PHILADELPHIA – Penn Athletics, and especially the Penn men's basketball program, was saddened to learn about the passing of Bob Bigelow C'75 on August 18. He was 66 years old.
 
"I am so sad to hear about Bob's passing," said Penn's current John R. Rockwell Head Coach of Men's Basketball, Steve Donahue. "He was the embodiment of a Penn basketball player, spectacular on and off the court. He was so giving to me when I arrived on campus 30 years ago, I am forever grateful for it. His passion for the game of basketball was surpassed only by his incredible kindness to so many young players and coaches. His willingness to give back leaves so many of us who benefited from him so sad today."
 
Bigelow was a first-team All-Big 5 and second-team All-Ivy selection as a senior in 1974-75, averaging 12.3 points and 7.6 rebounds per game that season and earning the program's Jack Saxenmeyer Award as its most improved player. Following his career, Bigelow became just the fourth first-round NBA Draft pick in program history when the Kansas City (now Sacramento) Kings selected him 13th overall. He played for the Kings, the San Diego (now Los Angeles) Clippers, and his hometown Boston Celtics across four seasons.
 
Bigelow played at Penn during arguably the program's most successful era, the 1970s. A three-year letter winner from 1973-75 under head coach Chuck Daly, Bigelow's varsity teams went a combined 65-18 overall and made three NCAA Tournament appearances, winning the Ivy League title all three years and two Big 5 championships. The Quakers went 38-4 in Ivy play during Bigelow's career—with two of those losses coming by one point and another by two—and were 11-1 against Big 5 opponents with the only loss a 67-65 decision to La Salle his senior year.
 
Bigelow was inducted into the Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame in 1989.
 
In his adult life, Bob was an advocate for youth sports reform and authored two books on the subject, Just Let The Kids Play (2001) and Youth Sports: Still Failing Our Kids and How to Really Fix It (2016). He remained involved with Penn Basketball as a member of the Penn Basketball Sports Board, a role in which he had served since 2015.
 
Bob is survived by his wife, Nancy, the longtime head swimming coach at Tufts University, and their sons David and Stephen.