December 25, 2024

Reports: Legendary Temple coach John Chaney dies at 89

John Chaney #JohnChaney

John Chaney holding his hands up: Temple's head coach John Chaney yells directions to his players during the the first half of their basketball game with Duke, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006, in Philadelphia. Duke won 74-66 (AP Photo/Tom Mihalek) © Provided by Yahoo! Sports Temple’s head coach John Chaney yells directions to his players during the the first half of their basketball game with Duke, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006, in Philadelphia. Duke won 74-66 (AP Photo/Tom Mihalek)

Legendary Temple men’s basketball coach John Chaney died a week after his 89th birthday, Mike Jensen of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Dana O’Neil of The Athletic confirmed it.

Chaney was known as a teacher of life lessons with crack-of-dawn practices. He was a two-time USBWA National Coach of the Year (1987, 1988) and won the 1978 NCAA Division II national championship while coaching Cheyney State based out of Cheyney, Pennsylvania.

He joined Temple in 1982, revitalizing the program and leading it to 17 NCAA tournaments and five NCAA regional finals. Before his arrival, the Owls had never made it to the national tournament in back-to-back seasons. Under Chaney, they rattled off five straight from 1984-88 and then made it 12 straight from 1990 to 2001. In the years he won coach of the year honors, the Owls had 30-win seasons. The 1987-88 team finished the year ranked No. 1 overall.

Chaney was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001. He retired after a 24-year coaching career with Temple in 2006. He was 516-253 (.671) as Temple’s coach.

Fans, reporters and players took to Twitter to honor the coach. Dawn Staley coached the women’s team at Temple for seven seasons beginning in 2000 before heading to South Carolina.

One particular video made the rounds after news of Chaney’s death. Chaney famously burst through the back of a postgame press conference on Feb. 19, 1994, and yelled “I’ll kill you!” at John Calipari, then the coach at the University of Massachusetts. He didn’t like how the fellow coach handled the officials.

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