J-Speaks: The Passing Of Another Legendary College Basketball Coach

 

It was around this time in August 2020 that the college basketball world lost one of coaching titans of the sport in the legendary coach that rose the Georgetown University Hoyas basketball to prominence in the 1980s. At the start of this weekend, the college basketball world said goodbye to his closet equal who was just as legendary a character who motivated his players to excel on the basketball hardwood, especially at the defensive end as well as off of it.

Late Friday morning, Hall of Fame basketball coach John Chaney, the innovator of the zone defense that is prominent at all levels of basketball, especially in the NBA died at the age of 89.

Temple University is where Coach Chaney, particularly left his mark said he passed away from an unspecified illness.

In a tweet from their page @TempleOwls about the passing of Coach Chaney, who was also well known for having an unbuttoned top shirt, no suit jacket, and zone defense, “Our hearts are broken. Rest in Peace, Coach.”

Coach Chaney is survived by his wife Jeanne Dixon, who he married in 1953, and his three children, Darryl, John Chaney, Jr., and Pamela Clark.

Chaney spent 24 seasons at Temple University, starting in 1982-83—the lone season the Owls during his time they did not participate in March Madness or the NIT. His owls earned 17 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, which included trips to the Elite Eight on five occasions and were ranked No. 1 for a stretch in the 1987-88 season, when they compiled a 32-2 record, including a perfect 18-0 record against Atlantic 10 Conference squads. In total, Chaney led the Owls to six Atlantic 10 Conference championships.

Before taking Temple University basketball to the aforementioned heights it went, Coach Chaney, spent a decade at Cheyney University, a Division II school 30 miles outside of Philadelphia, PA. CU reached eight Division II tournaments under Chaney’s watch, winning the Division II national title in 1978.

“John Chaney was a great coach, but he was so much more. For generations of Temple University students, he was a wise counselor, a dedicated teacher, an icon of success, and a passionate leader who always led by example and with conviction,” Temple President Richard M. Englert, who has known Coach Chaney around the same time he started coaching Owls in 1982 said in a statement. “I am also honored to say he was a dear friend.”

“For generations of his players, there is only one man whom they all lovingly called Coach even to this day. That was John Chaney. Our most sincere condolences go out to his wonderful family members. We will keep them in our prayers.”

Coach Chaney earned 516 of his 741 coaching wins in his career at Temple University, being elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame five years later. Chaney, who compiled a 516-253 mark (.671 winning percentage) at Temple still is ranked in the top 40 in career wins at No. 22 in in Division I basketball history and was the first African American coach to reach 700 career wins.

“It’s sad. It’s tough. Another legend yet gone again,” future Hall of Famer and now NBA on ESPN analyst Vince Carter said on Friday edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN. “His energy and what he’s done for Temple University. He’s a legend and he will be missed.”

He is also a two-time winner of the Henry Iba Award, which is given to the Coach of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association.

That high number of victories by Coach Chaney’s squads came in large part because of his ability to put a strangle on the offense of the opposing team through his matchup zone defense, that for decades confused opponents and on annual basis had Temple University amongst the collegiate leaders in scoring defense.

“If a team has never faced a Temple zone, it’s really difficult to see and have a proper attack for it the first time, because you don’t know what defense is on,” former Owl guard Quincy Wadley said to The New York Times in 2001. “You think it’s one defense the entire time, but it’s not. It’s several different defenses that we play.”

As great as he was making his players into better basketball players, Coach Chaney was just as instrumental in making them better people once they leave his program, especially coming from the environments they grew up in a majority of the time.

Coach Chaney was similar to the late Hall of Fame head coach of the Georgetown Hoyas John Thompson, who passed away on Aug. 30, 2020 at age 78. He cared just as much, if not more about his players being excellent students and citizens as he did about their play and focus on the collegiate hardwood.

