Saturday
Oct142017
William Lombardy, 1937-2017
Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 10:40PM
It wasn't a big surprise to learn that American grandmaster and 1957 World Junior Champion William James Lombardy passed away yesterday - Friday, October 13 - at the age of 79. Not a surprise, but sad nonetheless. He had come unto hard times in the last few years above and beyond the usual ravages of old age; thankfully, this was mitigated somewhat by the generosity of some members of the chess community.
Much more can and should be said about the man and his career (or even careers, but I don't know much about his time as a Roman Catholic priest), but for now I'll refer you to a pair of obits: Chess.com's and ChessBase's.
tagged William Lombardy
Reader Comments (5)
The New York Times, incidentally, had a nice write-up on Lombardy in the Monday edition.
The Times' obituary is here.
PICKY POINT-----the NYT today ran a correction on Lombardy stating that he actually graduated from Morris High School (in the Bronx). The obituary had stated he'd graduated from a different one.
After 60 years, it doesn't exactly make much difference, but it should probably be pointed out.
[DM: I don't understand this comment. Since they ran the correction, why are you making the "picky point"? They've already made it for you.]
Barden reckons:
"The truly exceptional Lombardy success was when he led the US team to victory in the student Olympiad at Leningrad 1960, scoring by example with a top board total of 11 wins, including the key game against Spassky, and two draws. It was the only time the US ever won a team contest against the Soviet Union and it caused consternation in Moscow. Spassky shouldered most of the blame and had his foreign travel restricted for four years."
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/oct/20/william-lombardy-exceptional-performance-often-overlooked
What if someone read the original write-up, but missed the correction, which ran 1-2 days later ?