Don Banks, who grew up playing youth baseball in St. Petersburg and worked at the Times for nearly 15 years at the beginning of a distinguished career as an NFL writer, passed away after attending Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremonies in Canton, Ohio over the weekend. He was 56.
Banks had recently been hired to cover the NFL for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and his first byline had appeared in the paper on Sunday morning.
The Review-Journal reported that Banks was found unresponsive in his hotel room in Canton on Sunday morning and was pronounced dead after paramedics were called.