The recent string of deadly plane crashes in the United States has, like most things, turned into a hot-button political issue. Putting all that aside, it’s terrible that so many people have lost their lives, including members of a Boston figure skating club who were on board the plane that collided with a helicopter in Washington, D.C., last week. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the sports world has dealt with air-related tragedy, and for some reason, the basketball world, in particular, has been hit especially hard over the years.
Advertisement
Everyone can still recall the devastating news of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and seven others tragically losing their lives in a helicopter crash in 2020. In 2001, two Oklahoma State basketball players and eight others were killed when their team plane went down in a snowstorm. Fourteen University of Evansville basketball players and their coach died back in 1977 when their plane crashed. One other incident that deserves to be remembered is when Phoenix Suns center Nick Vanos was among more than 150 victims of a Northwest Airlines crash near Detroit in 1987.
Vanos was a promising left-handed 7-foot-2 center the Suns had drafted out of Santa Clara in 1985. When he was drafted, he was the Broncos’ all-time leader in blocked shots. He missed most of his rookie season after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, but when injuries to some of Phoenix’s other frontcourt players occurred in his second year, he showed enough that many thought he would earn the starting job the following season. The Suns even traded away his main competition for the role in the offseason, paving the way for him to slide into the position.
Northwest Airlines flight 255 was and still remains one of the deadliest plane crashes in American history
Vanos was returning to Phoenix from a four-day vacation in Michigan with his fiancee, Carolyn Cohen, after recently concluding play in the Southern California Summer League. The Suns honored him by dedicating the following season to his memory and wearing a black circular patch on their jerseys with his No. 30 in white.
Multiple scholarships were established in Vanos’ name, including one at his alma mater that is still active today. His No. 32 jersey is still the only one that Santa Clara has ever retired, and in a 2007 story about that honor in The Mercury News, it’s mentioned that multiple college teammates named their sons Nick in remembrance of their fallen brother.
Vanos never got the chance to start a family with his fiancee or lock down that starting center job with the Suns, but he left behind a legacy nonetheless. His story is an important reminder to us all to look beyond the sheer numbers of these senseless tragedies and remember that they aren’t mere statistics. These are real people who deserve to be honored and remembered.
