Final Season and Death
Despite his leukemia being in an advanced stage, Ford played the 2003-04 season with Scavolini Pesaro. Averaging 22.2 points per game, Ford, in his final season, helped Scavolini finish in fourth place in the Italian League, which meant the team qualified to the next season's Euroleague, and to the Italian Cup's runner-up position, despite being near death. That accomplishment still speaks for itself today.
Shortly after announcing his retirement from Euroleague Basketball, Ford died from leukemia, at age 32. He is survived by his wife Paula, their daughter Quekenshia, and their sons Karlderek and Alphonso, Jr. In Ford's honor, the Euroleague named its trophy for the leading scorer of the year, the Alphonso Ford Top Scorer Trophy. The player who replaced Ford on Scavolini Pesaro, following his death, Charles Smith, would win the award the very next season.
Read more about this topic: Alphonso Ford
Famous quotes containing the words final, season and/or death:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched seabeams glitter in the dark near the Tennhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.”
—David Webb Peoples, U.S. screenwriter, and Ridley Scott. Roy Batty, Blade Runner, final words before dying—as an android he had a built-in life span that expired (1982)
“If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“I can only see death and more death, till we are black and swollen with death.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)