|
|
|
Al Buch, who captained Cal's basketball team to the 1959 national championship team and went on to a dynamic business career, died Saturday in England after a long battle with cancer. Buch was 67.
"He meant so much to all of us," said Pete Newell, who coached Buch at Cal. "He had respect for so many reasons. He's a special guy."
Buch (pronounced Buck) was a first-team all-Pacific Coast Conference selection as a senior in 1959, and scored
18 points in Cal's NCAA semifinal victory over Oscar Robertson and Cincinnati.
After graduating from Cal, Buch founded EMPCO Industries, a tire and wheel business based in Glendale.
In 1984, Buch was named one of five members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches Silver Anniversary All-America Team, an annual honor based on basketball and lifetime achievement.
UC Riverside athletic director Stan Morrison, a sophomore on the'59 Cal
team, recently visited Buch at his home in Booton, England, about 21/2 hours from London.
"In friendships, sometimes one person gives more to the friendship than the other. He gave me so much," said Morrison, a former head basketball coach at San Jose State.
Darrall Imhoff, the only member of the'59 Cal team who played in the NBA, said Buch wasn't a fancy ballhandler and often used the old-fashioned two-handed set shot.
"But he made things happen,
and he ran Pete's offense very well, and it took discipline to do that," Imhoff said. "He was a quiet guy, but when he spoke, we listened. He kept everybody focused."
Newell recalled a game in which the Bears trailed by six in the final minute, then rallied to win. Afterward, he said, Buch was asked by a reporter what he was thinking near the finish.
"He said, 'I was thinking about how we were going to win it,'" Newell recalled. "That was Al in a nutshell
— very positive."
Buch grew up in Brooklyn, enrolling at Cal after his family moved to Southern California, without ever having met Newell. The 6-foot-2 guard averaged 9.5 points as a junior, 9.2 as a senior.
The Bears were 25-4 in'59, winning their final 16 games, including a 71-70 verdict over West Virginia and star guard Jerry West for the NCAA title.
Buch is survived his wife, Jill, a native of Britain, three daughters, Olivia
and Alexandra Buch of London, and Sheryl Wiblen of Los Angeles, and a son, Jeff Buch of Austin, Texas.
|
|
|
|
|
RETURN TO TOP
