Jerry Buss, Lakers' flamboyant owner, dies at 80

FILE - In this May 8, 2008 file photo, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss smiles at the Playmate of the Year luncheon at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Buss, the Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships, has died. He was 79. Bob Steiner, an assistant to Buss, confirmed Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 that Buss had died in Los Angeles. Further details were not available. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

FILE - In this May 8, 2008 file photo, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss smiles at the Playmate of the Year luncheon at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Buss, the Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships, has died. He was 79. Bob Steiner, an assistant to Buss, confirmed Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 that Buss had died in Los Angeles. Further details were not available. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

FILE - In this June 18, 1981 file photo, Jerry Buss holds a Los Angeles Lakers shirt in Los Angeles. Buss died Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. Buss, the Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships, has died. He was 79. Bob Steiner, an assistant to Buss, confirmed Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 that Buss had died in Los Angeles. Further details were not available. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this June 15, 1987 file photo, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss gets doused with champagne from members of his team as he holds the NBA Championship trophy after the Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics 106-93 to win the NBA Championship four games to two in Inglewood, Calif. Buss, the Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships, has died. He was 79. Bob Steiner, an assistant to Buss, confirmed Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 that Buss had died in Los Angeles. Further details were not available. (AP Photo/Lennox Mclendon, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2010 file photo, Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss, foreground, speaks as, from background left to right, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Pat Riley react during the enshrinement ceremony in Springfield, Mass. Buss, the Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships, has died. He was 79. Bob Steiner, an assistant to Buss, confirmed Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 that Buss had died in Los Angeles. Further details were not available. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

FILE - In this June 18, 1980 file photo, Jerry Buss, center, poses with players from his teams at a charity event in Beverly Hills, Calif. From left are Los Angeles Lakers' Jamaal Wilkes, Los Angeles Kings' Charlie Simmer, Buss, Lakers' Magic Johnson and Kings' Marcel Dionne. Buss, the Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships, has died. He was 79. Bob Steiner, an assistant to Buss, confirmed Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 that Buss had died in Los Angeles. Further details were not available. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA team to 10 championships from the Showtime dynasty of the 1980s to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday. He was 80.

He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Bob Steiner, his assistant.

Buss had been hospitalized for most of the past 18 months while undergoing cancer treatment, but the immediate cause of death was kidney failure, Steiner said. With his condition worsening in recent weeks, several prominent former Lakers visited Buss to say goodbye.

"The NBA has lost a visionary owner whose influence on our league is incalculable and will be felt for decades to come," NBA Commissioner David Stern said. "More importantly, we have lost a dear and valued friend."

Under Buss' leadership since 1979, the Lakers became Southern California's most beloved sports franchise and a worldwide extension of Hollywood glamour. Buss acquired, nurtured and befriended a staggering array of talented players and basketball minds during his Hall of Fame tenure, from Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Dwight Howard.

"He was a great man and an incredible friend," Johnson tweeted.

Few owners in sports history can approach Buss' accomplishments with the Lakers, who made the NBA finals 16 times during his nearly 34 years in charge, winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010. With 1,786 victories, the Lakers easily are the NBA's winningest franchise since he bought the club, which is now run largely by Jim Buss and Jeanie Buss, two of his six children.

"We not only have lost our cherished father, but a beloved man of our community and a person respected by the world basketball community," the Buss family said in a statement issued by the Lakers.

"It was our father's often-stated desire and expectation that the Lakers remain in the Buss family. The Lakers have been our lives as well, and we will honor his wish and do everything in our power to continue his unparalleled legacy."

Buss always referred to the Lakers as his extended family, and his players rewarded his fanlike excitement with devotion, friendship and two hands full of championship rings. Working with front-office executives Jerry West, Bill Sharman and Mitch Kupchak, Buss spent lavishly to win his titles despite lacking a huge personal fortune, often running the NBA's highest payroll while also paying high-profile coaches Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.

Always an innovative businessman, Buss paid for the Lakers through both their wild success and his own groundbreaking moves to raise revenue. He co-founded a basic-cable sports television network and sold the naming rights to the Forum at times when both now-standard strategies were unusual, further justifying his induction to the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Buss was a "cornerstone of the Los Angeles sports community and his name will always be synonymous with his beloved Lakers," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. "It was through his stewardship that the Lakers brought 'Showtime' basketball and numerous championship rings to this great city. Today we mourn the loss and celebrate the life of a man who helped shape the modern landscape of sports in L.A."

Johnson and fellow Hall of Famers Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy formed lifelong bonds with Buss during the Lakers' run to five titles in nine years in the 1980s, when the Lakers earned a reputation as basketball's most exciting team with their flamboyant Showtime style.

