Sports Notables March Madness Challenge - March 2024

Question

March Madness is one of the most anticipated and watched events in all of American sports. The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament began in 1939 with just eight teams competing. Over the years, it has grown into the spectacular event we know today as March Madness, involving 68 teams competing in seven rounds to vie for the national college championship. 

The excitement doesn't begin until March 12th, but in anticipation, we are honoring 25 of college basketball's greatest legends. Won't you help us make each of their profiles a shining star of WikiTree! Some are already close, others need quite a bit of work. 

We need the help of BioBuilders, Sourcerers, DataDoctors, Categorizers, Formatters, Proofreaders, PhotoFinders, and more. For those who prefer research over profile building, we also want to increase each of our Notables' CC7s, and of course we want to make sure that each gets connected to the Big Tree. 

Remember, no contribution is too small, so jump in wherever you think you'll have the most fun. Just remember to keep us posted on your accomplishments on this G2G thread so that we can all share in the fun of your successes. 

Comments

With only a week left to go in March, we have made just five connections to our roster of March Madness legends. That leaves 17 profiles still left to connect. Some of these players still have zero attachments! Perhaps everyone is too busy watching the games? The good news is that we have attached 89 new family members to those who remain unconnected. That's not too shabby.

Here are the players who still have zero family connections:

Paul Arazin, Villanova 

Tom Gola, LaSalle

Art Heyman, Duke

Hot Rod Hundley, Seattle

Bob Lanier, St. Bonaventure

Jimmy Walker, Providence

Let's see how many more we can connect before the month is up!

Answer 1

Clyde Lovellett is now connected thru his wife.

Comments

That was fast! Great job Judith!

Answer 2

Bob Kurland is connected through his mother.

Answer 3

Ed Macauley is now connected to his wife and father.

Answer 4

Hank Luisetti is now connected. His parents were both Italian immigrants and he had no siblings, so I didn't get very far on that line. However, his wife did have a line that reaches back to Colonial Virginia. I connected her through her Milner ancestors.

Answer 5

I found Branch McCracken connected. I wanted to connect George Mikan. I found an orange locked profile for his father-in-law. Then I looked at the surname list. Considering the unlisted profile in the list is a person born in the 1920s with the same PM as Howard, I suspect it is the wife of George Mikan. I will ask the PM to connect George to his wife if that is true.

Comments

I wrote a message to the pm of the unlisted profile, asking to connect George and to make the profile of his wife visible, since she died a few years ago. The pm wasn't on the site since Dec 2022 though.

Answer 6

Arnie Ferrin is connected.

Answer 7

I have added several family members to the profiles of Stanley Stutz, Pete Maravich, and Hank Gathers. I need to move on, but I welcome others to jump in where I left off.

Stutz has Polish parents, but we may be able to find a connection through his wife or one of his three aunts.

Maravich's father was Croation, but his mother seems to have deeper American roots, primarily in Pennsylvania. 

Hank Gathers' maternal line has been traced back to his enslaved ancestors in Virginia. We won't be able to go any further back but they had lots of descendants, many of whom married, which provides numerous potential branches for connection.

Answer 8

I have added the still-living parents of Len Bias, as well as his four deceased grandparents. I'm having trouble, however, finding details on the grandparents or extended family if anyone wants to jump in.

(To bypass Len's living parents and access his grandparents from his profile, you can either click on the green ANCESTORS link or his CC7 number at the top of the page.)