Fred Snowden Dies at 57; Ex-Coach, Entrepreneur : College basketball: At Arizona, he became the first black to head a Division I program.

Fred Snowden, the first black basketball coach at a NCAA Division I school, died Monday of a heart attack in Washington, D.C. He was 57.

Snowden, who was executive director of the Food 4 Less Foundation in Los Angeles, collapsed in a convenience store. He had traveled to Washington to attend the unveiling of President Clinton’s empowerment zones legislation, which includes South-Central Los Angeles.

“It’s still a shock for us,” said Darius Anderson, vice president of media relations for Food 4 Less. “Fred was in tremendous shape. He was 57 with the body of a 40-year-old.”

Snowden, who coached at Arizona from 1972 to 1982, started his coaching career after graduating from Wayne State University in Detroit, where he played basketball.

Snowden coached at his alma mater, Detroit Northwestern High, where his team won the Public School League championship in 1967.

“Fred was well liked and a very good coach. His teams were always well organized and they were very well coached,” said Elbert Richmond, who coached at Detroit Mackenzie High.

In the late 1960s, Snowden was an assistant at Michigan.

At Arizona, his teams compiled a 167-108 record during the Wildcats’ last seasons in the Western Athletic Conference and its first four seasons in the Pacific 10 Conference.

In 1982, Snowden left coaching and entered the private sector. After running his own consulting firm, he joined Baskin Robbins as vice president for urban affairs. He began working for Food 4 Less Supermarkets, Inc., in 1990 as vice president of urban affairs.

He was named executive director of the Food 4 Less Foundation in 1992.

Snowden is survived by his wife, Maya, two children, Charles Anthony and Stacey Shannon Snowden, and two grandsons, Marques and Nicholas.