Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Hall of Fame coach John Chaney dies at 89
John Chaney’s death leaves hole at Temple and across the basketball world, including at tiny Cheyney University
Geoghegan: Chaney’s legacy larger than life at the school where he got his start
If there was a Mount Rushmore of Chester County coaches, John Chaney would certainly be front and center.
He went on to national acclaim as the longtime head basketball coach at Temple from 1982-2006. But just about everything he famously authored on North Broad Street — like early morning practices, an amoeba-like matchup zone defense, a disciplined offense that rarely turned the ball over, and a genuine concern for the education and the well-being of his players — all started during his astoundingly successful decade-long stint at Cheyney State from 1972-82.
“I learned more about basketball from him in one season than I learned in all of my previous time in the game combined. That’s how good he was,” said Downingtown resident Bobby Dorsey, who was Chaney’s first point guard during the 1972-73 season.
Just eight days after celebrating his 89th birthday, Chaney died on Friday following a short and unspecified illness, sparking an immediate outpouring from across the globe. The news hit especially hard for Dorsey and his former Cheyney and West Chester Henderson teammate Leon Bell. The two of them saw Chaney’s arrival into college basketball coaching firsthand, and have remained lifelong friends with their mentor.
“It is really hard for me to believe he’s gone. I would call him every month to chat he was always so strong and a great conversationalist,” said Bell, who then paused to compose himself.
“I just thought he’d never die.”
“It is really hard for me to believe he’s gone. I would call him every month to chat he was always so strong and a great conversationalist . ... I just thought he’d never die.”
— Leon Bell on former Cheyney coach John Chaney
Dorsey and Bell played together under Jack McClellan at West Chester Henderson. After graduation in 1969, Dorsey immediately enrolled at Cheyney. Bell graduated a year later, and spent time at West Chester before transferring to play for the Wolves and reuniting with Dorsey.
“I went elsewhere initially out of high school because I didn’t think I was good enough to play for Cheyney,” Bell said.
Soon after Bell got on campus in the summer of 1972, head basketball coach Tony Coma left to take the head job at Cornell. With time of the essence and the season approaching, the school tabbed Chaney, the head coach at Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia, as its new coach.
“Coach Chaney came in a couple weeks before the start of the season and he didn’t know anybody,” recalled Dorsey, who was offered the opportunity to follow Coma to Cornell but decided to stay.
“Best decision I’ve ever made,” Dorsey said.
There were just four returning players, however, from the previous season: one was Dorsey and another was ineligible. Chaney promptly called for open tryouts to fill out the roster.
“I didn’t know anything about this new coach,” Bell remembers. “But it was a new era. That first season there was about 50-60 guys who tried out for the team.
“The first day we met, he said ‘I suggest you run three miles a day.’ And all you heard was grumbling. But on the first day of practice, all we did was run in a circle. While we ran, and ran and ran, and he eventually left the gym.
“When he came back, his first question was: ‘Is anybody tired?’ Some of the fools raised their hands, so he opened the door up and told them to ‘run on out of here because you are not going to be a part of this team.’”
With a few returning players and a couple newcomers like Bell, Chaney wound up keeping seven players from the tryouts. And the Wolves went on to go 23-5 and win the PSAC Championship that winter.
“We were picked to finish sixth or seventh in the conference,” Dorsey said. “It was one of the best coaching jobs I’ve ever seen.
“He was no-nonsense and he was demanding, but also fair. If you didn’t go to class, you wouldn’t play. And you quickly found out that what he told you was going to happen on the basketball court, it happened. Anything the opponents threw at us, we were prepared.”
It was a stunning start to what became the glory years of athletics at Cheyney. With Chaney leading the way, the Wolves went on to capture six more conference crowns before he left for Temple. During his reign, Cheyney amassed a record of 22559, made eight NCAA Division II Tournament appearances, and won the 1978 national title. And Chaney was named the national Division II coach of the year on two occasions.
“He was attuned to the players, he fought for you if you needed to be fought for, and he disciplined you if you needed it,” said Bell, who played three seasons under Chaney for teams that went a combined 8326. “But the bottom line was that he loved all of us. He never, ever gave you wrong advice or direction.
“If you talk to any individual player he coached, they would tell you they were his special player. He was a rarity in coaching. He was a special person who
had special tools he would use so that you wouldn’t want to let him down.”
After graduating, Dorsey worked for Chaney as a scout for the next seven seasons, including the Wolves legendary 27-2 championship campaign in 1978.
“He would push you to the brink,” Bell said. “When I was a senior, I asked him: ‘what do you want from me?’ And he said, ‘I want 110 percent.’ I never asked him again.
“That I got to play for him was truly a blessing. Little did I know that this new coach was going to become a legend and leave such a legacy for Cheyney that no one could ever forget. He put Cheyney on the map.”
Already an iconic figure in Division II circles, Chaney eventually accepted the head coaching position at Temple in 1982 and became a national sensation. In 24 seasons he guided the Owls to a 516-253 record that included 15 seasons with 20 or more wins, 17 NCAA Tournament berths and five Elite Eight appearances.
“He was dedicated and he would help anybody,” Dorsey said.
“He’s meant so much to me and to everybody who played for him,” Bell added. “He really cared. He was tough, but he wanted the best for his players. He was definitely like a father figure. He’d give you support, care and tough love at the same time.
“It made me a better man. I’ve been able to persevere through things because I was lucky enough to know a man like John Chaney.”
Along the way, Chaney battled with the NCAA, championing reforms to eligibility standards that often hindered student-athletes from economically troubled areas and fought tirelessly against culturally biased admission policies. He was feisty, but compassionate.
Principled and highly innovative.
Chaney was cranky with a commanding presence, and yet could be tender with a penchant for telling endearing and hilarious stories to fascinated reporters on deadline and yet still transfixed. I covered Temple basketball for a decade, and the first seven seasons were the most memorable, with Chaney at the helm.
“He was a real basketball teacher,” said Bell, who went on to coach at Henderson for 14 seasons and is now the head coach of Cheyney’s non-NCAA basketball program. “That’s where I gained all of my basketball knowledge — from him.”
Chaney received the highest honor in the sport when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001. And not long after retiring from coaching in 2006, the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame came calling.
“He was truly a man of integrity,” Bell said. “Even players who he disciplined and even cut from teams, they would stand by John because he stood by his convictions. He was always much loved.”
Dorsey and Bell travelled to Springfield, Mass., to see their former coach inducted into the Hall of Fame. But a decade earlier in 1991, they began attending the NCAA Division I Final Four and have been going ever since. More often than not, they would have dinner with Chaney and he would invariably offer his tickets to them.
“He’d say: ‘I don’t need them. Why don’t you go and enjoy it?’” Dorsey said.
“That was the type of person he was.”