DETROIT– Dr. Benjamin Paolucci, longtime Team Physician for the Detroit Pistons, passed away earlier today in Florida at the age of 84.
Paolucci, who was born on March 5, 1937, served the Pistons’ medical needs for over 40 years, having begun his run as Team Physician in the early 1970s. Paolucci oversaw the club’s medical team during the franchise’s two championship eras – from the Bad Boys back-to-back titles of 1989 and 1990 to the Goin’ To Work championship in 2004 and beyond. He retired from the organization in 2015.
The Cleveland, Ohio native relocated to Detroit with his family and was a standout football player as a lineman at Detroit Cass Tech High School and later Wayne State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry in 1958 and was inducted into the schools’ athletic hall of fame in 1992.