Jack Ramsay - # 77

He Was number 77 on the list.

Jack Ramsay, Who Led Blazers to 1977 N.B.A. Title, Dies at 89

Jack Ramsay, the Hall of Fame coach who took the Portland Trail Blazers to their only NBA championship and who was regarded as one of pro basketball’s keenest coaching minds, died on Monday in Naples, Fla. He was 89. The cause was cancer, his son Chris said.

 

Ramsay spent more than 60 years in basketball, as a player and coach at St. Joseph’s College (now University) of Philadelphia, a head coach for four N.B.A. teams and a TV and radio broadcast commentator and analyst, most recently for ESPN. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 1992. He was known in the basketball world as Dr. Jack, for the doctorate in education he received from the University of Pennsylvania, but coaches and players were also paying respect to his cerebral approach.

 

Ramsay emphasized preparation, dedication, unselfish play, a running game, tough defense and strong rebounding. He put his teams through grueling practices.

“Among players, Ramsay was the ultimate coach’s coach,” David Halberstam wrote in his book “The Breaks of the Game” (1981), a look at the pro basketball world through Ramsay’s Blazers teams. “Nothing was left to chance. His scouting and his breakdown of opponents before a game were acute, complete and prophetic. He expected certain things to happen on the court and they almost always did.” Jack Ramsay in a familiar stance during a Portland Trail Blazers game: his knee, resting on a towel, planted firmly on the court’s floor. 

 

Lionel Hollins, a guard on the Blazers’ 1977 championship team and later a coach of the Grizzlies, first in Vancouver and then in Memphis, described Ramsay’s approach after being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in 1980. “Jack taught me the fundamentals,” Hollins said. “Making the right pass at the right time, defense, how to concentrate and become a more disciplined player.”

 

Bill Walton, the star center on the Blazers’ championship team who had played for John Wooden on N.C.A.A. championship teams at U.C.L.A., called Ramsay “the very best coach I played for, and I played for some great coaches.” Ramsay was intense, whether badgering referees or plotting strategy during timeouts, kneeling on a towel, a balding figure with bushy eyebrows and an intimidating glare.

He was also a physical-fitness buff, doing daily calisthenics, jogging and swimming, even into his 80s while being treated for cancer.

 

When he was named the Trail Blazers’ coach in 1976, replacing Lenny Wilkens, Ramsay took over a team that had not had a winning record in its six seasons in the N.B.A. But his first Portland squad, led by Walton, Hollins and Maurice Lucas at forward, captured the 1977 N.B.A. championship by defeating the 76ers and Julius Erving in a six-game playoff final.

 

The Trail Blazers’ current coach, Terry Stotts, has a mural above his desk showing Ramsay in his familiar game stance, kneeling on the court, with a quotation from him below: “Teams that play together beat those teams with superior players who play more as individuals.” “I think that quote epitomizes what that team was about,” Stotts told The Oregonian newspaper, referring to Ramsay’s championship squad, before the current season began.

 

When the Trail Blazers played at home against the Utah Jazz on Ramsay’s 89th birthday, Stotts paid tribute to him by wearing a plaid jacket and an open-collar shirt, reprising the style Ramsay favored at courtside.

 

John T. Ramsay (the T stood for Travilla, evidently a family name, but he preferred using the initial, Chris Ramsay said) was born on Feb. 21, 1925, in Philadelphia and grew up in Connecticut, where his father was in the mortgage and loan business. The family returned to Philadelphia when he was in high school, and he went on to play for St. Joseph’s. After Navy service in World War II, Ramsay graduated from St. Joseph’s in 1949. Ramsay as coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977. He led the team to an N.B.A. title that season.

 

He played semipro basketball, coached in high school, and then became head coach at St. Joseph’s in 1955. He coached the Hawks to 10 postseason appearances in 11 seasons, including a berth in the N.C.A.A. tournament’s Final Four in 1961, and had an overall record of 234-72. He became the 76ers’ general manager in the 1966-67 season, when the Sixers, led by Wilt Chamberlain, won their first N.B.A. championship.

 

Ramsay took on the coaching as well in July 1968 when Chamberlain was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. A year later, he became the first N.B.A. general manager to use computerized analysis in scouting college players for the draft. Ramsay coached the 76ers for four seasons and the Buffalo Braves (now the Los Angeles Clippers) for another four before joining the Trail Blazers.

His Blazers never made it to the N.B.A. finals after their championship season, but they reached the playoffs in all but one of Ramsay’s 10 seasons as their coach.

 

Ramsay was fired in May 1986, after the Blazers were ousted in the first round of the playoffs, then became the Indiana Pacers’ coach in the 1986-87 season. When he resigned in November 1988, he had won more games than any other N.B.A. coach except for Red Auerbach. He had a career record of 864-783.

After his retirement from coaching, Ramsay gave basketball clinics around the world on behalf of the N.B.A., then became a broadcaster for the 76ers, the Miami Heat and ESPN. He retired from broadcasting in 2013. The St. Joseph’s University basketball center is named for him. In addition to his son Chris, a senior director at ESPN, Ramsay is survived by his son John; his daughters Sharon O’Brien — who is married to Jim O’Brien, the former coach of the Boston Celtics, the 76ers and the Indiana Pacers — Carolyn Ramsay and Susan Dailey; 13 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His wife, Jean, died in 2010.