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Longhorn legend Lance Blanks has passed away

Saint Tacky

By Saint Tacky
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DFW Horn

DFW Horn 6123

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1 hour ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

a class act , from Conroe McCollough and transferred from UVA .  Heavily recruited as # 1 Texas recruit. 

RIP, Lance

He was the 2nd best HS basketball player I've seen in person behind LaBradford Smith.

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MotownHorn

MotownHorn 1759

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What a terrible loss. RIP Lance.

I hate to be that guy but I'm going to be that guy. The "check on your friends you never know what they're going through" makes it sound like suicide/drugs. Is that right?

Feel free to ignore me or delete me. Not trying to create drama. It's just a shocking loss.

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Bevo

Bevo 13557

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2 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

wow. i've known Lance my entire life. this is jarring. i'm speechless right now. how could i know that the last time i saw him would be the last time i saw him. i'm speechless. i guess it time that i go through all of those old photos from way back when. shit this is tough. i'm totally stunned. RIP Lance. 🤘🏼 

 

Was Lance the one who transferred from VIrginia? If so, I knew he was going to be a big time player - I was at Anna Hiss shooting around and a random guy asked me if I wanted to play two on two against two college basketball guys who were shooting around on the other end of the court. I'm like 5'10" and worked out so I had a bad shot but I was quick and could dunk, played great D and would get every loose ball and trash bucket out there and was willing to pass to a better shooter. Anyway, the guy who asked me was a little taller than me and was a high school teammate of Lance Blanks and was telling how good Blanks was. We played the pickup game and beat the fuck out of the other two guys. I thought to myself, if this guy who basically single-handedly beat the shit out of two college basketball guys is telling me how good of a player Lance Blanks is, I'm a believer. And it turned out to be true.

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JFKFC

JFKFC 4878

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Talk about All Gas, No Brakes....that was those Penders teams at Texas. That Elite 8 run was so much fun. I took it all for granted. Lance was larger than life to me back then. My heart breaks for his family.

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Braff Zacklin

Braff Zacklin 13551

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Not the news I expected to come home to. First a rush of excitement following the portal/transfer news ... but then this.

BMW wasn't my introduction to UT hoops, but it was the high point for more than a decade. What a gut punch.

 

Sympathies to those who knew and loved him.

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GreenspointTexas

GreenspointTexas 9598

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37 minutes ago, MotownHorn said:

What a terrible loss. RIP Lance.

I hate to be that guy but I'm going to be that guy. The "check on your friends you never know what they're going through" makes it sound like suicide/drugs. Is that right?

Feel free to ignore me or delete me. Not trying to create drama. It's just a shocking loss.

Was thinking the same thing. Dont wanna jump to conclusions though. 
 

fuck, Lance was a fantastic guy by all accounts and I actually liked him on the basketball broadcasts. Extremely sad

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Valmy77

Valmy77 13225

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Damn. Shocking. He seemed like he was fine and in good health and a young guy.

I was such a huge fan of the Runnin' Horns back in the day. I was a teenager back and then and I totally lived and died with those teams. Thanks for all the memories Lance. 

Just...wow...my condolences to all his friends and family and all his co-workers over at LHN.

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shadow_operative

shadow_operative 15932

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10 hours ago, Red Five said:

Side note. I don't know what we were doing then but all of our sports teams in the late 80s/early 90s had the most incredible looking burnt orange. 

my dad once explained to me that one of the things that makes burnt orange so unique is that it's a very difficult color to actually produce. that the true, authentic burnt orange, which has some official name like G357FHPO-169, is actually very difficult to produce, even for people whose job it is to "produce colors" if you will. we had real deal burnt orange back in the late 80's/early 90's, and we've gone so far away from it since then it's crazy, and disappointing. i don't know if we're getting the player price to roll with the fake burnt orange or what, but yeah- they really don't make that color like they used to. 

