By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Pete Newell, 93, a self-effacing legend among college and amateur basketball coaches who led his teams to the major championships of their times, died Nov. 17 in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Newell, who had been known as a chain-smoker half a century ago when he guided the University of California Golden Bears to the NCAA championship, had undergone lung surgery in 2005.
He died at the home of one of his former players who had been looking out for him in recent years.
"He had a wonderful life, and it was just old age," Dr. Earl Schultz told the Associated Press. "It was starting to be a real struggle for him physically."
During 15 years as coach at the University of San Francisco, Michigan State University and the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Newell, intense, disciplined and gentlemanly, led his quintets to a total of 234 victories, against 123 defeats.
In the heyday of the National Invitation Tournament, a time when the best teams in college basketball were drawn to the annual end-of-the-season competition at New York's Madison Square Garden, Mr. Newell took his USF team to the legendary Eighth Avenue arena in 1949.
Their victory in the final gave Mr. Newell the first first of his major championships.
Ten years later, as head coach across the bay in Berkeley, he led his team to victory in the NCAA tournament.
As the capstone of his career, he guided the U.S. team to victory in the 1960 Olympic Games.
Only a handful of his peers ever won all three of those tournaments, and many of the foremost coaches of his and later times were outspoken admirers of his work.
Bobby Knight, one of college basketball's winningest coaches, has described Mr. Newell as being "as good as anybody who's ever coached this game."
Legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, whose teams crossed paths many times with those of Mr. Newell, was another who held him in high esteem.
"In his time, I think he was one of the better coaches the game has ever seen," Mr. Wooden said a few years ago. "When I think of the outstanding teachers of the game, he ranged up there with the very best," Wooden said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
UCLA and Berkeley met 15 times while the two men were coaching. UCLA won the first seven, and Mr. Newell's squads the last eight.
Mr. Newell was born in Canada, was brought to Los Angeles as a boy and had a minor career as a child actor in Hollywood.
It was apparently his mother's idea. "I hated acting," he said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "All I wanted to do was be home playing ball."
After high school, he attended Loyola University, now known as Loyola Marymount.
He played a summer of minor-league baseball, served in the Navy during World War II, then became head basketball coach at USF. His record there was 70-37. He went to Michigan State in 1950 and was hired to coach the Golden Bears in 1954.
From 1957 to 1960, his teams won the Pacific Eight championship four years in succession. But at age 44, he left the sidelines and served for a time as athletic director at Berkeley.
Later, he moved to the executive suite of NBA teams, notably as general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers from 1972 to 1976. He retained his interest in teaching the game and continued to be influential in it in a variety of ways, among them with an annual clinic he led that was known for honing the talents of many of the game's best-known players.
But he did not return to the sidelines. He attributed his departure to his health and doctors' orders. "I was smoking too many cigarettes, drinking too much coffee, and wasn't able to eat," he once said.
A former player, Stan Morrison, suggested to the Los Angeles Times that it was not so much the stress of competition that affected him as the acclaim.
"He was such a humble guy and it was just too much. Everyone would be on their feet when he came out, and we'd put the ball down and applaud. Even the visiting team would do it sometimes."
His wife died almost 25 years ago. Survivors include four sons.