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“I think I would change places with Jerry, when the chances were ‘Whose eternal salvation are you going to take, yours or his?’” Jack Egan, former Rambler men’s basketball player and friend of Jerry Harkness said. “I’ll take his.”
Harkness, captain of Loyola’s 1963 men’s basketball national championship team, passed away Aug. 24 at the age of 81. Although his legacy has been shaped by his contributions on the basketball court, he is remembered by close friends and family as a man with a humble heart and selfless disposition.
Born in Harlem, NY in 1940, Jerry began playing his sport as a kid — meeting long-time friend Elbert Shamsiddeen playing basketball together on a neighborhood team in the Bronx.