Legendary HS B-Ball Coach Wootten Passes Away

Longtime Hall of Fame high school basketball coach Morgan Wootten passed away at the age of 88 on Tuesday night.

Wootten coached famed DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland (suburban Washington, D.C.) for 46 seasons (1956-2002), accumulating over 1,200 career wins and five national titles.

Coach Wootten was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2000.  Among the players he coached were Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley, Danny Ferry, and former Lansing Sexton head coach (and Lansing-area resident) Carlton Valentine.

Wootten had been in ill health, and was recently put in hospice care.  He received a liver transplant in 1996, and a kidney transplant in 2006.