Where Are They Buried? (22 page)

While addressing a meeting of businessmen, Branch suffered a heart attack at 83 and died a few days later.

He was buried at Rushtown Cemetery in Rushtown, Ohio.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Portsmouth, Ohio, follow Route 104 north for about six miles to the little village of Rushtown. A short distance beyond the railroad tracks, turn left onto McDermott Pond Creek Road. The cemetery is a short distance on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery at the entrance immediately after the little block building on the left, that entrance leading to the cemetery’s middle road. In the first section on the left, at the top of the hill, is Branch’s off-white stone.

JUNE 23, 1940 – NOVEMBER 12, 1994

With the cards stacked against her from birth, Wilma Rudolph was an unlikely Olympic hero. Besides being born with polio and wearing a steel leg brace until she was eleven, she was also stricken with double pneumonia and scarlet fever.

At fourteen, though, after years of intensive therapy began to affect her legs positively, she began participating in track meets and, incredibly, only two years later, at just sixteen, Wilma Rudolph was named to the 1956 Olympic team. That year, she failed to qualify for the 200-meter event but did run on the bronze-winning relay team. Four years later, at the 1960 Games in Rome, Wilma shocked the world by becoming the first American woman to win three gold medals at a single Olympics.

After her Olympics career ended, Wilma graduated from Tennessee State University and held a succession of positions as teacher, coach, and community service leader. In 1977 her autobiography was published, and it later became a television movie. Her story has served as an inspiration to handicapped youths ever since.

At 54, Wilma died of brain cancer and was buried at Foston Memorial Gardens in Clarksville, Tennessee.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-24, take Exit 11, follow Route 76 west for three miles, then turn north onto Route 41A. Follow 41A (Madison Street) for two miles, then make a left onto Golf Club Lane. After the golf course, turn left onto Thompkins Lane, and the cemetery is located after a short distance on the left at the Paradise Hill Road intersection.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery between the brick pillars and Wilma’s grave is in the center loop of the drive.

MAY 27, 1912 – MAY 23, 2002

Sam Snead was the son of a Virginian backwoods farmer and, though he caddied at the local resort to help his family, his dream was to become a football star. After a back injury put an end to his football dream, Sam chose to pursue golf, and by his early twenties he was a club pro. After working his way through local and regional tournaments, he pursued the tour full-time beginning in 1937 and at his second event, claimed his first professional victory.

In that rookie year, Sam went on to win four more events and, over the next 23 years, won at least one tournament every year on tour except one. His biggest season was in 1950, when he won eleven times. No one has won that many since. At age 52, he was the oldest player to win on the PGA Tour and he remained a threat well into his sixties. In 1979, at 67, Snead became the youngest player to shoot his age—and if that wasn’t enough, he shot a 66 two days later. Though some players steeled themselves to win particularly prestigious events, Sam was never that fussy. “I don’t give a damn what tournament it is,” he said. “If you play it, you want to win it.”

Despite 84 career victories on the American tour and another 80 worldwide, the U.S. Open always eluded him, though he was runner-up four times. But the Masters was a different story. It was his playground, and at Augusta Sam won three green jackets over a six-year stretch, finishing in the top five on six other occasions.

Beginning in 1983, Sam was the Masters Tournament honorary starter and he did it with style; wearing a straw hat and a cocky grin, he’d make a quick jaunt to the first tee and thunder a drive
with his flawless swing, then retreat to the sidelines and tell golfing stories flavored with an inimitable brand of homespun humor and folksy wisdom. “The sun doesn’t shine on the same dog’s tail all the time,” was a favorite Sam Snead maxim.

But in 2002, Sam had been ill before the Masters Tournament and, though lesser men might have politely bowed out of the engagement, Sam never considered passing on the tradition of hitting the first drive. Still, that Masters’ appearance was more ceremonial than any ever before; someone else teed up Sam’s ball and his shot flew into the gallery, striking a fan in the face and breaking his glasses.

Six weeks later, Sam died at home at 89, passing away in his bed while holding hands with his son and daughter-in-law.

Sam was buried at his estate in Hot Springs, Virginia.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
The Snead estate is on the west side of Route 220, about thirteen miles north of the big paper mill in Covington. This estate though, is very private property. The Snead family still lives there, you can’t see Sam’s grave from the road, and I don’t recommend showing up without an invitation.

MARCH 6, 1940 – APRIL 9, 2001

Willie Stargell, known affectionately to Pittsburgh Pirates fans as “Pops,” was a powerhouse hitter who crushed 475 soaring and majestic home run shots. Batting cleanup for most of his 21-season career, he rattled the confidence of pitchers by pinwheeling the bat in rhythm with their delivery and, once he connected, his sheer power was unmatched; Willie once held the record for the longest homer in nearly half of the National League parks and still remains the only person to have ever hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium. Later, as if to prove it was no fluke, he did it again.

Upon teammate Roberto Clemente’s death in 1972, Willie stepped up to lead the team, and in 1979, he became the oldest player ever, at 39, to win the Most Valuable Player award. In 1988, he was elected into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown in his first year of eligibility.

For the Pirates and their fans, opening day 2001 promised to be particularly memorable—the day would also mark the official opening of their brand-new PNC Park field, which had been built to replace the aged Three Rivers Stadium of Willie’s glory days. But for all the pomp surrounding Pittsburgh’s 2001 opening, the
sunny April celebration turned out bittersweet. That morning, just hours before the first pitch was thrown, home run-king Willie died after a long battle with kidney disease. Fittingly, in a style of which Willie is assuredly proud, the very first hit at the new stadium was a home run.

