Captain of '59 Basketball National Champs Dies

(While this blog is limited to football, this deserved a mention)
Sunday, March 6, 2005 Al Buch, the captain of Cal's 1959 NCAA championship basketball team, has died after a long battle with throat cancer. He was 67.
Buch, a native of Brooklyn, led the Cal team that defeated Cincinnati with Oscar Robertson and West Virginia with Jerry West on successive nights to win the school's only national title in the sport.
"He truly was a leader," said the team's coach Pete Newell by telephone from his Southern California home on Saturday. "He had the qualities of leadership that a team needs. He had a great ability to get people to react to what he suggested, which was usually the right thing to do.
"And he had a great way of phrasing things. After we came back from six points down to beat USC on the road, a writer asked Al if he had been worried. He said, 'I never thought we were going to lose, I was just wondering how we were going to win.' "
Former Cal quarterback Joe Kapp, a classmate of Buch's who also lettered in basketball as a sophomore and junior, did not play the sport as a senior but had a ringside seat for the championship season. "I was able to watch the masterpiece that Pete Newell was creating and the foundation was Al Buch,'' Kapp said.
Buch had a successful career as a tire dealer in Southern California, and several years ago moved to London, home to his second wife, Jill.
He maintained his ties to the university and served as a trustee for the Berkeley Foundation. "I always liked the fact that the guy who had to come the farthest never missed a meeting," said Berkeley's George Hill, who was the manager of the '59 team.
Buch was inducted into the Cal Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. "And typical of him, his induction speech was all about the team, not about him," said Rupe Ricksen, a three-year Cal lettermen who was an assistant coach when Buch played.
A funeral will be held in London this week and a memorial is being planned for Haas Pavilion.
Buch is survived by wife Jill, three daughters and a son.