Hall of Fame basketball coach Newell dies at 93

BERKELEY, Calif. — Pete Newell, the Hall of Fame basketball coach who won an NCAA championship and Olympic gold medal and later tutored some of the game’s greatest big men, died Monday. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by the University of California, the school Newell coached to a national title in 1959. Newell, who had been living near San Diego, had a serious lung operation in 2005.

He died at about 10:45 a.m. in Rancho Santa Fe, at the home of retired Dr. Earl Schultz, who played for Newell at Cal and had watched over him for the past several years.

Schultz said Newell had a meeting scheduled with Jerry West and a writer who was working on a book on West, who played for Newell’s 1960 U.S. Olympic basketball team.

“He’s 93. He had a wonderful life, and it was just old age,” Schultz told the Associated Press. “His health was not good, because they had removed two-thirds of his lung and he had smoked for many years.”

Newell coached for 14 years at San Francisco, Michigan State and California before doctors advised him to give it up because of the emotional toll. His final coaching job came in the 1960 Olympics, when he took a U.S. team led by Oscar Robertson, West and Jerry Lucas to a gold medal in Rome.

Newell later returned to prominence with his famous “big men” camps. He instructed some of the game’s greatest stars, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Shaquille O’Neal and Ralph Sampson.

Among Newell’s biggest admirers was Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight, whose teams practiced Newell’s style of patient, disciplined offense and tenacious, hardworking defense.

“Three coaches had the most influence on college basketball in terms of tactics, both offensively and defensively,” Knight once said. “Clair Bee, Hank Iba and Pete. … He was truly remarkable.”

Emotionally high strung, Newell lived on coffee, cigarettes and little else during the season. He was told by doctors to leave full-time coaching, which he did in 1960 at age 44.

Newell ended his coaching career in the Olympics, when the U.S. team won every game by at least 24 points.

Newell served as athletic director at Cal from 1960-68. He worked for several NBA teams in a variety of capacities. He was general manager of the Rockets when they were in San Diego and orchestrated the trade that brought Abdul-Jabbar to Los Angeles when he ran the Lakers.