Fast Break
Basketball
Van Breda Kolff dies in Spokane
Former college and professional basketball coach Butch van Breda Kolff, who ranks 74th on the list of winningest college coaches, has died after a long illness.
Van Breda Kolff, 84, died Wednesday afternoon at a nursing home in Spokane, his daughter, Kristina van Breda Kolff, said.
He posted a 482-272 coaching record in 28 college seasons, and was 287-316 in 10 seasons as an NBA and ABA coach. He took six teams to the NCAA Tournament and won seven conference titles.
Van Breda Kolff began his coaching career at Lafayette College from 1951-55, and also coached there from 1984-88. He coached Hofstra from 1955-62, and also from 1988-94. He was coach at Princeton from 1962-67, where one of his players was Bill Bradley. He coached the University of New Orleans from 1977-79.
In the professional ranks, he coached the Los Angeles Lakers from 1967-69, twice taking them to the NBA finals; the Detroit Pistons from 1969-72; the Phoenix Suns for part of the 1972-73 season; the Memphis Tams of the ABA from 1973-74; the New Orleans Jazz from 1974-77; and the New Orleans Pride of Women’s Basketball League from 1979-81.
Basketball
Big mouth draws fine from NBA
The NBA has fined Seattle SuperSonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon $250,000 for comments he made two weeks ago that his group didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle.
League spokesman Mark Broussard in New York confirmed the penalty Thursday morning. The comments of McClendon, an Oklahoma City energy tycoon, were at odds with commissioner David Stern’s stated hope of keeping the Sonics in Seattle.
McClendon is one of four original partners with Clay Bennett in Professional Basketball Club LLC, the Oklahoma group that purchased the Sonics and WNBA’s Storm for $350 million in July 2006. This month, McClendon told an Oklahoma City publication that the group has always hoped to move the NBA franchise to Oklahoma.
Football
Dad asked Vick to stop dogfighting
Michael Vick’s father said he asked his son to give up dogfighting, or to at least put property used in the venture in the names of others to avoid being implicated, according to a report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Also Thursday night, a report on ESPN.com cited an unidentifed source saying Vick will not admit to killing dogs or gambling on dogfights when he enters a guilty plea Monday.
In The Journal-Constitution report, Michael Boddie, who is estranged from Vick and the quarterback’s mother, also said some time around 2001 his son staged dogfights in the garage of the family home in Newport News, Va.