RIP Dave Strack, Michigan's greatest basketball coach
Posted a few hours ago on MGoBlue. He was 90 years young.
I know a lot of people, including myself, were laughing about Jalen suggesting Fisher was Michigan's greatest coach in the thread two days ago. Strack's resume-
- Played for Michigan from 1942-43 - 1945-46 and was team captain once.
- Assistant coach at Michigan from 1952-53 - 1959-60
- Head Coach from 1960-61 - 1967-68
- Career record of 113-89
- 2 Final Fours including Michigan's first-ever Final Four in 1964 and finished as a NCAA Runner-Up in 1965 to John Wooden's UCLA team.
- 3 straight Big Ten Championships from 1963-64 - 1965-66 with a combined 35-7 conference record
- Recruited Cazzie Russell, Bill Buntin, Rudy Tomjanovich. All three's numbers hang in Crisler Center. Cazzie Russell was the first of two national players of the year in Michigan history.
He inherited a once-respectable program that had become a doormat--Michigan was 4-20 prior to his promotion. It wasn't pretty when he started off, either, winning 13 games in two seasons. Each year his win total kept getting higher and by his 4th year things finally worked out.
Strack's 1964 and 1965 Final Four teams kicked off the four-decade long run of Michigan making at least one Final Four. Prior to his arrival, they had only made the NCAA Tournament once.
Strack groomed his assistant and handed him the keys following the innaugural season at Crisler, the late Johnny Orr who went on to become the winningest coach in Michigan Basketball history.
Maybe Strack got to watch the game from a good seat high above the rafters.
January 26th, 2014 at 1:31 AM ^
Wasn't he seated near Belein at games as recently as last year?
January 26th, 2014 at 1:42 AM ^
January 26th, 2014 at 1:37 AM ^
January 26th, 2014 at 1:38 AM ^
January 26th, 2014 at 1:43 AM ^
January 26th, 2014 at 1:40 AM ^
I always wondered why he didn't stay on longer as our coach. He built up a powerhouse and then stepped down shortly afterwards.
RIP to a great coach.
January 26th, 2014 at 2:33 AM ^
I found this on google...
"He might have coached forever had coaches been paid at the silly-money rate they are being paid today, but in the late '60s, when he was making about $15,000 at Michigan, he saw a greater career opportunity as an athletic director. So he became UM's assistant AD for three years and arrived at Arizona in 1972, calling the shots for the greatest decade in school history: opening McKale Center, expanding Arizona Stadium, building Kindall/Sancet Stadium and moving the Wildcats from the WAC to the Pac-10."
http://azstarnet.com/sports/greg-hansen-story-of-ex-ua-ad-strack-a-good…
wonder if he ever met RR there...
January 26th, 2014 at 2:00 AM ^
Condolences to his family. Mr Strack was the head coach when I first started following Michigan basketball as a kid. Nobody really paid attention to the basketball team until the Cazzie Russell teams. Crisler may be "The House that Cazzie Built," but Dave Strack deserved credit for an assist.
January 26th, 2014 at 4:33 AM ^
You must be almost as old as Jordan Morgan.
January 26th, 2014 at 2:01 AM ^
Rest easy, Coach.
January 26th, 2014 at 2:05 AM ^
RIP and condolences to Coach Strack's family.
January 26th, 2014 at 2:13 AM ^
to the coach that ushered the Michigan thru the gateway to the modern era of College Basketball.
What he did by bringing talent such as Cazzie, Rudy T, and Bill Buntin into the Michigan program cannot be emphasized enough. Coach Strack laid the groundwork in the 60's for the following quarter-century of success--- he was the "godfather" of a line of coaches that continued on from him thru Johnny Orr, Bill Frieder and Steve Fisher. Each passed the baton on to one of their own assistants until the string ended in the 90's, but not until after each of those coaches made it to the NCAA Championship Game
January 26th, 2014 at 7:54 AM ^
Unless you mean as an assistant or motivational speaker in '89. General point taken, though.
January 26th, 2014 at 10:14 AM ^
should have worded that better. I was thinking "each coach had a team that made it to the National Championship game", but my still-drunken fingers typed it out wrong.
/now sober
January 26th, 2014 at 2:57 AM ^
Great coach + great person = Michigan man.
January 26th, 2014 at 7:19 AM ^
Someone asked the question above, but it would be interesting to know why he left right as momentum was really building after the success of the mid 1960s, but he did move on to other jobs within the University before taking the AD position at Arizona. At Arizona, he oversaw their transition to what is now the Pac-12 and also of note, he was the man who hired Fred Snowden, a rather significant hire at the time, of course.