The buzz extended throughout the Forum, where Buss used the Laker Girls, a brass band and promotions to keep Los Angeles fans interested in all four quarters of their games. Courtside seats, priced at $15 when he bought the Lakers, became the hottest tickets in Hollywood ? and they still are, with fixture Jack Nicholson and many other celebrities attending every home game.

Worthy tweeted that Buss was "not only the greatest sports owner, but a true friend & just a really cool guy. Loved him dearly."

After a rough stretch of the 1990s for the Lakers, Jackson led O'Neal and Bryant to a three-peat from 2000-02, rekindling the Lakers' mystique, before Bryant and Pau Gasol won two more titles under Jackson in 2009 and 2010. The Lakers have struggled mightily during their current season despite adding Howard and Steve Nash, and could miss the playoffs for just the third time since Buss bought the franchise.

"Today is a very sad day for all the Lakers and basketball," Gasol tweeted. "All my support and condolences to the Buss family. Rest in peace Dr. Buss."

Although Buss gained fame and fortune with the Lakers, he also was a scholar, Renaissance man and bon vivant who epitomized California cool his entire public life.

Buss rarely appeared in public without at least one attractive, much younger woman on his arm at USC football games, high-stakes poker tournaments, hundreds of boxing matches promoted by Buss at the Forum ? and, of course, Lakers games from his private box at Staples Center, which was built under his watch. In failing health recently, Buss hadn't attended a Lakers game this season.

Buss earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at age 24 and had careers in aerospace and real estate development before getting into sports. With money from his real-estate ventures and a good bit of creative accounting, Buss bought the then-struggling Lakers, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings and both clubs' arena ? the Forum ? from Jack Kent Cooke in a $67.5 million deal that was the largest sports transaction in history at the time.

Last month, Forbes estimated the Lakers were worth $1 billion, second most in the NBA.

Buss also helped change televised sports by co-founding the Prime Ticket network in 1985, receiving a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 for his work in television. Breaking the contemporary model of subscription services for televised sports, Buss' Prime Ticket put beloved broadcaster Chick Hearn and the Lakers' home games on basic cable.

Buss also sold the naming rights to the Forum in 1988 to Great Western Savings & Loan ? another deal that was ahead of its time.

Born in Salt Lake City, Gerald Hatten Buss was raised in poverty in Wyoming before improving his life through education. He also grew to love basketball, describing himself as an "overly competitive but underly endowed player."

After graduating from the University of Wyoming, Buss attended USC for graduate school. He became a chemistry professor and worked as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines before carving out a path to wealth and sports prominence.

The former mathematician's fortune grew out of a $1,000 real-estate investment in a West Los Angeles apartment building with partner Frank Mariani, an aerospace engineer and co-worker.

Heavily leveraging his fortune and various real-estate holdings, Buss purchased Cooke's entire Los Angeles sports empire in 1979, including a 13,000-acre ranch in Kern County. Buss cited his love of basketball as the motivation for his purchase, and he immediately worked to transform the Lakers ? who had won just one NBA title since moving west from Minneapolis in 1960 ? into a star-powered endeavor befitting Hollywood.

"One of the first things I tried to do when I bought the team was to make it an identification for this city, like Motown in Detroit," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "I try to keep that identification alive. I'm a real Angeleno. I want us to be part of the community."

Buss' plans immediately worked: Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and coach Paul Westhead led the Lakers to the 1980 title. Johnson's ball-handling wizardry and Abdul-Jabbar's smooth inside game made for an attractive style of play evoking Hollywood flair and West Coast sophistication.

Riley, the former broadcaster who fit the L.A. image perfectly with his slick-backed hair and good looks, was surprisingly promoted by Buss early in the 1981-82 season after West declined to co-coach the team. Riley became one of the best coaches in NBA history, leading the Lakers to four straight NBA finals and four titles, with Worthy, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott and A.C. Green playing major roles.

Overall, the Lakers made the finals nine times in Buss' first 12 seasons while rekindling the NBA's best rivalry with the Boston Celtics, and Buss basked in the worldwide celebrity he received from his team's achievements. His womanizing and partying became Hollywood legend, with even his players struggling to keep up with Buss' lifestyle.

Johnson's HIV diagnosis and retirement in 1991 staggered Buss and the Lakers, the owner recalled in 2011. The Lakers struggled through much of the 1990s, going through seven coaches and making just one conference finals appearance in an eight-year stretch despite the 1996 arrivals of O'Neal, who signed with Los Angeles as a free agent, and Bryant, the 17-year-old high schooler acquired in a draft-week trade.

Shaq and Kobe didn't reach their potential until Buss persuaded Jackson, the Chicago Bulls' six-time NBA champion coach, to take over the Lakers in 1999. Los Angeles immediately won the next three NBA titles in brand-new Staples Center, AEG's state-of-the-art downtown arena built with the Lakers as the primary tenant.

