John Marzano, 45, former TU baseball star

John Marzano, a former Temple baseball player who played 10 years in the Major Leagues, died on Saturday, April 19 after falling down a flight of stairs in his South Philadelphia home. He was 45.

As of late Saturday night, the exact cause of Marzano’s death was not immediately clear, the Associated Press reported.

Marzano, a catcher who played for the Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners, worked as a broadcaster for Comcast SportsNet, 610 WIP-AM and MLB.com after his playing days ended in 1998.

The Central High graduate played for the Owls from 1982 to 1984 and holds the highest career batting average (.413) in program history and ranks second all-time in slugging percentage and RBIs. He won a gold medal as a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic baseball team and was a part of former Owls coach Skip Wilson’s back-to-back Atlantic Ten Conference Championship squads in 1983 and 1984.

Wilson said he talked to his former player over the phone last Thursday, and Marzano offered to buy him and his wife tickets to a Phillies game.

“He was just a beautiful boy,” said Wilson, who coached the Owls from 1960 to 2005. “He and I were very close. I’ll miss him dearly.”
The 1998 Temple Athletics Hall of Fame inductee was “well liked by all of his teammates and very dedicated to playing the game of baseball,” Wilson said.

“He was a very, very cocky south Philadelphia ball player,” former Temple pitcher Bill Mendek, a teammate of Marzano’s, said. “But the difference between him and the other cocky Philadelphia players was that he could back it up. He carried himself differently but, before long, you realized he was the real deal.”

When Wilson retired two years ago, he said Marzano was interviewed to be his potential replacement, but he wasn’t interested in the position.

“He would’ve been a great coach,” he said. “He was excellent with kids. He knew the game. We used to talk about the four aspects of the game — know the game, know how to teach the game, know your personnel and know how to utilize you’re personnel. He had all those qualities. He was a great teacher. It was just a matter of time before he became a coach.”

A moment of silence was observed in Marzano’s honor prior to Sunday’s baseball game against visiting Duquesne at Ambler’s Skip Wilson Field.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of John Marzano,” Temple Director of Athletics Bill Bradshaw said in a statement. “He was a terrific friend of Temple baseball and a dedicated player, broadcaster, father and husband. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this very difficult time.”

Marzano is survived by his wife Terri, daughters Dominique and Danielle, and two grandchildren.

Tyson McCloud can be reached at tyson@temple.edu.

J. Henri Wiesel, 64, computer instructor

J. Henri Wiesel, 64, a computer programing instructor at Temple, died on Friday. The causes were not immediately known by the university, spokesman Ray Betzner said .

He received his MBA from Temple in 1974, according to a university press release, before returning as an instructor in computer and information science in September 2001. Before returning to Temple, he worked as a computer and financial analyst, instructor and consultant, including a stint as president of a company called New Vision Consulting Inc., the release said.

After his death on March 21, Wiesel is survived by his wife Lolita and sister Mary Helen Wiesel.

In July 2007 he launched a personal Web site, which remains unfinished. Located at jhenriwiesel.com, it largely covers technology education.

A funeral mass is being held on Saturday, March 29 at 10 a.m. at St. Paul Roman Catholic Church at 2007 New Hope St. in Norristown. He will be interred at St. Patrick’s Cemetery in East Norristown. Memorial contributions may be made in his name to St. Paul RC Church.

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Temple professor, who brought ties to China, dies at 95

Man-Chiang Niu, who was instrumental in forging Temple’s well-developed relationship with his native China, died last month in Beijing. He was 95.

Niu, a retired Temple biology professor, died of complications from bone marrow cancer. He was a 21-year member of Temple’s faculty.

His distinguished career focused on cell research almost as much as he worked to develop scientific exchanges between China and the United States.

“The entire extended Temple family is saddened by the passing of Professor Niu,” Temple President Ann Weaver Hart said in a university press release from late last month. “His impact on international higher education, particularly here at Temple, has been felt by generations of students, and will continue to grow as Temple’s close ties with China strengthen in the future.”

Hart met with Niu at Temple’s first alumni reunion in Beijing just 10 days before he died.

Niu personally started the foundation for a relationship between China and Temple in the 1970s. Beginning in 1972, he visited with Chinese academics each summer, hoping to bring some back to Temple. Through his persistence, his goal was met when two Chinese genetic researchers were allowed to work at Temple in 1978.

Then in 1979, the opportunities grew substantially during an American visit by then-Chinese President Den Xiaoping. Temple gave Deng an honorary law degree, said the current director of the Temple-Beijing Rule of Law program, Mo Zhang, who spoke to The Temple News in early October of this year.