Chaney was a major advocate for late adolescents that came from not the best of neighborhoods in the “City of Brotherly Love” to better lives through not just basketball but education, saying in a 1994 profile on him done by Sports Illustrated described that getting an education is what will feed you, keep you warm, and provide shelter.

Coach Chaney added, “What entity has the right to play God? “You tellin’ me the NCAA can decide who lives and who dies among Black folks? Education is food, it’s heat, it’s shelter! Who has the right to deprive anyone of that? I come from the earth! I know what I’m talking about! What choice are we givin’ the kids who fail that SAT test? One choice! Back to the streets… to slow-legged death.”  

“Many of my players came from environments where people said they couldn’t do it,” Chaney said to the “The Athletic” in 2019. “I came from an era where it could end before being fulfilled. You have to move into a better place, in our minds and for our future. So many of them were able to change who they were. They ended up being what Temple’s statement has always been. Young acres of diamonds, right from the neighborhood, being told they could have the same kind of opportunity as everyone else.”

Chaney was born on Jan. 21, 1932 in Jacksonville, FL and grew up in Philadelphia, PA, where he would become the Basketball Player of the Year in the Philadelphia area, and went on to play collegiately for a Historically Black College/University of Bethune-Cookman in Daytona Beach, FL, where he became an All-American.

He would go on to play professionally in the Eastern Professional Basketball League, first with the Sunbury Mercuries from 1955-63 and then the Williamsport Billies from 1963-66.

Coach Chaney, just like the late great John Thompson had a major impact in issues of social justice before within the college basketball world and the world at large long before they were topics of serious discussion like they are today.

He knew what racism looked like and would go to bat for his players when he felt they were getting the short end of the stick by the NCAA when it came to academic standards and culturally biased examinations.

One of the best examples of this was a former player of Chaney’s at Temple Rasheed Brokenborough, who was declared academically ineligible to play basketball for the Owls because he just missed the qualifying mark on his SAT score. He was not even allowed a scholarship, and Coach Chaney, according to ESPN’s College Basketball Analyst Jay Bilas worked with Brokenborough so he could go to Temple as a so-called “regular student.”

Brokenborough, according to Bilas was able find money attend Temple and played for Chaney from 1996-99, averaging 13.1 points in those three seasons for the Owls. He went undrafted in the 1999 NBA Draft, but played for professionally in the then Continental Basketball Association (CBA), the International Basketball Association, and overseas in Europe.

Another player that Coach Chaney had a major impact on was Philadelphia native, former Temple Owl and current Owls head coach Aaron McKie, who played 14 NBA seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers, Detroit Pistons, Philadelphia 76ers, and Los Angeles Lakers after being drafted No. 17 overall in the 1994 NBA Draft Aaron McKie said that Coach Chaney, “Made me the man I am today.”

McKie, who played for Coach Chaney from 1991-94 also said, “Coach Chaney was like a father to me. He taught not just me, but all his players more than just how to succeed in basketball. He taught us life lessons to make us better individuals off the court. I owe so much to him.”  

While Coach Chaney did not convince him to come to Temple when he came down to Beaumont, TX to recruit him out of Clifton J. Ozen High School, 15-year NBA veteran and now ESPN NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins, who played for the Boston Celtics, where he won a title in 2008, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers, and New Orleans Pelicans said Chaney was the “nicest guy in the world” who was “straight forward,” and only wanted the best for his players.

“He didn’t have a hidden agenda. Everything about him was genuine,” Perkins said of that visit from Coach Chaney on back in 2003. “You could just tell people with good hearts, and his spirit rubbed off on you as soon as he walked in the room. And we’re going to miss him.”

“And it’s just hard, because it seems like every day we’re walking up and losing a great iconic figure that changed the game. That inspires so many people in this world, especially in the basketball world, and Coach Chaney will truly be missed.”

As much as Coach Chaney was known for his matchup zone defense, he was also well known for his passion which on a few occasions led to several incidents with the opposition that he would like to put in his rearview mirror.

