Stan Love, Oregon basketball legend and brother of Beach Boys star, dies at 76

by | Apr 30, 2025 | News | 0 comments

Stan Love, a former NBA player, Oregon Ducks star, and brother of the Beach Boys’ leader, has died. He was 76. Love’s son, 18-year NBA player and Lake Oswego alum Kevin Love, announced his father’s death on Instagram on Sunday with a lengthy, poignant tribute. The reason of death was not immediately known.

“You have undoubtedly been my greatest teacher,” Kevin wrote. “A role frequently filled by a father figure. You taught me wonderful characteristics such as respect and kindness. Humor and wit. Ambition and work ethic. Grit and an aggressive will. The understanding that failure provides. And time is our most valuable commodity.

Love was born in 1949 in Los Angeles to father Milton, a union sheet metal worker, and mother Emily “Glee” Wilson, one of six children. Mike, Love’s brother, inherited their mother’s passion for the arts and sang throughout his childhood before becoming a founding member of the Beach Boys. “Although he’d battled significant health issues for so long, I never thought I’d lose him,” Mike posted on Instagram. “I genuinely imagined we’d be here together; reality was not what I expected or hoped for. My huge little brother, you labeled me the superstar, but you are the superstar in my eyes!” If music boomed through the family’s homes in Baldwin Hills and Inglewood, so did the pounding footsteps of aspiring athletes. Love would go on to set several scoring records at Oregon, a lanky forward who finished as the only player in Ducks history to score more than 20 points per game in two different seasons. He left as Oregon’s all-time leading scorer, before the three-point shot was implemented and future players passed him on the list.

The Baltimore Bullets drafted Love with the ninth choice in the 1971 NBA Draft, and he played four seasons with the Bullets, Los Angeles Lakers, and San Antonio Spurs. After one season of professional basketball in France, Love retired and returned to the Los Angeles region. He toured the world with the Beach Boys and occasionally served as the band’s bodyguard, caring for cousin Brian Wilson while he battled drug addiction. Love joined the Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994, eight years after settling with wife Karen in Lake Oswego, where son Kevin would become a five-star recruit in basketball and one of the best prep athletes in Oregon history.The decision for Kevin to attend UCLA was met with ire by some Ducks fans, especially when UCLA traveled to Eugene during Kevin’s lone collegiate season.Intensely personal placards, chanting, and death threats hurled against Kevin, his father, and their extended family, as well as mocking Wilson’s difficulties with addiction, strained Love’s relationship with his alma mater tremendously. However, in January, Kevin would celebrate his father’s history at Oregon by wearing his varsity jacket when he walked into Moda Center for the Miami Heat’s game against the Trail Blazers.

Kevin stated in an Instagram post announcing his father’s death that he “fought for a long time,” with debilitating health issues worsening over the last six months, particularly in recent weeks. Love died surrounded by his family, which prompted Kevin, an outspoken mental health advocate, to reflect on their connection. “Over the years my Dad and I had our differences,” Kevin put into words. “I miss the times when I felt furious and alone; my heart is heavy knowing that we lost that time and cannot get it back. But our separation led me to discover myself. I was running away from something, but that time away taught me the value of forgiveness and reconciliation. And the steadfast conviction that he loved me through it all, in every moment.”

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Oregon men’s golf earned the sixth seed in the Auburn Regional. Oregon Ducks baseball makes’statement’ with sweep of rival Beavers. Oregon’s Josh Conerly Jr. claims he received a hoax call during the NFL draft.

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