Frank Cornish

DALLAS – Frank Cornish IV, an offensive lineman on two of the Dallas Cowboys’ Super Bowl champion teams in the 1990s, died over the weekend at age 40. Cornish was pronounced dead Saturday morning at a Grapevine hospital, where he was taken from his home in nearby Southlake. His death was caused by heart disease, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s office found. Cornish played in the NFL for six years and was a backup with the Cowboys in the 1992 and 1993 seasons, when they won Super Bowls. He started five games for Dallas those years. He was drafted in the sixth round by the San Diego Chargers in 1990 and also played for the Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles. “The Bruin family sends our deepest, heartfelt sympathy to the Cornish family,” Rick Neuheisel, a UCLA assistant for most of Cornish’s college career, said in a statement. “Frank was a great guy in the locker room and a huge personality and a fun guy to be around.” Cornish’s father, Frank Cornish III, was a defensive lineman in the NFL in the late ’60s and ’70s. The younger Cornish is survived by his wife, Robin, and their five children.

Thomas Weller

Thomas H. Weller
BOSTON (AP) — Dr. Thomas H. Weller, a Harvard professor whose research on the polio virus earned him and two others a Nobel prize in 1954, has died. He was 93. Weller died in his sleep Saturday at his home in Needham, his son said. He and two Children’s Hospital colleagues, John F. Enders and Frederick C. Robbins, shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of a way to grow the polio virus in safe tissue cultures, leading to the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines against polio. Their work also helped pave the way for the development of vaccines for other viral disease such as measles and chicken pox and proved to be a crucial aid to cancer research. Weller also was an expert in tropical diseases and at the time of his death was the Richard Pearson Strong professor of tropical medicine emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Kevin Duckworth

Kevin Duckworth
LINCOLN CITY, Ore. (AP) – Former Portland Trail Blazers center Kevin Duckworth died while on a trip to the Oregon Coast to host a free basketball clinic. He was 44. The Lincoln County sheriff’s office confirmed the death. He died Monday. The 7-foot Duckworth averaged 11.8 points and 5.8 rebounds over 11 seasons in the NBA, helping Portland reach the NBA finals in 1990 and 1992. The two-time All-Star also played for San Antonio, Washington, Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Clippers. “Kevin will be remembered by fans as one of the most popular and recognizable players to ever wear the Blazers uniform, but to people who knew him, he’ll be remembered as one of the warmest and biggest-hearted,” Trail Blazers president Larry Miller said. The Blazers said he was representing the team on a 19-city tour of Oregon. Duckworth grew up in the Chicago area and was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs out of Eastern Illinois University in 1986. The Spurs traded him that season to the Trail Blazers, where he had his greatest success, playing with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Buck Williams and Jerome Kersey on two Western Conference championship teams. Duckworth remained in the Portland area after he retired in 1997, doing woodwork, fishing and hunting. He ran a construction company in Northern California for a time, and a restaurant venture in Vancouver, Wash., with former NBA player Kermit Washington went out of business. The cause of death was to be determined by a medical examiner.