Newell, Peter Francis

▪ 2009

      Canadian-born American basketball coach

born Aug. 31, 1915, Vancouver, B.C.

died Nov. 17, 2008, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

served as the influential coach of the basketball teams at the University of San Francisco (1946–50), where his 1949 team captured the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) title; Michigan State University (1950–54); and the University of California, Berkeley (1954–60), where he guided his team to triumph in the 1959 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament. The following year he led the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. Only two other coaches—Dean Smith and Bobby Knight—-had succeeded in winning the NIT, the NCAA , and Olympic gold. Though health problems forced Newell to retire as a coach, he later served (1972–76) as general manager of the National Basketball Associaton (NBA) Los Angeles Lakers, and he was responsible for the trade that gave the Lakers centre Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. From 1976 until his death, Newell tutored a legion of NBA players, including Shaquille O'Neal, Scottie Pippin, and Bill Walton, at his annual summer Pete Newell Big Man Camp. Newell was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1979.

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