James McGregor

Jim McGregor
Player information
Nickname	Jolly Jim
birthday	December 30, 1921
place of birth	Portland (OR), USA
date of death	July 31, 2013
Place of death	Bellevue (WA), USA
size	173 cm
college	Minnesota
Clubs as coaches
1951–1953 Whitworth Pirates ( NAIA ) 1965–1966 New Mexico State Aggies ( NCAA ) 1969–1970 Nuova Pallacanestro Gorizia 1973–1975 Victoria Libertas Pesaro 1978–1980 Nuova Pallacanestro Gorizia 1983–1985 Perugia Basket
National team as coach
1954–1956 Italy 1958 Sweden 1959 Austria Peru 1981–1982 Colombia 00000 00000 000000000

James "Jim" McGregor (born December 30, 1921 in Portland , Oregon , † July 31, 2013 in Bellevue , Washington ) was an American basketball coach and player agent . After a short career as a coach in his home country, McGregor was coached abroad, where he coached various national teams. He was also a pioneer in placing US players as professionals in foreign teams.

Career

McGregor began studying at the University of Southern California in 1942 , but he was not accepted into the college basketball team. Instead, he was active as a middle and long-distance runner in the athletics team, in which he, however, did not celebrate any particular success. After completing the military service in World War II , he returned to study at the University of Minnesota , where he was able to achieve a degree in 1946 and then to an in his native Portland in physical education for basketball and track and field high school worked. In 1951 he got an offer to work as a coach of the college team at Whitworth College in Spokane . In the following months he was very successful with the team, but fell out with the university management because of his recruiting methods, which in his opinion undermined the academic standards of the university. The day after McGregor lost his coaching job, he was named Coach of the Year by the local sports press in Spokane.

After McGregor initially worked in the travel agency of an airline following his dismissal as a university coach , he was appointed national coach of the Italian men's team in 1954 , which he coached for two years. At the EM finals in 1955 , they finished sixth as the best Western European team, but could not qualify for the 1956 Olympic Games . After a short stint for the Greek Association, McGregor also worked as a basketball teacher in Africa. In 1958 he worked as a basketball teacher in Sweden before becoming the coach of the Austrian national team in 1959 . During this activity, McGregor was diagnosed with stomach cancer , but was successfully treated after four operations. After his recovery, he worked in Turkey in 1960, among others , before taking on a job as a trainer in Peru in 1961 . After McGregor had previously placed foreign players in particular as students at Gonzaga University in Spokane, among others , he was now increasingly active as a players' agent for US graduates. So he put together teams that he played mainly in Europe and then placed them as professionals in clubs. In the mid-1960s he worked again as a trainer in his home country, where he coached the college team Aggies of New Mexico State University in the NCAA, however, with little success. Later McGregor worked mainly for Italian club teams. Among other things, he took part in the Korać Cup with Nuova Pallacanestro Gorizia 1978/79 . He also coached the Colombian national team , which, however, as host of the 1982 World Cup , lost all six final round matches and took seventh place in their first participation in the finals.

literature

• Jim McGregor, Ron Rapoport: Called for traveling . Macmillan, 1978, ISBN 978-0-02-583350-0 (English).

Web links

• Jim Mc Gregor - Trainer profile in Legabasket Serie A (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James B. McGregor Obituary. The Oregonian , August 18, 2013, accessed October 26, 2013 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Mel Durslag: Roaming the world with a round ball and a taste for high: Odysseus With A Basketball. Sports Illustrated , November 27, 1961; archived from the original on July 18, 2012 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 (English, article). 
3. ^ ^{A b} Ian Thomsen: European Basketball Needs Imports. The New York Times , April 12, 1996, accessed October 20, 2013 . 
4. ^ ^{A b} John Blanchette: Original travel agent. The Spokesman Review , November 8, 2012, accessed October 20, 2013 . 
5. ↑ Bill Boni: Pirate Coach is Honored Twice. In: The Spokesman Review . News.Google.com , January 22, 1953, accessed October 20, 2013 (English, repro in the Google news archive ). 
6. ↑ Jerry O'Brien: Ah, Quel Homme! Oh, Quels Feet! Sports Illustrated , December 9, 1957, accessed October 20, 2013 (article). 
7. ↑ Ron Rapoport: Jim McGregor, international basketball ambassador was 91. LA Observed , August 4, 2013, accessed on October 20, 2013 (English). 
8. ^ Jim McGregor Coaching Record / College Basketball. Sports-Reference.com, accessed October 20, 2013 (NCAA college coach statistics).