Next week, the Detroit Red Wings will begin the N.H.L. season in new Little Caesars Arena. Joe Louis Arena, their longtime home, will sit idle nearby, awaiting demolition.
There will no longer be a stadium or an arena housing a team in the four biggest North American professional sports leagues named after an athlete.
But the legacy of Joe Louis, the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, has been paid forward in another way, in another sport.
Louis’s son Joe Louis Barrow Jr. will retire at the end of the year as chief executive of the First Tee, a program formed to provide affordable access to golf for children, which has grown exponentially under him.