PASSINGS: Richard W. Lyman, Johnny Tapia

Richard W. Lyman

Former president of Stanford University

Richard W. Lyman, 88, a former president and provost of Stanford University who clamped down on student protests during the Vietnam War era, died Sunday of congestive heart failure in Palo Alto, the university announced.

Lyman, a history professor, served as provost before becoming Stanford’s seventh president from 1970 to 1980. He opposed the Vietnam War but had little tolerance for antiwar protests on campus.

He urged riot police to come to campus in 1969 after students broke into the main administration building and vandalized it. He also prohibited students from occupying buildings overnight.

During his tenure, Lyman launched a $300-million fundraising campaign for Stanford, then the largest of its kind in higher education, and increased minority enrollment at the university. In 1972, responding to requests from Native American students and staff, Lyman recommended that Stanford abandon its Indian mascot and athletic team nickname. The school’s teams now use the Cardinal nickname.

Lyman was born in Philadelphia in 1923. He studied history at Swarthmore College and served in the Army Air Forces Weather Service during World War II. He received his doctorate in history at Harvard University and taught at Washington University in St. Louis before arriving at Stanford in 1958.

Lyman left Stanford in 1980 to become president of the Rockefeller Foundation but returned in 1988 and became director of what is now called the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He retired in 1991.

Johnny Tapia

Five-time boxing champion

Five-time boxing champion Johnny Tapia, 45, whose turbulent career was marked by cocaine addiction, alcohol, depression and run-ins with the law, was found dead Sunday at his Albuquerque home. Police said the death didn’t appear to be suspicious.

An Albuquerque native, Tapia won five championships in three weight classes, winning the World Boxing Assn. bantamweight title, the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization junior bantamweight titles and the IBF featherweight belt.

But his life was also marked by tragedy and trouble. He grew up without a father and was orphaned at 8 when his mother was stabbed 26 times with a screwdriver and left to die.

In 2007, he was hospitalized after an apparent cocaine overdose. Several days later, his brother-in-law and his nephew were killed in car accident on their way to Albuquerque to see the ailing boxer.

Tapia was banned from boxing for 3 1/2 years in the early ‘90s because of his cocaine addiction. But he knocked out Henry Martinez to win the WBO bantamweight title in 1994 and won four more championships over the next eight years.

He last fought in June 2011, outpointing Mauricio Pastrana in an eight-round decision. He finished with a 59-5-2 record and 30 knockouts.

An autopsy is planned.

—Times staff and wire reports

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