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Notable deaths last week: NBA dunk master; NHL legendary coach

• Darryl Dawkins was once summoned in the Philadelphia 76ers' locker room to come meet a celebrity who wanted to meet the man known for dunking with backboard-breaking force.

The guest was Grammy Award winner Stevie Wonder. The entertainer is blind, yet even he could tell there was something very unique about Dawkins' game.

"A guy who never saw me," a beaming Dawkins said in a 2011 televised interview, "gave me the name 'Chocolate Thunder."'

The name stuck, and the rim-wrecking, glass-shattering dunks remain unforgettable - as will the giant of a man who changed the game with them. Dawkins died Tl in Allentown, Pennsylvania, according to the Lehigh County coroner's office. He was 58. His family released a statement saying the cause of death was a heart attack.

Dawkins, the first player to go from high school into the first round of the NBA draft, spent parts of 14 seasons in the NBA with Philadelphia, New Jersey, Utah and Detroit. He averaged 12 points and 6.1 rebounds in 726 career regular-season games.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Dawkins was "beloved around the league."

"The NBA family is heartbroken by the sudden and tragic passing of Darryl Dawkins," Silver said. "We will always remember Darryl for his incredible talent, his infectious enthusiasm and his boundless generosity. He played the game with passion, integrity and joy, never forgetting how great an influence he had on his legions of fans, young and old."

• Al Arbour, the bespectacled gentleman of a coach who molded a young and talented New York Islanders franchise into an NHL dynasty that won four straight Stanley Cups in the early 1980s, has died. He was 82.

Beginning in 1973-74, Arbour led the Isles to 15 playoff appearances and won 119 playoff games - an NHL record with one team - over 19 seasons. His 740 career regular-season wins with the Islanders are the most with one NHL team.

No team in any major sport has won four straight titles since Arbour's Islanders did it. The Montreal Canadiens hold the NHL record with five straight titles (1956-60).

Of Al Arbour's numerous NHL achievements, one stands out to his former coaching colleague and mentor, Scotty Bowman.

Upon learning of Arbour's death on Friday, Bowman marveled at how the former New York Islanders coach was capable of winning 740 games and four Stanley Cup championships with just one team.

"Nobody can do that," Bowman told The Associated Press by phone. "Most of the other coaches, we have to move around to get our message across. But he was able to do it over a 20-year span, which is an awesome feat."

It's something Bowman was unable to do, as his NHL-record 1,244 career coaching wins, and nine championships spanned five teams and 30 seasons.

Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996 in the builder category, Arbour also enjoyed a 14-season NHL career playing defense.

He won titles with the Detroit Red Wings in 1954, the Chicago Blackhawks ('61) and the Toronto Maple Leafs in '62 and '64 during a 14-eyar career. His last four seasons were with the Blues, who took him to three more Cup finals.

No team in any major sport has won four straight titles since the Islanders did from 1980-83. The Canadiens hold the NHL record with five straight titles (1956-60).

And the Isles set a league record by winning 19 consecutive playoff series, something Bowman believes will be difficult to match because it would require a team to win five consecutive championships.

• Kyle Jean-Baptiste, the first African-American and youngest person to ever play the role of Jean Valjean in "Les Misérables" on Broadway has died after falling from a fire escape, according to a show spokesman. He was 21.

Jean-Baptiste died Friday night following the show's evening performance at the Imperial Theatre, said representative Marc Thibodeau.

"The entire `Les Misérables' family is shocked and devastated by the sudden and tragic loss of Kyle, a remarkable young talent and tremendous person who made magic - and history - in his Broadway debut. We send our deepest condolences to his family and ask that you respect their privacy in this unimaginably difficult time," a statement from the production reads.

• Jimmy Evert, a highly regarded tennis instructor whose students included his Grand Slam champion daughter, has died at age 91.

Evert was the city of Fort Lauderdale's tennis director for 49 years and taught a wide range of top junior players. All five of his children reached at least the final of a national junior championship, and daughter Chris became one of the greatest players ever, winning 18 major titles and finishing No. 1 for seven years.

Evert also worked with Jennifer Capriati, who went on to the No. 1 ranking, and Frank Froehling, Brian Gottfried and Harold Solomon, who became top players.

Evert was an All-American player at Notre Dame in the 1940's and reached No. 11 in the U.S. rankings.

• Francis Sejersted, former chairman of the Nobel Peace Committee that hands out the coveted award in the Norwegian capital, has died. He was 79.

