DEATHS ELSEWHERE
NEW YORK — Veteran TV journalist Garrick Utley, whose far-ranging career included anchoring duties as well as reporting from more than 70 countries, has died of cancer at 74, NBC said Friday.
Utley began at NBC News in 1963, and for three decades handled a wide variety of assignments. Early on, he reported from Vietnam on the escalating conflict. In later years, he moderated “Meet the Press.”
In between, Utley anchored “Weekend Today” and the Sunday “Nightly News,” as well as two different newsmagazines in two different decades with four different titles.
“I may have been the only person at NBC News who did every type of programming as host or anchor,” he told The Associated Press in 1993, adding that his versatility may have led to the network taking him for granted. “There's a risk in being the utility infielder.”
That was shortly after he had left NBC to be the chief foreign correspondent for ABC News. He reported for CNN from 1997 to 2002.
In recent years, he was a senior fellow and professor of broadcasting and journalism at the State University of New York, Oswego.
In 2000, he published a memoir, “You Should Have Been Here Yesterday: A Life Story in Television News.”
“Garrick was the first of our generation to crack the starting lineup of NBC News in the glory days of `Huntley-Brinkley,”' said former “Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw, who called him a journalistic “man for all seasons” who was “always the complete gentleman.”
SEATTLE — Former Seattle University basketball and baseball star Ed O'Brien has passed away at age 83.The school announced O'Brien's death on Friday afternoon. He passed away earlier in the day. The school did not reveal a cause of death, but O'Brien had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's.O'Brien played basketball at Seattle from 1950-53, along with his twin brother Johnny, and helped the school reach the NCAA tournament in 1953. He also played baseball at the school and eventually had a five-year professional baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. O'Brien played for the Pirates from 1953-58, appearing in 231 career games and hitting .236.Once his baseball career ended, O'Brien returned to Seattle and served as athletic director at the school from 1958-80. He was also Seattle's baseball coach for 14 seasons.
