Jerome Whitehead was an American professional basketball player. He was selected by the San Diego Clippers in the 2nd round of the 1978 NBA Draft. A 6'10" center-forward from Marquette University, Whitehead played in 11 NBA seasons from 1978 to 1989. He played for the Clippers, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. In his NBA career, Whitehead played in 679 games and scored a total of 4,423 points. In his junior season at Marquette University, Whitehead helped lead his Warriors to the 1977 national championship. In the semi-final game of the Final Four that season, Whitehead made a game-winning basket at the buzzer in the 1977 national semifinal victory over UNC-Charlotte on a length-of-the-court pass from Butch Lee. Previous to that, UNC-Charlotte's Cedric Maxwell had tied the game with only 3 seconds remaining. The game appeared to be headed for overtime when Whitehead's bucket won the game for the Warriors. On December 20, 2012, Whitehead was found dead; an autopsy performed on December 21 found Whitehead died as a result of gastrointestinal hemorrhaging. [More at Wikipedia]

September 30th, 1956 in Waukegan  /  Died:   Dec 20th, 2012 - Gastrointestinal hemorrhage, aged 56