As ESPN’s Sportscenter anchor John Buccigross put during a segment of the early Saturday morning’s edition of the program when describing Coach Chaney during, he had that look in his eye that when he was upset with you, his eyes could “stir souls.”

As Chaney said back in 1994 to Sports Illustrated, “I’m capable of being anything.”

“…I’m a person who can be out of control. Sometimes it’s better to be crazy then intelligent.”

One person who got to see that crazy side of Chaney was now University of Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball coach John Calipari when the two schools built an interconference rivalry during his time at the University of Massachusetts (UMass).

After a game between the two schools back in 1994, which UMass won 56-55, Chaney was unhappy with how Coach Calipari treated the referees and confronted him during his postgame press conference.

“Could I say this to you, please?” Chaney said to Calipari, according to a report from The New York Times. “You’ve got a good ballclub. But what you did with the officials out there is wrong, and I don’t want to be a party to that. You understand?”

Coach Calipari responded by saying to Coach Chaney, “You weren’t out there, Coach.” “You don’t have any idea.”

After the coaches exchanged a few back-and-forths, Coach Chaney approached the postgame podium, which led to Calipari to confront Chaney.

Chaney said to Calipari as UMass guard Mike Williams separated the two, “I’ll kill you!”

Coach Chaney outburst led to a one-game suspension by the University and he apologized for what happened between him and Coach Calipari 48 hours later.

You would think that such a rough moment would be harbored for a long time, but the two coaches became friends years later.

“Coach Chaney and I fought every game we competed-as everyone knows, sometimes literally-but in the end he was my friend,” Coach Calipari said on his Twitter page @UKCoachCalipari on Friday afternoon. “Throughout my career, we would talk about basketball and life. I will miss those talks and I will my friend. Rest in peace, Coach!”

Eleven years later, Coach Chaney was suspended after he sent in a “goon” in 250-pound big man Nehemiah Ingram during a tilt against conference rival Saint Joseph’s, where he felt they were setting what he thought were illegal picks and no fouls were being called.

Chaney, according to Philadelphia Magazine said that before the game he planned to send in “one of his goons and have him run through one of those guys and chop him in the neck or something.”

Ingram picked up five fouls in four minutes, one of which broke the arm of Hawks forward John Bryant.

“I’m sending a message,” Chaney said postgame. “And I’m going to send in what we used to do years ago—send in the goons. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Temple suspended Chaney for the rest of that regular season. He did apologize to Bryant and it was reported the coach offered to pay for his medical bills.

Bilas also said on the Saturday morning edition of “Sportscenter” that his most visceral memory he has of Coach Chaney was being at one of his early morning 6 a.m. practices at Temple, seeing them work out while the assistant coaches ran them through drills. All of that was taking place before Coach Chaney arrived yet.

Bilas also said that when he did arrive at that practice with a Dunkin Donuts cup in his hand, Coach Chaney, he stopped practice, sat his team down in the bleachers of the gym and gave them this lecture that you would hear in church that Bilas described as “absolutely beautiful.”

Among the lines Coach Chaney used, according to Bilas consisted of, “A blind man has no business at the circus.”

That sermon included thoughts about basketball and life, something that was off the cuff that Chaney’s assistant coaches would not know was coming.

From those sermons, Chaney’s assistant would have to design drills to work on the things he talked about with his players for the next practice.

“He was truly not only one of the great coaches but really one of the great people that saw the game beyond the court, and what it did for the players. And I think was as invested in his players future as any coach I’ve been around,” Bilas said of Coach Chaney.  

Another titan in college basketball in Hall of Fame head coach of the Duke University Blue Devils Mike Krzyzewski, also known as “Coach K.” called Coach Chaney one of “our giants.”