• Charlie Coffey, who brought a potent passing attack to Virginia Tech during three seasons as the Hokies' head coach in the early 1970s, has died at age 81.

• Dr. James "Red" Duke, a trauma surgeon who attended to Texas Gov. John Connally on the day of the Kennedy assassination before going on to become a familiar television doctor, died in Houston on Tuesday at age 86.

Duke treated Connally's wounds in November 1963, after the governor was shot while riding in the car in which President John F. Kennedy was killed. During the 1980s, Duke had a nationally syndicated medical segment in which he appeared in cowboy garb and with a bushy red mustache and spoke with a thick Texas drawl.

• A Belgian nurse who helped save hundreds of American soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge at the end of World War II has died and will be buried near where thousands of Allied troops fell.

Augusta Chiwy, who died at 94, was laid to rest Saturday in a family plot at a cemetery in the town of Bastogne, southeast Belgium, following a civilian and military ceremony, her family said.

Chiwy, portrayed as the character `Anna' in the book and TV series "Band of Brothers," received a Belgian knighthood and a U.S award for valor in 2011.

The Battle of the Bulge was a ferocious encounter during the final stages of World War II when Adolf Hitler launched a major offensive against Allied forces. About 80,000 American soldiers were killed, captured or wounded.

Chiwy volunteered in an aid station in Bastogne, where wounded and dying U.S. soldiers by the thousands were being treated by a single doctor from December 1944 through January 1945. The diminutive Congo-born nurse braved the gunfire, helping whomever she could.

• Ron "Chico" Maki, a member of the Chicago Blackhawks 1961 Stanley Cup champions, has died. He was 76.

The right wing spent 15 seasons with the Blackhawks (1961-76), playing in three All-Star games.

Maki had 143 goals and 292 assists in 841 regular-season NHL games. He had 17 goals and 53 points in 113 playoff games.

Maki's late brother Wayne played two seasons with the Blackhawks and also played for St. Louis and Vancouver.

• Lou Tsioropoulos, a member of Kentucky's 1951 NCAA national championship team and the unbeaten '53-54 squad who went on to win two NBA titles with the Boston Celtics, has died. He was 84.

The 6-foot-5, 190-pound Tsioropoulos teamed with Naismith Memorial Hall of Famers Frank Ramsey and Cliff Hagan to beat Kansas State 68-58 in 1951 to win the third of Kentucky's four NCAA titles under coach Adolph Rupp. Three years later Tsioropoulos helped Kentucky finish 25-0 and complete the school's only undefeated season.

• A newspaper photo of a woman who was beaten unconscious by law enforcement during a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, revealed to a wider audience the struggles and violence black people faced while fighting for the right to vote.

Fifty years after the beating, the activist in the photograph, Amelia Boynton Robinson, held hands with the first black president of the United States as she was pushed across the bridge in a wheelchair, trailed by many others including some who were also attacked on March 7, 1965.

Boynton Robinson, widely considered one of the mothers of the civil rights movement, died in a Montgomery, Alabama, hospital at age 104, her son Bruce Boynton said.

In January, Boynton Robinson attended the State of the Union address as a special guest of Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, who calls Boynton Robinson a mentor and a friend. Boynton Robinson was the first black woman to run for Congress in the state and the first Alabama woman to run as a Democrat, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Sewell is the first black woman to be elected to Congress in Alabama.

• Longtime Washington, Illinois, Mayor Don Gronewald, probably better known as a town-square pharmacy owner, has died. He was 83.

Gronewald, mayor of the central Illinois town from 1989 to 2001.

Lt. Gen. Frank E. Petersen, Jr., the first black aviator and brigadier general in Marine Corps. Frank E. Petersen III said his father died Tuesday at his home in Stevensville, on Maryland's Kent Island, of complications from lung cancer. He was 83. Associated Press/Marine Corp
Former Philadelphia's 76ers' Darryl Dawkins, center, receives a tribute before a match against Bilbao Basket, during an NBA Global basketball game in Bilbao, northern Spain. Associated Press/Oct. 6, 2013
Belgian nurse Augusta Chiwy gestures after receiving an award for valor from the U.S. Army, in Brussels. Associated Press/Dec. 12, 2011
Amelia Boynton Robinson appears at an American Civil Rights Education Services tour at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. Associated Press/Aug. 26, 2003
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