The modern history of the NBA is filled with strivers who made the jump from the college to professional ranks with varying degrees of success: John Beilein, John Calipari, Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino, Brad Stevens and Jerry Tarkanian, to name a handful.
Lesser known are the entrenched NBA greats who put in time in the college ranks. For some coaches, this is an essential part of their biographies—both the Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla and the 76ers’ Nick Nurse would likely not be where they are today without the character-building years they spent at small schools.
For some, though, forays back to college remain footnotes and detours on their basketball journeys. That’s what we’re interested in as former Nuggets coach Michael Malone prepares to take the reins at North Carolina.
Here are five great NBA coaches whose years spent in college have largely been lost to history.
Red Auerbach (Duke assistant, 1949)
The nine-time NBA champion is credited with helping build the Celtics into one of the most beloved and hated franchises in all of sports. However, before he wound up in Boston, Auerbach put in a brief stint with a college team that would one day inspire similarly strong feelings. The Brooklyn native knew the South a bit from his playing days at George Washington, and in ’49 took an assistant gig to Blue Devils coach Gerry Gerard. Duke went 13–9 that year under Gerard, but the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (today’s Hawks) lured Auerbach back to the professional ranks for the 1950 season.
Chuck Daly (Duke assistant, Boston College and Penn head coach, 1963 to ’77)
Daly was a grinder who became a successful, well-liked NBA coach in his 50s—but only because he had spent decades toiling in the scholastic trenches. After starting life at Punxsutawney (of groundhog fame) High School in Pennsylvania, Daly parlayed seven years as a Blue Devils assistant into a head coaching role at Boston College in the early 1970s. Results were mixed there, but he thrived with the Quakers, going 125-38 and taking Penn to four consecutive NCAA tournaments. The 76ers seized an opportunity to hire Daly as an assistant in the early 1980s, and the rest is history.
K.C. Jones (Brandeis head coach and Harvard assistant, 1967 to ’71)
When Jones closed the book on his Hall of Fame playing career after the ’67 season, he didn’t have to look far to begin his coaching journey. Jones became the first of three ex-Celtics to lead the Division III Judges in Waltham, Mass.—using that job as a springboard to a Division I assistant gig with the Crimson. Harvard went 16–10 in 1971—its best record in 13 years—and Jones had the first of five NBA conference titles under his belt four seasons later.
Gregg Popovich (Air Force assistant, Pomona-Pitzer head coach and Kansas assistant, 1973 to ’88)
The future Spurs icon broke into coaching with the Falcons, for whom he played in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. He then spent almost a decade leading the Division III Sagehens, with an unusual exception: in 1987 he stepped away from Pomona-Pitzer for a year to work as an unpaid assistant for the Jayhawks under coach Larry Brown (in part as a goodwill gesture to Popovich, Kansas played the Sagehens in 1988, winning 94–38 on its way to the national title). That put Popovich on Brown’s radar, and the latter hired the former as a San Antonio assistant for the 1989 season.
Stan Van Gundy (Vermont assistant, Castleton head coach, Canisius assistant, Fordham assistant, Massachusetts-Lowell head coach, Wisconsin assistant and Wisconsin head coach, 1981 to `95)
In short: Van Gundy put in work (his brother Jeff, too, spent time as an assistant for Providence and Rutgers). Ironically considering his glut of eventual NBA success, Van Gundy struggled in each of his two NCAA head-coaching jobs—he went 54–60 with the River Hawks and 13–14 in his one year leading the Badgers (with the Spartans, he made the 1985 NAIA Division I tournament). Wisconsin bought Stan out of his contract after the ’95 season and he joined the Heat as an assistant coach, kicking off a multi-decade NBA career.
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