John Chaney
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- For author Jack London (who likely had the birth name "John Chaney"), see his article.
John Chaney (born January 21, 1932 at Jacksonville, Florida) is a well known American college basketball coach. He began his career after graduating from Bethune-Cookman College and spending some time in the Eastern Professional Basketball League.
Chaney's first team was at the middle school level in 1963. He moved to Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia where he had an impressive 63-23 record. Chaney then moved to college basketball.
The first collegiate position held by John Chaney was at Division II Cheyney State. At Cheyney, Chaney was 225-56. He won his only national title in 1978.
After a decade at Cheyney, Chaney moved to Division I Temple University in Philadelphia. Chaney built a reputation as a tough coach who always demanded excellence on and off the court. He is well known for his 6 AM practices and perpetually out of place necktie.
Chaney has won a total of 711 career games as of December 12, 2004. He has taken Temple to the NCAA tournament 17 times. His 1987-88 Owls team was briefly ranked #1 in the country. He was consensus national coach of the year in 1988. In 2001, Chaney was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
On December 20, 2004, Chaney became the fifth active coach and 19th all-time to appear on the sidelines for 1,000 games, joining Lou Henson (New Mexico State, Illinois), Bob Knight (Army, Indiana, Texas Tech), Eddie Sutton (Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma State), and Hugh Durham (Florida State, Georgia, Jacksonville). With the win over Princeton that night, the coach now owns a career record of 712-288.
Looking back on his career that spans four decades and now 1,000 games, Chaney downplayed the numbers. “It’s about names and faces, the people you meet. That’s what it means to me.”
Chaney's behavior has been controversial at times. On February 13 1994, he threatened to kill then-University of Massachusetts coach John Calipari at a post-game news conference, but has since called Calipari a friend. Chaney made headlines in 2005 after ordering seldom-used forward Nehemiah Ingram into the game to commit hard fouls against St. Joseph's in response to several preceived missed calls by the referees. After the game Chaney admitted to "sending a message" and stated "I'm going to send in what we used to do years ago, send in the goons." John Bryant of St. Joseph's suffered a fractured arm as a result of one of the intentional fouls. Following the incident, John Chaney suspended himself for one game, and upon hearing the severity of the injury, suspended himself for the remainder of the regular season and the A-10 tournament. Chaney later apologized to Bryant, his family, and St. Joseph's. He also offered to pay any of Bryant's appropriate medical bills.