August 31, 1915: Pete Newell Is Born

August 31, 1915, 100 years ago: Peter Francis Newell is born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since the sport's inventor was Dr. James Naismith, from the Ottawa area, Newell had to settle for being the 2nd most important Canadian in basketball.

He grew up in Los Angeles, and coached the University of San Francisco to the NIT title in 1949, when that was still considered a bigger tournament than the NCAA. (USF would be led to NCAA titles in 1955 and '56 by Phil Woolpert, his high school classmate.) In 1959, he led the University of California, with Darrall Imhoff at center, to the National Championship, beating Jerry West's West Virginia team, and back into the Final the next season, losing to the Ohio State team of Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, and 6th man Bobby Knight, who would later call Newell his greatest coaching influence.

Newell then coached the U.S. team to the Gold Medal at the Olympics in Rome. This was the best basketball team ever assembled, until at least the U.S. team of 1984: It included Imhoff, West, Lucas, Oscar Robertson, Walt Bellamy and Terry Dischinger. It was so good that Havlicek, one of the 5 best forwards in NBA history, but then a 20-year-old college sophomore, could only make it as an alternate.

He then served as Cal's athletic director, and a scout for the Los Angeles Lakers, instrumental in their acquisition of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Until his death on November 17, 2008, at the age of 93, he ran the most influential basketball camp in the Western U.S.

His son Pete Jr. is a successful high school coach, and his son Tom coached in the NBA and is now a Fox Sports commentator. He is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and the court at Cal's arena, the Walter A. Haas Pavilion, is named for him.

His proudest accomplishment, though, was that every single player he ever coached got his degree. Ironically, for a long time, that wasn't true: His greatest player, Imhoff, hadn't done so. When Imhoff found out he was the only one, he went back to Cal and finished his degree, in forestry. That's what Pete Newell meant to those who knew him.