It seems like a wise use of this space to let some of Wake Forest basketball coach Skip Prosser's many friends to extensively remember the man who died today of an apparent heart attack.

Some snippets about the Pittsburgh native that you might not see elsewhere:

- Joe Boylan, Loyola athletic director and the man who gave Prosser his first Division I head coaching gig:

"He was a unique person. He was a renaissance man coaching college basketball. He was just unique. We’re not going to see his likes again. He just had a special gift. He could be tough, but it was all about his voice. He didn’t swear ..."

"We were horrible the year before and won two games and he came in and took a disparate group of people and performed a miracle. He was just special. I have been around a lot of people, and he was just a special guy.”

"He coached in high school in Wheeling, W. Va. ... When you coach high school, you do everything, drive the bus. He never lost that touch. It was always 'This is amazing, what's happening to me.' He loved what he was doing. Being here, I remember when we were in the process of hiring and you have all these committees, and they wanted someone else. I went to the school president and said 'This is the guy we should get. There is something about him that will be really special.' They saw it too. It was like we're not going to get a better coach no matter what his record is..."

"He touched so many lives and he really cared and at the end of the day, he was one of the better basketball coaches. But he was just unique and he was real. There was nothing phony. You never knew what he was going to say. Sometimes you kind of looked at yourself, and when [Wake] was going through a tough stretch this year I said 'You're not very good.' and he said 'Yeah, but you know we're not that bad. I understand we’re not playing well.' He always tended to see things as 'if this happened and that happened, who knows what can happen.' He believed in his players."

"He was funny. He was placed on some rules committees and I called him and said 'Hey, Skip, they finally woke up.' He said 'I don’t know why I'm on this committee.' I told him 'Those are the committees you should be on because you have a perspective.' The way things are with the money, you have coaches who tend to think 'How’s it going to affect me?' I think he could always step back and look out what’s best for the game."

"He would always challenge you and challenge his players on a lot of different levels. He believed it was important. That was the thing when he got Chris Paul. Talking to Chris years later, he said something to the effect of 'You meet Coach Prosser and you know what, it's going to be great. I can tell that to all my friends. They might not all come here, but it will be great.' "

Dave Cottle, Maryland lacrosse coach who met Prosser when both worked at Loyola:

“He was very well-read, or he'd like you to think that. I never saw him open a book but he carried a lot with him. He was just so good at whatever he did. He got a lot out of people, got a lot out of his staff and got a lot out of kids."

"At the time Skip took over, [Loyola was] going to be the Bad News Bears. [Instead], they won the conference tournament and things went well at the end of the year."

"He liked a lot of different people. Coach Bob Huggins, when he was at Cincinnati, coaches came before Skip and after Skip, but I'm not sure Huggins appreciated them as much as he appreciated Skip. People liked him whether you played against him or played for him."

"He used to come talk to our team. He was just an incredible guy. He was a good storyteller, a horrible golfer and he didn't even attempt to be. He was just fun to be around. When he had that good team at Wake [in 2004], I can remember him calling up and saying 'How much did coach [Gary] Williams do in practice when they won the national championship.' He was always trying to find out a better way to do things. I’m going to tell you, he was a good man."

Gary Williams, Maryland basketball coach:

"He was one of the good guys. It was amazing. I'm sitting up in the gym up in New Jersey about 3:15 and one of the assistants gets a text message from a friend of his that Skip Prosser had a heart attack and about 10 minutes later someone got a text message that he’s died in the hospital. It's amazing."

"I think he always took everything as whatever came along, he could handle it. He won the league regular season championship three years ago and last year they struggled a little bit. He was the same. He was never any different in terms of how he was. That's important in coaching. He always seemed to be able to come down after a tough loss or a great win."

"That became a tough place to play during Skip's time. Before that, Duncan was there for four years and they drew well. He got the crowd energized, and whatever he did, he did make Wake Forest a tougher place to play."

"When we won in 2002, he dropped me a nice note saying that our type of team was the type of team we he would like to coach. He was very happy for us. We were friends. When everything was said and done with the games, we could have a beer together."

“We had both coached high school, and when you coach in high school you are really coaching because you love the game, because you're working with kids -- because there’s no money involved. We both started at the high school level. When you do that, you never think you'll coach in college. You hope, you don’t go out assuming someone is going to come along and give you a college job. You have to work hard just to get on someone's staff.

"I'm just like everybody else, just shaking my head."