Brad Pye Jr. was only 12 years old in 1943 when he paid a friend $5 to drive him from his home in Plain Dealing, La., to Los Angeles. For the next four years, he lived alone on Central Avenue until his mother joined him.
The uncertainty in front of the preteenager gained clarity while he attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he found a love for sports and journalism. He completed odd jobs as a shoe shiner, a gas station attendant and a factory worker, but his passion for telling stories burned bright.
And though he didn’t know it at the time, that passion over the span of decades would manifest itself in real change — not only for himself, but for others who looked like him.
Advertisement
Pye, the first Black sports broadcaster in Los Angeles who rose through the ranks as a leader and administrator at news agencies, sports organizations and city services, died in his sleep on Sundayat his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.
When Amber Pye-Blacknard first told her son the story of her grandfather “hitchhiking” to Los Angeles, she said he jokingly didn’t believe it. But she loves the tale because it illustrates the grit and will he showed to give himself and his family a better life.
Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts says ‘baseball did not do a good job’ of responding to George Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests about racial inequality.
“When I think about that, it really doesn’t give us any excuse to complain or not be determined to make something of ourselves,” said Pye-Blacknard, 37.
Advertisement
Pye served as the sports director for four African American radio stations — KGFJ, KJLH, KACE and KDAY — for 21 years. He was also sports editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel, a Black-owned and -operated newspaper in the city, for nearly three decades.
Pye wrote and spoke on sports news of the day with a Black perspective. He also created personal catchphrases during his radio broadcasts such as “switch reels” and “have a ball.”
Most notably, Pye aggressively used his platform to advance equality among Black athletes and journalists. He fought for Black reporters to obtain press credentials at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and integrate it. He also led a campaign for USC to recognize Black football player Brice Taylor, the school’s first All-American in the 1920s, to be included in the official media guide.
Advertisement
“Brad Pye is maybe one of 10 guys throughout the country who are the pillars of the Black press,” said Danny Bakewell Sr., publisher of the Sentinel. “In Los Angeles, I don’t think he had an equal. I’m proud to have known him as a friend and proud to have had him associated with the paper. He made us better.”
Pye used his connections and status to recruit Black athletes onto college and professional teams in the state. Bakewell, who knew Pye for 50 years, said Pye had strong working relationships with sports icons such as Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson and Jesse Owens. A black-and-white photo shows Pye shaking hands with Ali. A separate photo from 1988 shows Pye in a bow tie posing with Michael Jordan while holding a plaque.
In addition to announcing plans on how it plans to address the issues of social inequality, the WNBA also revealed COVID-19 testing results for players.
Bakewell described Pye as a “good man.” Some people may have thought Pye could be difficult at times, he said, but he always believed Pye was ethical, fair and had a keen sense for sniffing out and addressing problems.
“Nobody wanted Brad Pye’s pen to be on the other side of them,” Bakewell said. “His pen was lethal, and people knew his pen was just and right.”
The Los Angeles Angels hired him in the public relations department in 1961, making him the first Black person to hold that role in Major League Baseball. He later became the first Black administrator in the American Football League under then-AFL commissioner and eventual Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis.
Pye made contributions to the area outside sports, too. He became the first Black president of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks Board of Commissioners. He then served as the Assistant Chief Deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and later Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
Advertisement
As a grandfather, Pye was loving and thoughtful, Pye-Blacknard said. Pye took her to Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami and also to Lakers games, she said. She stayed with him during the summers in high school, and when she graduated, he bought her a new, lime green Hyundai Accent. Looking back, Pye-Blacknard doesn’t view these things as materialistic, but as genuine gestures that showed how much Pye loved and cared for her.
Pye ran for a City Council seat in 1991 but lost. In 1993, he became Division Chief of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, eventually retiring from the county in 2011.
The City of Los Angeles named the gym inside the Saint Andrews Recreation Center the Brad Pye Jr. Athletic Center in 2015. One year later, the Sentinel appointed Pye Sports Editor-Emeritus, allowing him to write on a range of topics.
Pye is survived by his daughters, Jill White, Jenice Pye-Conkrite, Jan Pye and Sharee Hollis, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife, Eunice Prye, and son, Brad Pye III. Funeral services are pending.
