the Proforma network. Lanier was a spokesperson and chairman of the NBA's "Stay In School" program (later renamed Read to Achieve) from 1989 to 1994. From 2005 to 2022, Lanier was the NBA Cares Global Ambassador. Lanier routinely worked with youth-serving programs that supported education, youth, and family development, and health-related causes. In popular culture Lanier appeared as a member of the Detroit team in the cult classic basketball film The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh in 1979 alongside Pistons teammates Chris Ford, Eric Money, John Shumate, Kevin Porter, and Leon Douglas. In the movie Airplane! (1980), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar references Lanier when he says, "Tell your old man to drag [Bill] Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes." Personal life and death Lanier was married and divorced twice and had five children: Walter “Jack” Lanier, Kimberly Lanier, Tiffany Lanier, Robert Lanier III, and Khalia Lanier. At the time of his death, he had 7 grandchildren. The knee injuries that plagued Lanier's later career worsened as he aged. He underwent several surgeries after his retirement, the last being in 2017. At the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, visitors are able to compare the size of their foot to that of Lanier. The largest shoe ever created by shoe company Allen Edmonds was a size 22 for Lanier. In September 2018, Lanier shared one of his most notable NBA memories: "...when I was still playing in Milwaukee and I was getting gas at a station on, I think it was Center St. A guy came up to me and said, 'My dad is sick. And you're his favorite player. Could you come up to the house and say hello to him? The house is right next door.' So I went over, I went upstairs. The guy was laying there in his bed. His son said, 'This is Bob,' and he was like, 'I know.' And he just had a little smile, a twinkle in his eye. And he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. And we said a little prayer. About two weeks later, his dad had died. And he left a card at the Bucks office, just saying 'Thank you for making one of my dad's final days into a good day.'" Lanier died on May 10, 2022, after a brief illness. He was 73. Honors Inducted into the St. Bonaventure Athletics Hall of