PASSINGS: Chester McGlockton, Ray Elder, Ante Markovic

Chester McGlockton

Former NFL defensive tackle

Chester McGlockton, 42, a former NFL defensive tackle who was a first-round pick of the Los Angeles Raiders in 1992 and went on to become an assistant football coach at Stanford University, died overnight Tuesday, the university said Wednesday morning. The cause of death was not immediately announced.

Born Sept. 16, 1969, in Whiteville, N.C., McGlockton starred at Clemson University before being selected 16th overall by the Raiders in 1992.

Listed at 6 feet 3 and 334 pounds during his pro career, he played 12 seasons in the NFL with the Raiders in Los Angeles and Oakland, the Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos and New York Jets. He was named to the Pro Bowl four times.

McGlockton’s best season came in 1994, when he had a career-high 9 1/2 sacks with three forced fumbles and 48 tackles.

After his playing career, McGlockton returned to school and earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2010. He had lived in San Ramon, Calif., east of San Francisco, with his wife and two children while serving as a Stanford defensive assistant the last two seasons.

Ray Elder

Six-time NASCAR champion

Ray Elder, 69, a stock-car driver from the Central Valley who stunned NASCAR’s establishment when he beat Bobby Allison to win the Riverside 500 in 1971, died of kidney failure Nov. 24 at Saint Agnes Medical Center in Fresno.

Elder won six championships from 1969 to 1975 in what is now known as the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West. His father, Fred, owned the car he raced and his brother, Richard, was the crew chief. They were known as the Racing Farmers from Caruthers, south of Fresno.

Elder won two races in NASCAR’s top Grand National series at Riverside International Raceway. The first was in 1971, when he took his Dodge Charger to a 10-second victory over Allison. Behind them were other leading NASCAR drivers of the day who were factory-sponsored, including Benny Parsons, David Pearson and Richard Petty. The next year at Riverside, Elder won a 400-mile race against similar competition.

Second on the list of career victories in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West with 47, Elder was inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame in 2002.

Born in 1942, Elder grew up in Caruthers and started racing on dirt tracks in the San Joaquin Valley. His first NASCAR series win came at Ascot Park in Gardena in 1966. He quit racing full time in 1974, and picked up his last win at Craig Road Speedway in Las Vegas in 1978.

After retiring from racing, he returned to work on the family farm and ran a convenience store.

“Back then, we bought a Dodge from Jack McCoy, fixed it up in the garage at the farm, towed it about 200 miles to Riverside behind a two-seater truck, unloaded it and raced it,” Elder told The Times in 2002. “If we were trying to race today, we couldn’t afford to buy a car and Richard and the volunteer crew couldn’t keep up with the big bucks they spend today. I can’t believe all those 18-wheelers that carry the cars to the track while the drivers fly around in their jets.”

Ante Markovic

Yugoslavia’s last prime minister

Ante Markovic, 87, the last prime minister of the former Yugoslavia who tried to prevent the country’s bloody breakup in the 1990s, died Monday in Croatia’s capital of Zagreb, according to Croatia’s state HINA news agency. The cause was not given.

Markovic, a Croat born in Bosnia, became Yugoslavia’s prime minister in March 1989, two years before the former communist country started unraveling along ethnic lines.

During his tenure, Markovic launched an ambitious program of pro-Western economic reforms, including privatization of state-run companies and stabilization of Yugoslavia’s currency, the dinar. The result of his monetary reform was a halt to soaring inflation and a temporary rise in the country’s living standards.

Markovic was popular among Yugoslavia’s liberals because of his reforms that brought the country to the threshold of the European Community, today’s European Union. But he was hated by nationalists for his unifying stands and efforts to mediate between increasingly hostile leaderships of the six former Yugoslav republics.

Before he resigned in December 1991, Markovic tried to find a compromise between Slovenia and Croatia, the republics seeking to secede, and Serbia, which insisted that Yugoslavia remain a single entity. His efforts failed and the country plunged into a series of ethnic wars.

— Los Angeles Times staff and wire reports

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