Niu helped arrange Deng’s honorary degree. In return, Deng invited a delegation from Temple, including Niu and former university president Marvin Wachman, to visit China later that year.Today, Temple sponsors a 15-month course on American law, housed at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“It is the first and only program to offer a foreign law degree in China,” said Zhang, the director of the program. Niu’s dreams have largely become a reality.

Niu was born on Oct. 31, 1912, in the northern He Bei province of China, which surrounds the nation’s capital. After graduating from Beijing University, he married his wife, Lillian Paoying, in 1943, and together, they immigrated to the United States in 1944. He earned a doctorate from Stanford University and, after a stint at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, he took a position at Temple in 1960. He retired in 1981.

In retirement, he directed a laboratory at Beijing’s Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Developmental Biology, which he founded in 1980. He kept homes both in Beijing and Elkins Park, Montgomery County, where the Tyler School of Art is currently located.

Niu is survived by his wife and two daughters, McYing Niu and Manette T. Nieu.His Nov. 16 funeral in Beijing was attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao, among others, according to the university’s press release.

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu

Notable deaths of 2007: gone but not forgotten

Elizabeth Gladys Dean is 95 years old. Up until October 2007, she – and only one other person in the living world – shared the same experience.

At 2 months old, Dean was on the Titanic in 1912 and is now the last survivor of the sinking.

Barbara West Dainton, 96, passed away in October, leaving Dean with the distinct title.

In a sickly sweet way, one of my favorite parts of a major awards ceremony is the “In Memoriam” slideshow. I know I’m not alone in this. But the media typically focus on the big stars who passed away that year.

It’s time to remember some of the not-so-well-known people, like Dainton, who we typically take for granted – those overshadowed by the Anna Nicole Smiths and Merv Griffins in 2007.

Few people may know the name Bobby “Boris” Pickett, but many know his work. In 1962, Pickett co-wrote a song that “caught on in a flash.” The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts around Halloween of that year. Pickett penned the “Monster Mash.”

The “Mash” was performed by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers and reentered the U.S. charts in 1970 and 1973, becoming one of only three records to reenter the Billboard Top 100. The Beach Boys even performed a cover in 1964.

Pickett passed away from leukemia on April 25 at the age of 69. There’s no doubt he’ll remain a graveyard smash.

A few years after the “Monster Mash,” America fell in love with another song that will never go away. In 1964, Nancy Sinatra first performed “These Boots are Made for Walkin’,” written by country music singer and songwriter Lee Hazelwood.

Hazelwood, 78, died Aug. 4 from renal cancer. But his legacy lives on in the unceasing popularity of the song. One list counts more than 40 recorded versions that have been created since the original.

The song can even survive murder, as Jessica Simpson proved in her 2005 single.

Moving down on the farm, the restaurant world lost a living legend on June 21. Ohio native Bob Evans took the pork world by storm and created his famous restaurant chain in 1948.

What began as a 12-stool diner has evolved into more than 600 restaurants in 23 states, and, of course, breakfast is still served all day.Evans died in Cleveland after complications from a stroke. He was 89.

The year 1978 saw the birth of a popular Tony Award-winning musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, inspired by a real-life Texas ranch. The Chicken Ranch was an illegal brothel in operation from 1905 to 1973.

It was Houston television reporter Marvin Zindler who began investigating the brothel in 1972. His work not only led to the closing of the ranch, but also to the musical and subsequent movie.Known for his unique sign off – something truly worth YouTube-ing – and his Friday featurette “Slime in the Ice Machine,” which exposed restaurants that failed health-code inspections, Zindler signed an unprecedented lifetime contract with the ABC owned-and-operated station in Houston in September 1988.

Zindler passed away July 29 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 85. But he still lives on in his “Slime” segments. I promise, you will not regret looking it up on YouTube.

With $43, Dr. Robert Cade did something to change the way athletes sweat. By pumping carbohydrates and electrolytes into a tasty concoction, Cade invented Gatorade in 1965.

That was the beginning of a multibillion-dollar industry that continues today, selling dozens of flavors in more than 85 countries.

Cade, 80, died last Tuesday from kidney failure.

But enough talk about death. Let’s talk about an inspiring life.

Edna Parker is a cute old lady – or, more specifically, a supercentenarian – who holds the distinction of being the oldest living person in the world as of Aug. 13, 2007. On that date, Yone Minagawa of Japan passed away at 114 years, 221 days old.

Born in 1893 and celebrating a ripe 114 years and 228 days, Parker is a retired teacher. Her only husband, Earl Parker, died in 1938. Parker is the oldest of the 74 supercentenarians – people older than 110 years old – in the world.

As you may have noticed, I’ve mainly focused above on males who have passed away. However, there is good reason why, as exemplified by Parker.

Of the 74 supercentenarians, only nine are males.

Chris Stover can be reached at stover@temple.edu.