
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 11, 1994                   TAG: 9407110152
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From Associated Press reports
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

FORMER NBA OFFICIAL STROM DIES

Earl "Yogi" Strom, 66, the irascible, cantankerous and highly respected former NBA and ABA referee, died Sunday morning of cancer, surrounded by his family at his home in Pottstown, Pa.

Hired by the National Basketball Association in 1957, Strom retired as a professional basketball referee 32 years later - 32 years of running up and down the court, blowing his whistle, and infuriating players, coaches, general managers and fans alike.

Strom was so fearless in calling fouls against home teams that Harvey Pollack, the statistics guru for the 76ers, dubbed him "The Road Ref." In a statistical analysis one season, Pollack found that visiting teams won 42.9 percent of the games that Strom worked, compared with 30 percent of the games worked by the rest of the officials in the NBA.

In other basketball news:

The 2-year-old National Basketball League suspended operations Saturday night and the six-team Canadian league gave no reasons in a terse news release. The Halifax (Nova Scotia) News reported Sunday the franchises voted three to one, with two abstentions, to suspend operations after Saturday night's games.

Keywords:
NEWS OBIT

by CNB