The basketball world lost a legend this past week as Larry “Gator” Rivers – one of the icons of the 70s and 80s Harlem Globetrotters – passed away. He was 73 years old.
Rivers passed away on April 29 in his Savannah, Georgia home after a battle with cancer. He had been serving as the Chatham County Commission District 2 Commissioner since 2020 and had missed recent meetings while battling the illness.
As a high school player he was a member of the first Georgia high school basketball team to win an integrated state championship. But his dribbling skills attracting the attention of Globetrotter legends Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal, and he would join the entertaining exhibition team on tour for the next decade plus.
Rivers was with the Globetrotters from 1973 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1986 with a two-year stint working at his alma mater Missouri Western State University in between.
Larry “Gator” Rivers, a member of the first Georgia high school basketball team to win an integrated state championship and who later wowed fans of the Harlem Globetrotters with his wizardly dribbling skills, died April 29 in Savannah, Ga. He was 73. https://t.co/VZUMUiaLED
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2023
After leaving the Globetrotters in 1986, Rivers reunited with Lemon to join the Shooting Stars exhibition team which also featured the great Pete Maravich among other legends.
Rivers went into coaching after he retired, teaching basketball in the 1990s at his newly-formed Gatorball Academy while volunteering as a youth basketball coach and a public speaker.
Rivers also spent several years working as a high school basketball coach and later as a nightclub manager.
Our hearts go out to Larry Rivers’ family and loved ones.
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