As a younger man, he stood subsequent to Martin Luther King Jr. as he delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. As a university basketball coach, he blazed a path for Black coaches and gamers. As an govt, he was instrumental in signing Michael Jordan to his groundbreaking endorsement cope with Nike.
George Raveling had an impression that stretched far past basketball, the game which he final coached three many years in the past at USC. He grew to become a revered determine within the recreation, not for the variety of wins he gathered over his profession, however for his position as a mentor to many.
Raveling, 88, died Monday after a battle with most cancers, his household introduced.
“There aren’t any phrases to completely seize what George meant to his household, pals, colleagues, former gamers, and assistants — and to the world,” the household mentioned in an announcement. “He can be profoundly missed, but his aura, vitality, divine presence, and timeless knowledge reside on in all these he touched and remodeled.”
Raveling coached at USC from 1986 to 1994, the primary Black coach to take the helm of the Trojans basketball program. Over his first 4 seasons on the college, Raveling didn’t expertise a lot success, profitable simply 38 of USC’s 116 video games over that stretch.
Raveling discovered his stride within the second half of his tenure, taking the Trojans to 2 straight NCAA tournaments and two NITs after that. However his total report at USC by no means broke .500 (115-118). In September 1994, Raveling was in a critical automotive accident that finally led him to retire. He suffered 9 damaged ribs and a collapsed lung and fractured his pelvis and collarbone.
After his teaching profession, Raveling joined Nike because the director of grassroots basketball, later rising to the position of director of worldwide basketball.
However his greatest contribution at Nike got here out of his relationship with Jordan, whom Raveling had coached as an assistant with the U.S. nationwide group on the 1984 Olympics. Jordan, whose cope with Nike despatched the model into a brand new stratosphere, credited Raveling for making it occur. Within the foreword for Raveling’s ebook, Jordan referred to as him “a mentor”.
“If not for George, there could be no Air Jordan,” Jordan wrote.
Throughout the basketball world, related plaudits got here pouring in Tuesday in mild of Raveling’s loss of life.
Eric Musselman, USC’s present basketball coach, mentioned Raveling was “not solely a Corridor of Fame basketball thoughts however an incredible one who paved the way in which on and off the courtroom.”
Former Villanova coach Jay Wright wrote on social media that Raveling was “the best human being, inspiring mentor, most loyal alum and a considerate loving buddy.”
Raveling grew up in Washington D.C., throughout a time of segregation and hardship. His household lived in a two-room condo above a grocery retailer, the place they shared a toilet with 4 different households on the identical flooring. His father died immediately when he was 9. His mom suffered a psychological well being disaster a couple of years later and spent most of her remaining years in a psychiatric hospital. Raveling left dwelling at 14 to attend a boarding college.
It was at St. Michaels, a largely white boarding college in Pennsylvania, that Raveling first began enjoying basketball. He earned a scholarship at Villanova, the place he grew to become a captain and later an assistant coach.
However the faculty expertise, he later mentioned, had an much more profound impression on Raveling.
“I’ve at all times felt like a sprinter who’d slipped on the beginning field and was 20 yards behind all people — I’ve been in a mad sprint to meet up with all people ever since,” Raveling instructed The Occasions in 1994. “My mother labored two jobs after I was a child. There have been no books in our home. No person envisioned that I’d graduate from faculty. Nobody even inspired me to go to school.”
He’d spend the remainder of his life, it appears, attempting to make up for misplaced time.
Raveling was standing just some ft away from King on the Nationwide Mall in Washington D.C. in 1963 as he delivered his famed “I Have A Dream” speech. King really handed Raveling his copy of the historic speech instantly after he completed.
For many years, Raveling saved it tucked within a ebook, earlier than recounting the story to a journalist. In accordance with Sports activities Illustrated, a collector later supplied Raveling $3 million for his copy of the speech. However he declined and donated it as a substitute to Villanova.
George Raveling was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2015.
(Charles Krupa / Related Press)
Raveling pioneered a path that few Black coaches ever had by means of his profession. He was the primary Black coach within the historical past of the Atlantic Coast Convention when he began as an assistant in 1969. Three years later, at Washington State, he grew to become the primary Black coach to guide a Pac-8 (now Pac-12) Convention basketball group.
He coached at Iowa from 1983-86 earlier than being employed at USC. On the time, the Trojans had a roster that included Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, who have been coming off their freshman season. Raveling gave the gamers a agency deadline to inform him in the event that they deliberate to stay on the group and after they didn’t he revoked their scholarships. Each went on to star at Loyola Marymount.
Raveling was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2015. However as a “contributor”, not as a coach. Even whereas he was teaching, Raveling appeared to know that his position meant greater than that.
“Successful basketball video games simply helps you retain your job,” he instructed The Occasions in 1994. “However maintaining your job helps you’re employed with these youngsters about the actual challenges of life, which all occur away from the courtroom. I do know there’s an infinite demand round right here to win. However I don’t need somebody to ask me what I completed in my life and for me to say that I gained this quantity of video games or took a group to some match.
“If all I can say is that I taught a child the right way to shoot a bounce shot, properly, that’s not ok. These youngsters come out of underprivileged, inner-city areas, and I’m simply losing my time if I haven’t put one thing of substance into their lives.”
