Goodbye Chuck Daly And Thank You

Chuck Daly, who coached the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back NBA championships has died at the age of 78. Daly also coached the original Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics where they won gold.

Daly had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March and was undergoing treatment. He was in Jupiter, FL. with his family when he passed.

The dapper Daly was great at leading diverse personalities toward a common goal. This could not be more apparent with the time he spent coaching Detroit. Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer, and Dennis Rodman are all very different, yet Daly find a way to put the “Bad Boys” on the same page and focus on the prize.

As the first coach to ever win Olympic gold and an NBA title, Daly was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994. He was also voted one of the 10 greatest coaches of the century in 1996.

Daly was born July 20, 1930 in St. Mary’s, PA and played college basketball at St. Bonaventure and Bloomsburg. After serving two years in the U.S. Military, Daly served as an assistant at Duke for six seasons. Daly replaced Bob Cousy at Boston College in his first head coaching gig. After two years at BC, Daly went to the Ivy League to coach at Penn. He won four Ivy League championships while coaching the Quakers.

Daly first entered the NBA ranks as an assistant to Billy Cunningham in Philadelphia. His first head coaching gig was with the Cleveland Cavaliers. After starting 9-32. Daly was fired in his first season.

In 1983, Chuck Daly was hired to coach the Detroit Pistons. He put together nine consecutive winning season as the leader of the dynasty-years Pistons, winning NBA championships in 1989 and 1990. After leaving Detroit, Daly coached a couple of seasons in New Jersey before leaving the bench for the broadcast booth.

The Pistons retired the number 2 in honor of Daly winning back-to-back championships in 1997.

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