After the Lakers traded O'Neal in 2004, they hovered in mediocrity again until acquiring Gasol in a heist of a trade with Memphis in early 2008. Los Angeles made the next three NBA finals, winning two more titles.

Through the Lakers' frequent successes and occasional struggles, Buss never stopped living his Hollywood dream. He was an avid poker player and a fixture on the Los Angeles club scene well into his 70s, when a late-night drunk-driving arrest in 2007 ? with a 23-year-old woman in the passenger seat of his Mercedes-Benz ? prompted him to cut down on his partying.

Buss owned the NHL's Kings from 1979-87, and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks won two league titles under Buss' ownership. He also owned Los Angeles franchises in World Team Tennis and the Major Indoor Soccer League.

Buss' children all have worked for the Lakers organization in various capacities for several years. Jim Buss, the Lakers' executive vice president of player personnel and the second-oldest child, has taken over much of the club's primary decision-making responsibilities in the last few years, while daughter Jeanie runs the franchise's business side.

Jerry Buss still served two terms as president of the NBA's Board of Governors and was actively involved in the 2011 lockout negotiations, developing blood clots in his legs attributed to his extensive travel during that time.

Buss is survived by six children: sons Johnny, Jim, Joey and Jesse, and daughters Jeanie Buss and Janie Drexel. He had eight grandchildren.

Arrangements are pending for a funeral and memorial services.

___

Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-18-Obit-Jerry%20Buss/id-39b2ff17a8d24cca8e16dcbfde9d19cd

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Northeast commuters hit roads after digging out

Matt Church enjoys his breakfast at a coffee shop in downtown Haverhill, Mass., Monday, Feb. 11, 2013. Beleaguered Massachusetts residents returned to work on Monday for the first time since the weekend blizzard, crawling along narrow snow-covered secondary roads and being greeted by a new wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Matt Church enjoys his breakfast at a coffee shop in downtown Haverhill, Mass., Monday, Feb. 11, 2013. Beleaguered Massachusetts residents returned to work on Monday for the first time since the weekend blizzard, crawling along narrow snow-covered secondary roads and being greeted by a new wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

A man heads out to clear snow as it falls again, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013 in Concord, N.H. After digging out from two feet of snow over the weekend more snow arrived on Monday. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

A Southwest Connecticut neighborhood is buried in snow Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, in the aftermath of a storm that hit Connecticut and much of the New England states. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

A row of school busses are buried in snow near Bridgeport, Conn., Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013, in the aftermath of a storm that hit Connecticut and much of the New England states. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Xiomary Cosme of Haverhill, Mass. waits for her bus at the MRTA station in Haverhill, Mass. Monday, Feb. 11, 2013. State officials urged commuters to take public transportation when possible. The MBTA's regularly scheduled service resumed Monday, but some trolley and commuter rail lines were experiencing delays due to signal problems and weather-related issues. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

NATICK, Mass. (AP) ? As electricity returns and highways reopen, some Northeast residents tried to get back to their weekday routines Monday following the massive snowstorm that had millions digging out from New York to Maine.

But the routine for other New Englanders was disrupted by school and workplace closings, and poor road conditions. For some there's also a new worry: the danger of roof collapses as rain and warmer weather melts snow.

The storm that slammed into the region with up to 3 feet of snow was blamed for at least 15 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded. Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm.

Most major highways were clear on Monday, though a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 91 from just north of Hartford to the Massachusetts line closed in both directions for more than an hour because of icy conditions. Many secondary roads still had a thick coating of snow, and high snow banks that blocked sight lines at intersections and near highway ramps, making turning and merging hazardous.

"It was definitely a struggle to get here," said Dana Osterling, 24, who lives in Leverett in western Massachusetts but commutes to Boston twice a week to attend Berklee College of Music.

"I live on a dirt road so the plows don't visit us very often," she said at a service plaza in Natick on the Massachusetts Turnpike. She and her six housemates shoveled for about three hours straight to free their cars Sunday.

Around the region, parking spots were filled with snow and many two lane roads were down to one.

Fernando Colon, 48, of South Windsor, Conn., was driving to work Monday morning in heavy sleet on a two-lane highway that was down to one lane because of high snow banks.

"This is awful," he said as he stopped to pump gas during his trek.

Snow banks were piled high on the unusually quiet streets of downtown Hartford, where the big insurance firms encouraged people to work from home Monday.

In Fairfield, Conn., Mary Elizabeth Anderson said she couldn't go to her job as a marketing director Monday because her street had not been plowed yet. She said the town told her streets that normally take about 10 minutes to plow were taking close to an hour.

