PHILADELPHIA (AP) – John Chaney’s staggered, growing voice drowned out the gym when he scolded Temple players for a turnover (on top of their basketball sins) or a lower effort. His voice was stronger when it came to choosing unpopular fights, influencing NCAA policies that he said discriminated against black athletes. And he could be profane when Chaney let his own sense of justice overwhelm him with fierce clashes that threatened to undermine his role as a father figure to dozens of disadvantaged players.
Complicated, emaciated, quick with a shock, Chaney had an imposing presence on the court and a jester on the court, all while building the Owls set in the steep north of Philadelphia on one of the toughest teams in the nation.
“He wrapped his arms around her and made her part of his family,” Chaney’s successor Fran Dunphy said.
Chaney died Friday, just eight days after his 89th birthday, after a brief unspecified illness.
Chaney led Temple to 17 appearances in the NCAA tournament for 24 seasons, including five NCAA regional finals. Chaney scored 741 wins as a college coach. He was named two-time national team coach of the year and his team at Temple won six Atlantic 10 conference titles. He led Cheyney, in suburban Philadelphia, to the 1978 Division II national championship.
When Chaney retired in 2006, the border face was gone, his dark, deep eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, and his desktop personality shrank: “Excuse me as I disappear,” he said.
He became a de facto father to dozens of his players, many coming to Temple from broken homes, violent educations and bad schools. He often said that his main goal was simply to give poor children the opportunity to be educated. He said the SAT was partially cultural and joined John Thompson of Georgetown, another giant of the black coaching community, who died in August, in denunciation of the NCAA’s academic requirements that seemed to distinguish ” the young man who comes from a poor and disadvantaged background ”. .
Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie, perhaps Chaney’s two best players, were recruits from the Prop 48 who passed on their Temple years to the NBA’s successful career. McKie is now a Temple coach and relied on his mentor when he had to shape the program.
“Coach Chaney was like a father to me,” McKie said. “He taught not only me, but all his players, more than being successful in basketball. He taught us life lessons to make us better people off the track. I owe him a lot. He made me the man I am today. ”
When Chaney joined Temple in 1982, he took over a program that had only two NCAA tournament offers in the previous decade and was not well known outside of Philadelphia. Often, while urging his team, he put himself in situations that he later regretted. He was known for his fiery temperament: he sent a player he called a “goon” to a 2005 game for committing hard fouls. Chaney suspended and apologized.
In 1994, he had an intense exchange after a match against UMass in which he threatened to kill coach John Calipari. Chaney apologized and was suspended for a game. The two became friends later.
“Coach Chaney and I fought every game we competed in, as everyone knows, sometimes literally, but in the end he was my friend,” Calipari tweeted. “Throughout my career, we would talk about basketball and life. I will miss these talks and I will do it with my friend ”.
In 1984, Chaney grabbed George Washington coach Gerry Gimelstob by the shoulders at halftime during a game.
Chaney, whose deep, dark eyes seemed appropriate for a school whose pet was the Owl, was intense on the sidelines. Her loud, rising voice could be heard through an enclosure and her almost perfect designer clothes were shattered after most games. After a particularly bad call, he would stare at the referees. He once looked at a referee for a lifetime with a look he dubbed “One-Eyed Jack.”
Although he seemed permanently baffled, especially during games, Chaney was often tender and funny. He loved telling stories. Their post-game press conferences were sometimes more entertaining than the games that preceded them. His retirement press conference in March 2006 did not focus on hoops, but on the role of education in helping the poor and disadvantaged. They included funny anecdotes, jokes from the school administration, and playful threats to slap the mayor.
After losing to Michigan State on his last trip to the NCAA regional finals in 2001, it was the same old John Chaney, with tears in his eyes, an open necktie and growing poetic on another opportunity. lost in the Final Four.
“It’s something we all dream about, but very often dreams fall short,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. But you have to realize that the growth you see in young people like these is probably the greatest success you can achieve. ”
Temple’s style of play under Chaney’s guidance was never as beautiful as that of Duke or North Carolina. Slow, patient and disciplined, their best teams rarely made mistakes, rarely turned the ball upside down and always had a tough defense. Chaney was simply fearless in every aspect of his work.
He refused to load his schedules with easy teams and instead traveled to hostile tracks to play supposedly talented teams. He was outspoken about NCAA recruiting rules, which he said hurt players who were trying to improve their position in life.
“John Chaney was much more than a Hall of Fame basketball coach. It was a Hall of Fame in life, ”said Dunphy. “He touched countless lives, including mine.”
Chaney came to Temple before the 1982-83 season. sitting in one of Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhoods, Temple was the perfect match for a coach who prides himself on helping players turn their basketball skills into college.
He was 50 and already had success at Cheyney State University, where he had a 225-59 record in 10 seasons.
Chaney was born on January 21, 1932 in Jacksonville, Florida. He lived in a neighborhood there called Black Bottom, where, he said, the flood rains would bring rats. When he was in ninth grade, his family moved to Philadelphia, where his stepfather got a job at a shipyard.
Although he was known as the Hall of Fame coach, he was also one of the best players to come out of Philadelphia. He was the Philadelphia Public League Player of the Year in 1951 at Benjamin Franklin High School.
A graduate of Bethune-Cookman College, he was MVP of the NAIA All-American and a NAIA tournament before becoming a professional in 1955 to play with the Harlem Globetrotters. With black players still discriminated against in the NBA, he moved from 1955 to 1966 in the Eastern Pro League with Sunbury and Williamsport, where he was twice league MVP.
“I knew what I needed when I started training. He just encouraged me and allowed me to grow and allowed me to make mistakes and he was there to pick me up when things didn’t work out the way I thought they should, ”said Dawn Staley, South Carolina coach and former coach of Owls. “Everyone in your life, whether it’s coaching, out of training or any other profession, needs your life as Chaney coach.”
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Associated Press writer Jonathan Poet contributed to this report.