Gone but Not Forgotten: 10 Players We Have Lost in Sports

When tragedy strikes the world of sports, it always leaves an everlasting imprint in our lives.

No matter if we cheered the player, booed, or hated them, we always respected the player as a competitor.

This slide show is so we never forget the guys we rooted for, the ones that could have been so great, but were stolen from us much too early in life.

Never take for granted what you have, no matter how small or big it is, just be happy that we got to open our eyes today.

Here is a list of players that left our world tragically way before it was there time to go.

Cory Lidle

The former New York Yankee, New York Met, and Philadelphia Phillie died in a tragic place crash in New York City.

Malik Sealy

Sealy was killed in a car accident in 2000 while driving back from teammate Kevin Garnett's birthday celebration.

Darryl Kile

Losing Kile was a huge blow to the St. Louis Cardinals organization. Kile passed away in 2002 from a heart attack, the day his team was playing their rival the Chicago Cubs.

Dan Snyder

In 2003, Snyder was killed in a car accident, a car that was driven by his teammate Dany Healtey. He was only 25.

Darrent Williams

Williams was killed in 2007 in a drive-by shooting.

Derrick Thomas

Thomas died on February 8, 2000, in Miami, of a pulmonary embolism, a massive blood clot that developed in his paralyzed lower extremities and traveled through his venous system to his lungs.

He was left paralyzed when he was thrown from a car that he was driving.

Pat Tillman

Tillman was killed by friendly-fire while serving in with the US Army Rangers in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Nick Adenhart

Adenhart was killed in a car accident in 2009 at the age of 22.

Alexei Cherepanov

Cherepanov died in Chekhov, Russia on October 13, 2008 after collapsing on the bench during a Kontinental Hockey League game with his club Avangard Omsk against Vityaz Chekhov.

Drazen Petrovic

Probably the best player from Europe (Croatia), Petrovic was killed i

n an automobile accident on the Autobahn in Germany. Petrovic could have been one of the greatest players the NBA has ever seen, but since he was stolen away from us so early, we will never know.

Michael Jordan had this to say after the death of Drazen, "It was a thrill to play against Drazen. Every time we competed, he competed with an aggressive attitude. He wasn't nervous; he came at me as hard as I came at him. So, we've had some great battles in the past and unfortunately, they were short battles."