At 61, he was interred at Oleander Memorial Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
After a determined 2,600 mile run out of California, Interstate 40 unceremoniously ends in Wilmington when it merges into Route 132. After the merge, follow Route 132 for four more miles, then turn left onto Route 76 (Oleander Drive). After another three miles, make a right onto Bradley Drive, which in a short distance ends at the cemetery.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery and immediately after the white, fenced bridge, turn left and drive up the hill to the mausoleum. At the mausoleum, Willie’s crypt is on the right-hand wall, second row from the top.

MARCH 10, 1946 – APRIL 28, 1993

The people and fans of North Carolina were simply not prepared for what hit them, and their ears, when Jim Valvano took over as head coach of the North Carolina State Wolfpack basketball team in 1980. The fast-talking coach made himself into the state’s most audible character, appearing almost incessantly on a statewide radio hookup, accepting speaking engagements, and cheerfully promoting soft drinks and fast food.

But whatever misgivings his ubiquitous activities may have engendered were generally swept away by what happened at the end of the 1983 season. Finishing the regular season in a tie for third place in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the team did not lose again. They won a bid to the NCAA tournament and upset higher-ranked teams to reach the final.

Their opponent in the final was top-ranked Houston, which had won 26 straight and, for all its postseason flair, Jim’s Wolfpack wasn’t given a chance. But in that final game, Jim demonstrated his mastery as a coach, slowing the tempo of the game to frustrate Houston’s charging style. In the final minute, with the Wolfpack trailing by a slim margin, he ordered his team to commit fouls to capitalize on their opponents’ weak free-throw skills. The
Wolfpack erased the deficit and after a few wild seconds of bedlam basketball at game’s end, won 54-52, claiming the national championship in outlandish, Cinderella style. In the ensuing triumphant pandemonium, Jim Valvano lent himself to sports-reel immortality and defined the emotion of victory, leaping off the bench with a whoop and running madly down the court looking for someone to hug.

After being forced from his job six years later by a recruiting and admissions scandal, Jim started a career as a commentator, but in 1992, he was diagnosed with a cancer, adenocarcinoma, and given a year to live. Jim spent the remainder of his life establishing his own V Foundation as a money-raiser for the fight against cancer, which to date has awarded research grants totaling more than $4 million.

At 47 Jim was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From the I-440 beltway that circles Raleigh, take either Exit 11 or Exit 298 and follow the signs on Route 401 to the Capitol Visitor Center. With many one-way streets and goofy intersections in the area, it’s difficult to offer intelligible directions, but, once you locate the governor’s mansion on Person Street, which is just east of the Visitor Center, you’re almost to the cemetery. Oakwood Avenue is a block north of the Mansion and then, another four blocks east along Oakwood, is the cemetery entrance.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, turn right, and go under the archway at the office. Then bear left twice, onto Elm and then Walnut Drive, proceed past the maintenance shed, and bear left onto Locust Drive. After a hundred feet, Jim’s stone is near the curb on the left.

AUGUST 30, 1918 – JULY 5, 2002

When the Boston Red Sox brought Ted Williams up to the majors in 1939, he didn’t exactly look like a home run hitter. But young Ted, “the Kid,” smacked .327 with 31 homers during that rookie season and, most impressively, he drove in a mind-boggling 145 RBIs as well. In a nineteen-season career, he batted .344 and swatted 521 home runs, but his numbers could have been even higher if not for his Marine Corps service in World War II and the Korean War.

Throughout much of Ted’s career, New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio was his archrival and when the Kid hit his fabled .406 in 1941, his feat was overshadowed by DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. That summer rightly belonged to both players and, in the 70 years since, no one has come within 12 games of DiMaggio’s streak or 12 points of Ted’s average. But, although Ted’s career was longer (nineteen seasons to thirteen) and more productive (521 homers to 361), DiMaggio seemed to get more publicity, probably because he was a regular World Series champion. Like all Red Sox players from 1919–2003, Ted never won a World Series ring.

Nonetheless, his statistics are undeniable, and they make a fair case that Ted achieved the goal he set for himself when he came up to the big leagues. He merely wanted, he said, people to look at him one day and say, “There goes the greatest hitter ever to play the game.” But he had other qualities that made him a compelling figure and was an athlete who did not believe that the world owed him a living. Instead, he preferred a kind of isolation from the adulation of the crowd and the attentions of the media. His brother Danny had died of leukemia and, for over 50 years, Ted was willing to go anywhere and do anything that cancer funds asked him to do, as long as there were no cameras around to record him doing it. Ted was a perfectionist who measured himself by his own exacting standards. Like any artist, he let his work speak for him and had no tolerance for those less dedicated. Single-minded and stubborn, he was stoic and solitary in an age when ballplayers were becoming whiners and exhibitionists.

Considered by many to be the greatest hitter in baseball history, Ted fittingly ended his 19-year career in 1960 by smacking a homer in his final at bat. John Updike wrote about that moment: “He didn’t tip his cap. He hid in the dugout. Gods do not answer letters.” Nor, apparently, do they harbor any nostalgia; a few years after retiring Ted told a reporter, “I’m so grateful for baseball, and so grateful I’m the hell out of it.”

In 1995, Boston dedicated a $2.3 billion tunnel bearing his name but, at the ceremony, Ted made it clear he didn’t consider it a memorial. “Every place I go, they’re waving at me, sending out a cheer, sending letters and notes,” he said. “I’ve only seen that happen to somebody who’s going to die. I’m a long ways from that.”