SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Larry “Gator” Rivers, who helped integrate high school basketball in Georgia before playing for the Harlem Globetrotters and becoming a county commissioner in his native Savannah, has died.
Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis says 73-year-old Rivers died Saturday from cancer.
Rivers was a sophomore on the all-Black Beach High School team that won the first Georgia High School Association basketball tournament to include Black and white players in 1967.
He blossomed into an all-state player and went on to play and coach for 16 years with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Rivers came home to Savannah and became a community volunteer before being elected to the Chatham County Commission in 2020.