Coach Krzyzewski added in a statement that Coach Chaney’s teams were “tough and discipline” and embodied the same competitive edge that he possessed. That he was a “great friend and remarkable leader.” That he along with the late John Thompson and George Raveling were a big help to him and many other college coaches when they were starting out to have a better understanding about what it was like to be a head coach in college basketball as an African American.

“John wanted nothing more than to see our game advance,” Coach K. said.

Coach Chaney’s successor after his retirement in 2006 from coaching Fran Dunphy said in a statement that Chaney was “more” than just a Hall of Fame basketball coach. He was a “Hall of Famer in life.”

“He touched countless lives, including my own. I will miss him dearly and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family during this difficult time.”

While the advancement of the game of basketball in general in terms of having more African American head coaches in it has been slow, those who are in the position of being a head coach at either the collegiate level or professional level, with just seven in the NBA now are forever grateful for Coach Chaney paving the way for their dreams to become a reality.

“Just love how he carried himself. I love how he fought for his team, his players, but also just the institution, you know in a lot of ways,” Philadelphia 76ers first-year head coach Glenn “Doc” Rivers said on Friday before his team’s 118-94 win at the Minnesota Timberwolves. “He was so much more than a basketball coach. He really was a teacher, and a teacher of life and you know, we don’t have a lot like that anymore.”

Coach Rivers former player with the Boston Celtics Kendrick Perkins, who played 15 NBA seasons with the C’s, Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers, and New Orleans Pelicans said that Coach Chaney was not only one of the nicest guys in the world but someone who was “straight forward,” no hidden agendas of his own, and wanted the best for the players he coached. That he was genuine, who spirit rubbed off on you the minute he walked in the room and talked with you.

On Friday, Temple University and the College Basketball world said goodbye to one of the titans of the profession in John Chaney. A person who was more than just a basketball coach. He was innovator, teacher, mentor, motivator, leader, competitor, and above all a voice for his players against those that wanted to take advantage of them for either their own success or to simply look down on those that they felt they were better than.

While Coach Chaney was not a perfect man, he was a good one, who was respected, sometimes feared, but admired for how he, like John Thompson stood up for things at a time where it was not easy to do.

In 2019, Chaney told “The Athletic” that he wanted to be “remembered as someone who cared.”

“What we need more of these days—I don’t are how you look at it—is caring for others, whoever that is,” Chaney said.

John Chaney was someone who cared, about his players. He cared about their well-being. He cared about how they presented themselves on the hardwood as well as off of it. That they were as educated as well as being able to play his sophisticated zone defense.

He cared so much that he earned respect from the players he coached, even when he had to kick them in the pants more often than not. He earned respect and admiration from the many coaches he went against. Above all he earned the respect from the media who covered him and got to know him in his over three decades as a college coach at Cheyney University and at Temple University.

“John Chaney never gave up on his players, and I think worked through everything in the social justice realm,” Bilas said. “He knew what right looked like, and yet he had his flaws too…. John Chaney was an American original. Every bit as any coach you could name. Whether it’s Bob Knight, Dean Smith, John Wooden, he [Coach Chaney] was character in one sense. But he had unshakeable character in every sense.”

“I was honored to get to know him and spend time with him, and certainly watch him work and cover his teams. He was a true icon, and a true legend.”

Information and quotations are courtesy of 1/29/2021 3 p.m. “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Jorge Sedano, Kendrick Perkins, Vince Carter, and Zach Lowe; 1/30/2021 12:30 a.m. ESPN’s “Sportscenter” with John Buccigross and Nabil Karim; 1/30/2021 www.espn.com story, “Hall of Fame Temple Basketball Coach John Chaney Dies at 89,” by Jeff Borzello; 1/30/2021 “Who Is Jeanne Dixon? Wiki, Bio, John Chaney’s Wife, Family, Career, Many More Facts You Need To Know,” from https://wikitrusted.com/jeanne-dixon; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendrick_Perkins; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_McKie; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thompson_(basketball); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasheed_Brokenborough; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chaney_(basketball,_born_1932).