76ers Dir of Statistical Information HARVEY POLLACK passed away yesterday at the age of 93. Pollack, the NBA's longest-tenured employee, was the last original employee of its inaugural season to still be working in the league (76ers). In Philadelphia, Mark Perner notes Pollack was given the nickname “Super Stat" for bringing "such terms as triple-double, blocked shots, assists and steals into the everyday basketball vernacular." Pollack was involved in a one-car accident on New Year’s Day, "suffering numerous injuries" that he "never recovered from." Pollack in '02 "became the first -- and still only -- statistician enshrined" in the Basketball HOF. The 76ers began publishing “Harvey Pollack’s NBA Statistical Yearbook” in '66, and it "has grown from 24 pages to almost 400 pages in its latest edition." It has become the "bible for all stat freaks" (PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 6/24). Also in Philadelphia, Frank Fitzpatrick notes Pollack "leaves behind an enormous statistical legacy, an output that revolutionized record-keeping and informed the more detailed analysis of the computer age." He "delighted in the arcana he could extract from an athletic contest" and often found statistics "where none had existed." NBA teams for decades sent Pollack "detailed play-by-play sheets from every game," and he "liked to say that he spent at least eight hours a day poring over them" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 6/24). The AP's Dan Gelston noted Pollack "sat courtside" on March 6, 1962, when then-Warriors C WILT CHAMBERLAIN "scored a record 100 points" against the Knicks. When the game was over, Pollack "stuffed the ball in Chamberlain's duffel bag and organized a famed photo." Pollack "wrote '100' on a piece of paper and gave it to Chamberlain to hold for the classic black-and-white snapshot" (AP, 6/23).