"You have to be patient," Anderson said. "I'm sure they're doing the best they can. It's a huge undertaking."

The only path on the road was what a neighbor did with a snow blower, she said.

Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places. But by early Monday, outages had dropped to about 130,000 ? more than 110,000 of them in Massachusetts.

Driving bans were lifted and flights resumed at major airports in the region that had closed during the storm. Public transit schedules were being restored.

Aurea Santiago of Shrewsbury drove into work at a Boston bank. The worst part was the side roads, she said.

"A couple of the lanes are pretty narrow," she said. "If you get in the wrong lane it's pretty dicey."

The Boston-area public transportation system, which shut down on Friday afternoon, resumed full service on Monday ? but told commuters to expect delays. The Metro-North Railroad resumed most train service on its New York and Connecticut routes while the Long Island Rail Road said commuters could expect a nearly normal schedule.

On New York's Long Island, Samantha Cuomo was stressed out as her 40-minute commute to work turned into two hours Monday.

She called the roads "an absolute mess."

Cuomo, of Bay Shore, is a manager at a group home and said the street near her work hadn't been plowed and trees were down.

"That's what people pay tax money for," she said.

Some public school systems canceled classes on Monday, including in Boston, Providence and on Long Island, while local governments in some areas told non-essential workers to take the day off.

Long Island was slammed with as much as 30 inches of snow, which shut down roads, including the Long Island Expressway, where many people had been stranded overnight during the worst of the storm. A 27-mile stretch of the road was closed Sunday but the roadway reopened Monday in time for the morning commute.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said more than a third of all the state's snow-removal equipment was sent to the area, including more than 400 plow trucks and more than 100 snowblowers, loaders and backhoes.

"The massive amount of snow left behind effectively shut down the entire region," Cuomo said.

Utility crews, some brought in from as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma and Quebec, raced to restore power. By early Monday, about 130,000 customers still had no electricity ? down from 650,000 in eight states at the height of the storm. In hardest-hit Massachusetts, officials said some of the outages might linger until Tuesday.

Boston recorded 24.9 inches of snow, making it the fifth-largest storm in the city since records were kept. The city was appealing to the state and private contractors for more front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to clear snow piles that were clogging residential streets.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick was visiting Monday with officials in some of the coastal towns hardest hit by the storm, including Scituate and Marshfield. He called the amount of debris and rocks tossed onto waterfront roads "extraordinary."

The National Weather Service was forecasting rain and warmer temperatures in the region on Monday ? which could begin melting some snow but also add considerable weight to snow already piled on roofs, posing the danger of collapse. Of greatest concern were flat or gently-sloped roofs and officials said people should try to clear them ? but only if they could do so safely.

"We don't recommend that people, unless they're young and experienced, go up on roofs," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

Officials also continued to warn of carbon monoxide dangers in the wake of the storm.

In Boston, two people died Saturday after being overcome by carbon monoxide while sitting in running cars, including a teenager who went into the family car to stay warm while his father shoveled snow. The boy's name was not made public. In a third incident, two children were hospitalized but expected to recover. A fire department spokesman said in each case, the tailpipes of the cars were clogged by snow.

In Webster, a 60-year-old off-duty member of the Worcester Fire Department also died Saturday after suffering a heart attack while clearing snow at his home.

In Maine, the Penobscot County Sheriff's office said it recovered the body of a 75-year-old man who died after the pickup he was driving struck a tree and plunged into the Penobscot River during the storm. Investigators said Gerald Crommett apparently became disoriented while driving in the blinding snow.

Christopher Mahood, 23, of Germantown, N.Y., died after his tractor went off his driveway while he was plowing snow Friday night and rolled down a 15-foot embankment.

__

Klepper reported from Newport, R.I., and Eltman reported from Patchogue, N.Y. Associated Press writers Stephen Singer in Manchester, Conn., Mike Melia in South Windsor, Conn., John Christoffersen in Fairfield, Conn., and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-11-US-Northeast-Snow/id-083284811b27445b858a123c907858fe

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Wyo. sheep known for butting vehicles at park dies

LANDER, Wyo. (AP) ? A bighorn sheep named Bam Bam because of his habit of butting vehicles at a Wyoming park has died with his horns, likely of natural causes.

He was the last survivor of the bighorn sheep herd in Sinks Canyon State Park near Lander.

Bam Bam became a local celebrity of sorts when he began showing up near the park's main road in 2007 and allowed people to pet him. He earned the name Bam Bam because he liked to butt vehicles.

Fearing for the sheep's and visitors' safety, park managers moved Bam Bam to an enclosed state facility near Wheatland in 2009.

Sinks Canyon Superintendent Darrel Trembly says Bam Bam will be mounted by a taxidermist and put on display in the park's visitor center.

Associated Press

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