Chuck Daly, NBA Olympic coach, dies at 78

by Amy Judd | May 9, 2009 at 08:25 am

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Chuck Daly, the famed NBA and Olympic Coach, who coached the Dream Team to Olympic gold in 1992, died today at age 78 from pancreatic cancer.

He died with his family by his side at his home in Jupiter, Florida. He coached such basketball legends as Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and Dennis Rodman.

"It's a players' league. They allow you to coach them or they don't," Daly once said. "Once they stop allowing you to coach, you're on your way out."

Daly was voted one of the 10 greatest coaches of the NBA's first half-century in 1996, two years after being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the first coach to win both NBA and Olympic titles.

"I think Chuck understood people as well as basketball," Dumars told The Associated Press in 1995. "It's a people business."

He was very well respected and liked in the basketball world, and is thought of especially for the gold medal win in Barcelona in 1992 with Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley.