Jack Ramsay

From Hoopedia

Dr. John T. Ramsay (born February 21, 1925, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American former professional basketball coach in the National Basketball Association.

After coaching in the high school and minor-league ranks for the early postwar years, he became head coach at his alma mater, Saint Joseph's College, in 1955. In his first season, Ramsay would lead the Hawks to their first Philadelphia Big 5 crown and their first-ever postseason berth, in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) (then still at least on a par with the NCAA tournament. Ramsay would remain there through 1966, leading the Hawks to six more Big 5 crowns and ten postseason appearances in all.

Immediately after leaving Saint Joseph's, he was hired as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, who won an NBA title in his first season in the front office. In 1968, he left the front office to take over as head coach of the Sixers. In his four seasons as coach, he led the team to three playoff appearances. After the 1971-72 season, he took the head coaching job with the Buffalo Braves. His tenure was almost a mirror image of his time with the Sixers — four seasons, three playoff berths.

His next coaching stop in the NBA was his most famous, with the Portland Trail Blazers. When he arrived in 1976, the Blazers had not made the playoffs or compiled a winning record in their six-year history. However, he arrived there when they were just as a young team (led by Bill Walton), starting to gel, and also benefited from the American Basketball Association dispersal draft in the 1976 off-season, in which the Blazers picked up hard-nosed power forward Maurice Lucas. In his first season in Portland (1977), Ramsay led the Blazers to their only NBA title to date. In his second season, the Blazers were 50-10 after 60 games and favored to repeat as champions before Walton, in the midst of a season in which he would be named the league MVP, broke his foot, the first of the numerous major injuries that radically shortened his career. Ramsay continued to coach the Blazers until 1986 with general success, although he was never able to approach the level of his first seasons there. He was also a coach in the 1978 NBA All-Star Game. Ramsay coached the Indiana Pacers for the 1986-87 season before retiring. At that time, he was second on the all-time wins list for NBA coaches, trailing Red Auerbach.

Ramsay later spent nine years as a television color commentator for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Miami Heat, and continues to do commentary for ESPN on TV and radio. Dr. Jack worked for the Miami Heat from 1992 until 2002. The games were broadcast from South Florida's Sunshine Network, Fox Sports Net, and sometimes the former network UPN. Ramsay worked alongside announcer Eric Reid, who still works Miami Heat games. During Ramsay's tenure as the Heat's commentator, he developed some memorable nicknames and phrases for the Heat players. Whenever All-Star point guard Tim Hardaway would make a 3-point shot, Dr. Jack would shout, "this away, that away, Hardaway!" Or if any Heat player made a nice shot, you would hear Dr. Jack scream "bottom of the net!"

Ramsay was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach on May 11, 1992. He was named one of the ten greatest coaches of all time in 1996.

He has authored several highly rated books, including The Coach's Art (ISBN 0-917304-36-5) and Dr. Jack's Leadership Lessons Learned From a Lifetime in Basketball (ISBN 0-471-46929-7).

Ramsay is a 1942 graduate of Upper Darby High School in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He was inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in 1979.

He received his bachelor's degree from Saint Joseph's College in 1949, and his master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in 1952 and 1963, respectively.

Wins	Loses	Win Percentage	Notes
864	783	(.525)	Seventh-winningest coach in NBA history ... Served 20 years as NBA head coach ... Coached 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers to victory in NBA Finals ... Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.