the NFL for nine seasons with the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles. He passed away Thursday.
There is no good timetable for losing a friend. There is an ache at their passing, whether those losses come at regular intervals or, as often seems to be the case, when one loss piles on top of another so quickly that the pain seems to compress itself into a single numbness, an inseparable sadness.
Over the past three days, two deaths happened, taking away not one but two fine men, different in some ways but united in many others, particularly by a love of the University of Alabama. Even more, though, the two were shining examples of how the world of athletics, sometimes flawed and sometimes fierce, can produce individuals who compete fearlessly, work tirelessly and yet retain the kind of fundamental decency and gentleness of spirit that would shine through it all.
Kevin Turner was a former football star at UA and in the NFL. Henry Lyda was a certified athletic trainer for many sports at Alabama over a long career, most notably basketball but also golf and track and any other sport where his help was needed. They were known to their friends, a wide circle that included myself for half my years now, as "KT" and "Sang" and I can hardly recall an instance where anyone called them anything else. Their paths surely crossed during KT's football career -- even though Sang didn't technically work with football by the late 1980s and early '90s, he cared about all players regardless of sport. But beyond any friendship they might have had, they are linked for me in a memory of the way they lived.
KT was more famous, probably. Such is the nature of Alabama football, and the more quiet, behind-the-scenes role of the athletic trainer, even from those days when that job constituted far more than tending to the injured and encompassed everything from making travel arrangements to being sure everyone was fed. The image that KT projected wasn't just the good player, although he was certainly that. Even more, he was a versatile player and one who put "team" ahead of "self." When he played fullback under Bill Curry, in Homer Smith's wonderfully innovative offense, he was a lithe, elusive pass receiver. When Gene Stallings, to whom "fullback" meant something entirely different took over, KT didn't complain. He adapted to the new role, becoming a tough, physical back, a persona that carried him all the way to the NFL.
Sang probably could have gone on to the NBA, or the NFL, if he had wanted. He was widely respected and honored by his peers and fellow trainers. But I'm not sure he ever harbored any ambition to move away from Tuscaloosa and a job he truly loved. In all the years I knew Sang, I never heard a cross or angry word -- although you could get a disapproving look out of him if you happened to speak favorably of a couple of easy-to-guess SEC rivals.
But, like KT, Sang was willing to do whatever it took, to take any role that might help the team he worked for or, in KT's case, played for. It's telling that Thursday's remembrances from KT's NFL teammates, Patriot or Eagle, sound just the same as the memories that his Alabama teammates shared. He was that kind of teammate and, like Sang, that kind of man.
I hadn't seen KT much recently as he fought against the unspeakable cruelty of ALS, but he was always the same person I met as he was fresh out of Prattville High School, fighting to find a way to make his situation into something that would help someone else. I did see Sang last month when Alabama basketball played in Baton Rouge. He always made it a point to come by press row and speak, to ask about a column or an article I'd written recently, taking time to make someone else feel good.
About two weeks later, Sang was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A month or so after that, he was gone.
Sudden or lingering, the loss of a friend always comes with its own heartache. This week doubled that. The fact that it was two such good, humble decent men multiplied that by a thousand times. I'll miss them both because I knew them. The world will miss them both because there are too few, far too few, of their kind.
planomateo
Member
PhillyGirl
Member
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