1/25
Kobe Bryant, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sean Connery and more. (Los Angeles Times)
2/25
Rafer Johnson, winner of the 1960 Olympic decathlon gold medal, was a man whose legacy was interwoven with Los Angeles history, beginning with his performances as a world-class athlete at UCLA and punctuated by the night in 1968 when he helped disarm Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin at the Ambassador Hotel. Johnson lit the Olympic flame at the opening of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. He was 86. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
3/25
With his quick wit and easy smile, Alex Trebek drove the game show “Jeopardy!” up the ratings charts and became a welcome television host in America’s living rooms. As the quiz show rolled through the decades, Trebek remained a comfortable fit — in a 2014 Reader’s Digest poll, Trebek ranked as the eighth-most trusted person in the United States, right behind Bill Gates and 51 spots above Oprah Winfrey. He was 80. (Los Angeles Times)
4/25
Guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s speed and innovations along the fretboard inspired a generation of imitators as the band bearing his name rose to MTV stardom and multiplatinum sales over 10 consecutive albums. The streak made Van Halen one of the most successful bands in rock history, including two albums that reached diamond status (10 million copies sold): 1978’s debut “Van Halen” and 1984’s “1984.” He was 65. (Wibbitz/Getty)
5/25
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg championed women’s rights — first as a trailblazing civil rights attorney who methodically chipped away at discriminatory practices, then as the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and finally as an unlikely pop culture icon. A feminist hero dubbed Notorious RBG, Ginsburg became the leading voice of the court’s liberal wing, best known for her stinging dissents on a bench that mostly skewed right since her 1993 appointment. She was 87. (Kiichiro Sato / Associated Press)
6/25
Chadwick Boseman’s breakout role was playing Dodger Jackie Robinson in the 2013 sports biopic “42.” The next year, he made an electrifying lead turn as James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, in “Get on Up.” Then came the role that would change his career: As Black Panther, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first Black superhero, Boseman became the face of Wakanda to millions of fans around the world and helped usher in a new and inclusive era of superhero blockbusters. He was 43. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
7/25
Sumner Redstone outmaneuvered rivals to assemble one of America’s leading entertainment companies, now called ViacomCBS, which boasts CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Showtime, the Simon & Schuster book publisher and Paramount Pictures movie studio. Unlike contemporaries Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner, Redstone was not a visionary, but rather a hard-charging lawyer and deal maker who pursued power and wealth through the accumulation of content companies. He was 97.
(Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times)
8/25
Regis Philbin reigned for decades as the comfortable and sometimes cantankerous morning host of “Live,” first with Kathie Lee Gifford and later Kelly Ripa, above. He earned Emmy nominations by the armful, hosted New Year’s Eve specials, rode in parades, set a record for the most face-time hours on television and helped reinvigorate prime-time game shows with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” He was 88. (Charles Sykes / Associated Press)
9/25
Rep. John Lewis famously shed his blood at the foot of a Selma, Ala., bridge in a 1965 demonstration for Black voting rights, and went on to become a 17-term Democratic member of Congress. An inspirational figure for decades, Lewis was one of the last survivors among members of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle. He was 80. (Mark Humphrey / Associated Press)
10/25
Country music firebrand and fiddler Charlie Daniels started out as a session musician, which included playing on Bob Dylan’s 1969 album “Nashville Skyline,” and beginning in the early 1970s toured endlessly with his own band, sometimes doing 250 shows a year. In 1979, Daniels had a crossover smash with “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” which topped the country chart, hit No. 3 on the pop chart and was voted single of the year by the Country Music Assn. He was 83. (Rick Diamond / Getty Images for IEBA)
11/25
Carl Reiner first came to national attention in the 1950s on Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” where he wrote alongside Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and other comedy legends. He later created “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” one of TV’s most fondly remembered sitcoms, and directed hit films including “The Comic” (1969), starring Van Dyke; “Where’s Poppa?” (1970), starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon; “Oh, God!” starring George Burns and John Denver; and four films starring Steve Martin. He was 98. (Associated Press )
12/25
The flamboyant, piano-pounding Little Richard roared into the rock ‘n’ roll spotlight in the 1950s with hits such as “Tutti-Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally” and “Good Golly, Miss Molly.” The Georgia native’s raucous sound fused gospel fervor and R&B sexuality, profoundly influencing the Beatles, James Brown (who succeeded him in one of his early bands), Jimi Hendrix (one of his backup musicians in the mid-’60s) and Bruce Springsteen. He was 87. (Boris Yaro / Los Angeles Times)
