Pittsburgh Pit Bulls head coach Tom "Trooper" Washington, who died after collapsing during his basketball team's inaugural game in McKeesport on Friday, was a warm-hearted power forward whose enthusiasm for the game was even greater than his considerable skills.

Mr. Washington, 60, of Wilmington, Del., fell to the floor during his American Basketball Association Pit Bulls' game against the Maryland NightHawks. Officials at Penn State McKeesport's Wunderly Gymnasium suspended the game with 7:59 remaining and the Pit Bulls ahead 120-102. He died at UPMC McKeesport and an autopsy showed the cause was heart disease.

"To me, not only was he a good friend but he was a good player. We just kept our friendship throughout the years," said team general manager Freddie Lewis, an original member of the Indiana Pacers, a four-time ABA All-Star and member of the All-time ABA Team. "We are going to miss him dearly and the guys had become very attached in the very short time we had been together."

Lewis recruited Mr. Washington to coach Pittsburgh's new ABA franchise on Oct. 27, less than a month before the team's first game. Lewis said no one, apparently including Mr. Washington, knew about his heart disease.

"He was so excited when he was offered the [head coaching] position," said his fiancee and companion of 17 years, Andrea Huff, of Wilmington. "It was something he had looked for all his life."

She last spoke with Mr. Washington Friday morning before the game.

"He was my heart," she said.

As a youngster, Mr. Washington would clear snow off basketball courts with a shovel so he could work on perfecting his skills, even in winter, Huff said. To know him was to like him, she said, and he had a smile that lit up a room.

Mr. Washington, a 6-foot-7 Philadelphia native who graduated from Cheyney State, was drafted in the fifth round of the 1967 NBA draft by the Cincinnati Royals, now the Sacramento Kings.

Instead, he joined the Pittsburgh Pipers during the American Basketball Association's inaugural season in 1967-68 when the legendary team won the league championship.

"Aside from his basketball, which was great, Tom was just a wonderful person, very mild-mannered, easy to talk with, easy to coach and a good friend," his former Pittsburgh Pipers coach Vince Cazzetta said yesterday from his Connecticut home. "He had a great spirit about him and was a very joyful, happy person."

After his ABA career, Mr. Washington went on to work in recreation departments in Philadelphia and Wilmington. In Wilmington, he also worked as an assistant coach at Brandywine High School during the 1997-98 season.

Cazzetta recalled that Mr. Washington loved to shoot three-point shots in practice and at that time, the ABA's three-point line was farther out than today's NBA three-point line is.

"I told him, 'Don't you dare take that shot, that's not your shot' and he wouldn't," Cazzetta said.

During the Pipers last game before the playoffs, however, with their playoff birth already clinched and the team way ahead in the game, Mr. Washington wanted to give it a try.

"He came running by the bench and said, 'Coach, can I shoot a three?' " Cazzetta said. "He went ahead and did it and he made it and he was so overjoyed."

During his playing years with the ABA, Mr. Washington was among the all-time career league leaders in field goal percentage (.532) and rebounds (4,271). In addition to the Pittsburgh Pipers, he also played for the Minnesota Pipers, the Floridians and the NBA's New York Nets.

Charlie Williams, one of Mr. Washington's Pipers teammates on the 1967 championship team, considered him the most compassionate basketball player he had ever met.

"After every significant victory he literally cried," Williams said via phone from Cleveland. "I remember our championship game. He was in tears by the time we got back to the locker room."

Another championship Pipers teammate, Steve Vacendak, remembered him as a very kind and gentle person, although he was fiercely competitive on the court.

"He was the type of man you enjoyed being around and wanted to be around and always had a very large smile on his face," Vacendak said yesterday from his Rock Hills, S.C., home. "He's just a good friend and I'll miss him."

Cazzetta last spoke with Mr. Washington only a month ago.

" 'Coach, guess what? I got a coaching job. I'm going to coach in Pittsburgh. They're going to have a pro team and reorganized the ABA and I'm going to be coaching there and [team president, general manager and assistant coach] Freddie Lewis is there,' " Mr. Washington told his former coach. "He was so happy that he was going to be coaching."

Had Cazzetta ever returned to coaching, he said he would have asked Mr. Washington to be one of his assistant coaches.

"A professional basketball season is a long, grinding season and Tom added a spark of love, friendship and camaraderie beyond his great basketball," Cazzetta said. "All the players loved him. He had a light in his eyes and just brightened up our world. It was unbelievable the spirit he brought to the team."

In addition to his fiancee, Mr. Washington is survived by a daughter, also of Wilmington, and two brothers and four sisters, all of Philadelphia.

His funeral will be held in Philadelphia, but arrangements were incomplete yesterday.

First Published: November 22, 2004, 5:00 a.m.