COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Bob Marcum, who served as athletic director at Kansas, South Carolina, UMass and Marshall, has died a few days after suffering a stroke. He was 87.
All four athletic departments all announced Marcum’s death Wednesday, a day after he died. Arkansas coach John Calipari, who worked under Marcum at Massachusetts, posted on social media Sunday that Marcum was hospitalized after complications from a stroke.
Calipari posted about Marcum’s death Tuesday, saying the two spent time together in the hospital.
“We talked about our time together at UMass, he as AD and me his coach,” Calipari wrote. “We laughed cried and prayed.”
Marcum served as athletic director at Kansas, a tenure during which the Jayhawks won 15 conference titles across six different sports, from 1978-82 before moving on to South Carolina for six years. He led the UMass athletic department from 1993-2002 before going to Marshall to lead that program until he retired in 2009.
— Journal-World sports editor Henry Greenstein contributed to this report.