Ex-College Basketball Coach Ricky Byrdsong Killed In White Racist's Shooting Spree, Mourned

Jet, July 26, 1999

More than 1,000 mourners gathered at an Evanston, IL, church to pay their last respects to Ricky Byrdsong, the former Northwestern University coach who was gunned down as he was jogging with two of his children near his home by a White racist.

Mourners remembered Byrdsong as more than a coach; he was an upstanding spiritual man deeply devoted to his family and community and was always willing to help someone else.

Byrdsong was jogging with his daughter, Kelley, 10, and son, Ricky Jr., 8, in their predominately White neighborhood when a gunman in a car pulled up beside them and began shooting. The children were not injured.

The killer of Byrdsong, who went on a July 4 weekend killing spree, is identified as 21-year-old Benjamin Smith. He reportedly committed suicide when police caught up with him in downstate Illinois while he was driving a stolen Van.

Sherialyn Byrdsong, the 43-year-old ex-coach's widow, did not speak at the funeral, but wrote a message that appeared in the program.

"The violent act that took my husband's life is yet another clarion call to our nation. It's time to wake up, America," she wrote. "It's time to turn back to God, to read and obey His word, to put prayer and the Bible back into our schools and daily family living. This is not a gun problem, it's a heart problem, and only God and reading His word can change our hearts."

In addition to Kelley and Ricky Jr., the couple has a daughter, Sabrina, 12.

Byrdsong was a vice president for insurance broker Aon Corporation since his tenure ended at Northwestern where he was coach from 1993 until 1997. He also ran youth basketball camps and performed community services.

In his eulogy, Pastor Lyle Foster of The Worship Center, where Byrdsong was a deacon and a member of the board of directors, said Byrdsong's slaying would not go down as a victory for racial hatred: "We're not going to let a tragedy stop good! We're not going to let a tragedy stop love!"

In addition to Byrdsong, Smith also killed a Korean Indiana University student. In Illinois, he wounded six Orthodox Jews in Rogers Park, two Black men in Springfield, a Black minister in Decatur, and a Taiwanese man in Urbana.