PASSINGS: Bill Mulligan, Al Bernardin

Bill Mulligan

He coached UCI basketball for 11 seasons

Bill Mulligan, 79, longtime college basketball coach in Orange County including 11 seasons at UC Irvine, died Tuesday in San Clemente of complications from pneumonia, the school announced.

Mulligan was 163-156 at Irvine from 1980 to 1991. His first team in the 1980-81 season led the nation in scoring. One of his former players, Scott Brooks, is the coach of the NBA Oklahoma City Thunder.

Mulligan was born Feb. 24, 1930, in Illinois. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Chicago Teachers College in 1952 and a master’s from DePaul University in 1956.

He became Long Beach Polytechnic High School basketball coach in 1959 and won two Southern Section titles, then was an assistant basketball coach for two seasons at USC. In 1966 he became coach at Riverside City College, where his teams went 196-87, then moved to Saddleback College in Mission Viejo in 1975. His Saddleback teams were 136-31 and won four conference titles.

Mulligan resigned from Irvine at the end of the 1990-91 season. He coached at Irvine Valley College from 1992 to 1995.

Al Bernardin

Created McDonald’s ‘Quarter Pounder’

Al Bernardin, 81, who developed a more meaty burger by inventing the Quarter Pounder during his long career with McDonald’s, died Dec. 22 at a hospital in Monterey after suffering strokes and heart problems, his wife Joan said.

The Quarter Pounder was born in 1971 during Bernardin’s years owning McDonald’s franchises in Fremont, Calif. A McDonald’s spokeswoman said Bernardin developed the Quarter Pounder with Fred Turner, honorary chairman of McDonald’s Corp.

“There was a void between the Big Mac and the regular hamburger,” Bernardin told the Miami Herald in 1993.

Bernardin was born Feb. 17, 1928, in Lawrence, Mass. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Cornell in 1952.

He started with McDonald’s in late 1960 and after six months became the second dean of Hamburger University, the company’s management training center. He later served as executive vice president in charge of operations, product development, training and sales development, a McDonald’s spokeswoman said.

-- Times staff and wire reports