All the same, Strack was instrumental in putting Michigan basketball on the map in the more modern era of the game. Rest in peace, Coach Strack - your contributions to Michigan are felt in the success of the program even today.
January 26th, 2014 at 8:44 AM ^
Pure speculation on my part LSA but I'd guess for largely the same reason most coaches move around (when they do so on their terms) today.
Money.
Michigan was notorious for underpaying it's coaches in general and basketball, it seems, in particular. Legend has it the reason his successor Orr left was because when discussing what type of salary Frieder would get if he left for Iowa State he said "I'll take it" because it was such a significant raise.
RIP Dave. Thank you for all you did for our school.
January 26th, 2014 at 7:25 AM ^
I'd certainly put him above Fisher on Michigan's greatest coaches list. 3 Big Ten titles to zero for Fisher is enough for me.
January 26th, 2014 at 7:30 AM ^
RIP Coach. Your program is in good hands.
January 26th, 2014 at 7:54 AM ^
For those who live in the area, this might be of interest:
http://www.huronvalleyswimclub.org/Swim/index.php?page=history
January 26th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
My wife grew up in Ann Arbor and her family were members of Huron Valley for years. I went there several times and love this background and its connection to Dave Strack.
I noticed that the first manager of HVSC was Don Dufek, which I assume was Don Dufek, Sr. His son was the Don Dufek I remember, an All-American football player at Michigan in the mid-70s (and, according to Wikipedia, played hockey for Michigan as well). Don Sr. was also a Michigan football player and team MVP in the early 50s.
January 26th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
My Father grew up in Ann Arbor as well and often claimed Dufek and Cazzie owe everything to Michigan basketball.
January 26th, 2014 at 8:29 AM ^
This was during my early years in AA. The '64 & '65 years were really fun as football went to the Rose Bowl and MBB was at its peak. The Cazzie teams were awesome and Yost Fieldhouse was a tough ticket to get. I remember during warmups how the team would line up down the center of the floor and each guy would dunk and the crowd would count them (dunking was a BIG deal in the mid-60's) ... until they hit a player that couldn't dunk and people would cheer/laugh.
Yost was AWESOME ... raised floor (like the Barn)and basket stantions that were 20 feet long holding the backboards and guide wires to the ceiling. Ahh ... brings back some tremendous memories.
Go Blue!
January 26th, 2014 at 8:44 AM ^
Here's an old article, perhaps a bit more about Cazzie and those teams instead of Strack himself, but a good read nonetheless:
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/a8502/
January 26th, 2014 at 9:15 AM ^
It was conducted in one-week increments at Concordia Lutheran college in the summers. By that time, Strack had retired as Michigan's head coach. It was Strack's camp, but the coaches included Johnny Orr (then Michigan's head coach) and George Pomey, and a contingent of Michigan GA's and former players. Fred Snowden was another camp coach, and Fred went on to be Arizona's first African-American head basketball coach when Strack went there as Athletic Director in the early '70's.
I just can't express what a genuinely nice guy Dave Strack was; and his assistant and later head coach Johnny Orr was very much like Strack.
Bill Frieder, for all of his qualities (intensity, intelligence, recruiting) was very different from his two predecessors.
There was an era in Michigan Athletics, when coaches were paid very modestly and after years of hard work on the field, would join Michigan's athletic administration and then after that became athletic directors. Bump Elliott is an example very much like Strack; and they were both very capable ambassadors of Michigan Athletics. (Bump changed Iowa forever when he hired Hayden Fry; Strack was the first Arizona AD to contact his old friend Bump at Iowa about interviewing Lute Olson as a head coach for UA. The Olson hire at Arizona occurred after Strack resigned.) Strack stayed on in Arizona after retirement; he resigned as Arizona's AD amid a minor scandal involving football, which Strack didn't much involve himself.
For any fan of Michigan basketball, our shared modern history really begins with Dave Strack.
January 26th, 2014 at 10:49 AM ^
Great accomplishments by Dave Strack, but I personally believe the greatest coach in Michigan Men's Basketball history is currently on the job.
January 26th, 2014 at 3:05 PM ^
when the Big 10 was clearly the best conference in the country and UofM was its best team. I'll add a couple of Yost Memories: black-colored, cinder floors (because it was the indoor track field, too), 2x12s mounted on cinder blocks in the areas behind the baskets to seat the overflow crowds, unbelievable fan nosie that seemed to be amplified by the closeness of the venu. I don't think it's possible to match the atmosphere that existed then.
January 26th, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^
January 26th, 2014 at 7:08 PM ^