13/25
Don Shula was the NFL’s winningest coach, leading the 1972 Miami Dolphins to the league’s only undefeated season. He coached the Baltimore Colts to one Super Bowl and the Dolphins to five, winning Lombardi Trophies after the 1972 and ’73 seasons. He was 90. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
14/25
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak crushed dissent for decades until the 2011 Arab Spring movement drove him from power. During his presidency, which spanned nearly 30 years, he protected Egypt’s stability as intifadas roiled Israel and the Palestinian territories, the U.S. led two wars against Iraq, Iran fomented militant Shiite Islam across the region and global terrorism complicated the divide between East and West. He was 91. (Sameh Sherif / AFP/Getty Images)
15/25
Among his 40-odd films, burly Brian Dennehy played a sheriff who jailed Rambo in “First Blood,” a serial killer in “To Catch a Killer” and a corrupt sheriff in “Silverado.” On Broadway, he was awarded Tonys for his roles in “Death of a Salesman” (1999) and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (2003). He was 81. (Dia Dipasupil)
16/25
Singer-songwriter John Prine broke onto the folk scene in 1971 with a self-titled album that included two songs brought to broader audiences by Bette Midler and Bonnie Raitt: “Hello in There” and “Angel From Montgomery,” respectively. In 2019, he was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was 73. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Stagecoach)
17/25
Country singer Kenny Rogers racked up an impressive string of hits — initially as a member of The First Edition starting in the late 1960s and later as a solo artist and duet partner with Dolly Parton — and earned three Grammy Awards, 19 nominations and a slew of accolades from country-music awards shows. Country purists balked at his syrupy ballads, but his fans packed arenas that only the titans of rock could fill. He was 81. (Suzanne Mapes / Associated Press)
18/25
Xerox researcher Larry Tesler pioneered concepts that made computers more user-friendly, including moving text through cut, copy and paste. In 1980, he joined Apple, where he worked on the Lisa computer, the Newton personal digital assistant and the Macintosh. He was 74. (AP)
19/25
Ski industry pioneer Dave McCoy transformed a remote Sierra peak into the storied Mammoth Mountain Ski Area. Over six decades, it grew from a downhill depot for friends to a profitable operation of 3,000 workers and 4,000 acres of ski trails and lifts, a mecca for generations of skiers and boarders. He was 104. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
20/25
Screen icon Kirk Douglas brought a clenched-jawed intensity to an array of heroes and heels, receiving Oscar nominations for his performances as an opportunistic movie mogul in the 1952 drama “The Bad and the Beautiful” and as Vincent van Gogh in the 1956 drama “Lust for Life.” As executive producer of “Spartacus,” Douglas helped end the Hollywood blacklist by giving writer Dalton Trumbo screen credit under his own name. He was 103. (Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times)
21/25
“Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark became a perennial best-seller, writing or co-writing “A Stranger Is Watching,” “Daddy’s Little Girl” and more than 50 other favorites. Her sales topped 100 million copies, and many of her books, including “A Stranger is Watching” and “Lucky Day,” were adapted for movies and television. She was 92. (Associated Press)
22/25
Fred Silverman was the head of programming at CBS, where he championed a string of hits including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “All in the Family,” “MASH” and “The Jeffersons.” Later at ABC, he programmed “Laverne & Shirley,” “The Love Boat,” “Happy Days” and the 12-hour epic saga “Roots.” He was 82. (Associated Press)
23/25
Former California Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark Jr. represented the East Bay in Congress for 40 years. The influential Democrat helped craft the Affordable Care Act, the signature healthcare achievement of the Obama administration, and also created the 1986 law best known as COBRA, which allows workers to stay on their employer’s health insurance plan after they leave a job. He was 88. (Associated Press)
24/25
News anchor Jim Lehrer appeared 12 times as a presidential debate moderator and helped build “PBS NewsHour” into an authoritative voice of public broadcasting. The program, first called “The Robert MacNeil Report” and then “The MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” became the nation’s first one-hour TV news broadcast in 1983. Lehrer was 85. (David McNew / Getty Images)
25/25
Terry Jones was a founding member of the Monty Python troupe who wrote and performed for their early ’70s TV series and films including “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in 1975 and “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” in 1979. After the Pythons largely disbanded in the 1980s, Jones wrote books on medieval and ancient history, presented documentaries, wrote poetry and directed films. He was 77. (Associated Press)
Emmanuel Morgan is a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Prior to joining The Times in October 2019, his work appeared in the Charlotte Observer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Morgan is a graduate of Elon University and a native of Charlotte, N.C.