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shadow_operative

shadow_operative 15932

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you know people die and you generally hear their surviving loved ones all saying similar things, regardless of who the deceased was. but believe me when i tell you: i never had a single interaction with Lance where i didn't end up smiling and laughing. it was literally impossible to make his acquaintance and not end up with huge smile on your face. he truly did have a special energy that you only ever see in 1/100 if not 1/1,000 people you meet.

this is one of those deaths where, the entire day today, i keep seeing stuff about him all over twitter, and it's still not real. like, some part of me understands that it's real, but the overwhelming majority of me isn't processing it. every time i see his face i am in complete denial. like this has to be a bad dream. ugghhhhh. 

Lance loved life. that's what makes this so hard. he was doing what he loved, with the people he loved, and being paid well to do it, and he had decades on decades ahead of him, just living his dream. there are people who are suffering who have no quality of life; there are people who are out here robbing and killing with no conscience; there are people who only take and leech and suck; and then there are people out here like Lance, people who exclusively make other people's lives brighter, happier, and better. and it's just extra hard when someone like him is gone with so much wonderful life ahead of him. i still can't believe it's real. i just can't believe it's real. 

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conVINCEd

conVINCEd 21469

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Lance was great.  I worked for one of the West Campus property management companies in college, and Lance owned a couple of condos that my boss managed for him.  He would stop in from time to time when he was in town, just to check in and see if anything needed to be addressed.  He was always happy to tell a few war stories to some guys who watched him play a few years earlier.  RIP Lance.

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SuckitKevin

SuckitKevin 920

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One of my buddies and I were going to a Spurs game many years ago in the preseason because it was cheap. We were barely out of high school . As we were walking towards the ticket office a man approached us and asked if we wanted two tickets. At first I thought he was scalping but then realized he was just giving them to us. We thanked him and as he walked away I recognized it was Lance Blanks. I had been a huge fan of BMW back in the day. As we walked in we showed our tickets to an usher and they started personally escorting us to our seats. We had no idea when we were given the tickets that we would be three rows from the floor. I know it was only preseason but to us it was incredible at the time. What a great man. What a terrible loss for Longhorn Nation.

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OU Sucks

OU Sucks 8796

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21 hours ago, MotownHorn said:

What a terrible loss. RIP Lance.

I hate to be that guy but I'm going to be that guy. The "check on your friends you never know what they're going through" makes it sound like suicide/drugs. Is that right?

Feel free to ignore me or delete me. Not trying to create drama. It's just a shocking loss.

 And not sure who this is, but:

But I blame Galindo.  RIP Lance.

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MotownHorn

MotownHorn 1759

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2 hours ago, OU Sucks said:

 And not sure who this is, but:

But I blame Galindo.  RIP Lance.

It's just really sad. I have no idea what happened but nothing is worth ending your life unless perhaps a terminal illness.

I feel really bad for Lance if he couldn't get past those demons. Life comes in waves and goes up and down. I feel terrible for anyone who feels that desperate during the downs. I also don't judge. It's simply very sad and tragic.

No matter what happened it is a very terrible shame to lose such an amazing human at such a relatively young age. RIP Lance

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pyrohornIII

pyrohornIII 4814

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I never got the chance to meet him, but all the exposure I have had to him starting with that BMW team has been positive.  The man was able to use his talents to work himself into a position in life where he was making a positive difference in so many peoples' lives.  Some people got a smile, a handshake, a wave or pat on the back, and others got more, like all the kids he counseled and encouraged.  

Now in the day of NIL and portals things are so different for these athletes.  It's so much easier to make it about themselves.  But still there are a lot of good athletes that are even better people, because of the positive influence men like Lance Blanks gave them. 

I'm saddened by his passing, but I am also proud to support UT athletics, which seems to attract and nuture athletes and students of such good character.  

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CTC2

CTC2 2791

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I was a student when he played.  That team was super fun and the 89 Arkansas game when Richardson walked out was probably the best basketball game I have seen live.  Blanks gave the team some swagger.  I remember I thought he must have been a super cocky guy but when I met him he was the total opposite.  His dad was really involved in his career and I often thought they had cooked up the whole "bad guy" image for him which was attractive to the Pistons at the time.  

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horn4life

horn4life 3759

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Incredibly sad news to hear.  I sort of view Lance Blanks as the "Godfather" of Texas basketball.  He was exactly the sort of human being you felt proud to be associated with as an alumni of The University of Texas.

Prayers to his family and those close that truly feel the loss.

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