Earl Stream

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Earl "Yogi" current (* 15. December 1927 in Pottstown , Pennsylvania ; † 10. July 1994 ibid at the age of 66 years and 207 days) was a basketball - referee of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and was in the 1995 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame , making him one of 16 judges inducted into this hall of fame. Strom spent 32 years as a referee in the US professional league (29 years in the NBA and three years in the ABA ). In his career he acted as a referee in more than 2,400 season games and 295 play-off games.

Career

Earl Strom was born on December 15, 1927 in the small town of Pottstown in the US state of Pennsylvania, where he subsequently grew up. After he attended the local Pottstown High School , where he played basketball, baseball and football , he joined the United States Coast Guard in 1945 after graduating there . He belonged to this in the end of the Second World War and for some time afterwards. After completing his military service, he began studying at Peirce Junior College in Philadelphia , which he graduated in 1951. After college, he briefly played for semi-professional basketball teams before embarking on a career as a basketball referee, subsequently leading games for high school teams for nine years and games for college teams in the East Coast Athletic Conference for three years . He began his actual career as a referee in professional games in 1957 and then worked for 32 years as a referee in the US professional league (29 years in the NBA and three years in the ABA ). During this time, the NBA All-Star Game in 1967 at the Cow Palace in Dale City just outside of San Francisco , where the legendary trainer Red Auerbach was expelled from Strom and his colleague Willie Smith , took place during this time . To date, this was the first and only time a coach was expelled from an NBA All-Star Game .

After Earl Strom was the NBA Crew Chief , i.e. the leading official of the league, for two seasons from 1967 to 1968 , he joined the American Basketball Association, which ran parallel to the National Basketball Association, in 1969 and headed it up into the years 1972 games before moving back to the NBA. His last appearance as a referee was in the fourth game of the 1990 NBA Finals between the Detroit Pistons and the Portland Trail Blazers on June 12, 1990, which he ran with Hugh Evans and Mike Mathis . In his career he acted as a referee in more than 2,400 season games and 295 play-off games. This also includes 29 NBA and ABA finals. After Strom ended his career as a basketball referee at the age of 62, he worked briefly as a color commentator for the NBA franchise Los Angeles Clippers and for the Northeast Conference , an NCAA Division 1 league in US university sports. Almost exactly four years to the day after his official retirement, Earl Strom died on July 10, 1994 in his hometown and hometown of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. His wife Yvonne Trollinger-Strom (1929–2011) survived him by 17 years and died on April 8, 2011 in Pottstown. He was also survived by two daughters and three sons.

A year after his death, he was posthumously inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame , becoming the third basketball referee to be inducted into that hall of fame at the time. There are now (as of 2016) 14 referees in the Hall of Fame. In addition, Earl Strom was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. While still alive, he was inducted into the Pottstown Sports Hall of Fame (May 16, 1984) and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame (October 31, 1987).

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Individual evidence

  1. 1967 All-Star Game ( Memento of the original from August 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed on August 28, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nba.com