Pete Newell Passes Away At 93
Nov 17, 2008 5:33 PM EST
Pete Newell, who led the California Golden Bears to a national championship in 1959, died Monday at the age of 93.
Mr. Newell died at the Del Mar, San Diego County home of Earl Shultz, one of the players from his 1959 team. Shultz had served as Newell's caretaker for the past few years. Mr. Newell had surgery in 2005 for the removal of a malignant tumor from a lung.
Newell was a big influence on the entire game, most notably Bobby Knight.
http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ar...es_away_at_93/
Damn, R.I.P.
The Pete Newell Big Man Camp was probably the best summer basketball camp in existence. Almost every prominent bigman over the years went to it and he taught footwork, post moves and how to hold position.
Sean Elliott gives him credit for reteaching him the game after injuries slowed him during the middle of his career.
How many big men owe their success to him. RIP
RIP. Kermit Washington gave him credit for teaching him how to stick in the NBA. Lots of guys owe their careers to this guy.
Olajuwan and Yao both had an influence from Pete Newell. RIP Pete.
Ah, .
Damn, dude is a basketball legend. RIP Pete.
Never heard of him until today.
From what i just read, he meant lot to the game.
R.I.P
+1 I know the Blazers have sent a lot of their big men to his camp over the years. R.I.P.
Well, now Wilt and Mikan can go back to practice.
One of the best ever.
November 18, 2008
Sports of The Times
In the Low Post, a Life’s Work for All to See
By HARVEY ARATON
I never met Pete Newell but I knew his work well, as did millions of basketball fans in the United States and across the world. It was on display for decades in N.B.A. arenas, most notably in the bodies of the game’s most celebrated big men, from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Shaquille O’Neal, and others not nearly as famous.
Newell, the Hall of Fame coach who died Monday at 93, always loved to talk about the centers that flocked to the big man camp he became known for in the later stages of his career. “We have an adage at camp,” he said in one of several telephone interviews we did. “The quality of your shot will depend on the quality of your footwork.”
Newell would say, in a nuts , without reservation, that that was the difference between Hakeem Olajuwon winning two N.B.A. championships with the Houston Rockets and Patrick Ewing’s failing to win one with the Knicks. In the early years of Ewing’s career, the Knicks begged their franchise center to attend Newell’s camp to better learn the fundamentals of interior play. They knew how much Newell had helped the young Bernard King become a nearly unstoppable force on the low post, a small forward who could launch his turnaround jump shot at will because his balance and footwork were sublime.
Ewing steadfastly refused. The Newell camp was in the west. Ewing was an East Coast guy, part of the Georgetown cabal. Great as he was, Ewing never did develop great foot skills in the post, often taking the path of least resistance, relying on his athleticism to get to the basket, or release his shots, until those natural gifts faded.
The difference between Ewing and Olajuwon, who did attend Newell’s camps, was obvious when they squared off in the 1994 finals.
“Offensively, Ewing, like most centers, is a jump-shooter,” Newell said when I called him before Olajuwon took on O’Neal in the finals one year later. “Ewing’s good, but if he learned how to use his body, he’d be even better.”
Basketball’s pivot professor — who won an N.C.A.A. le at the University of California in 1959 and coached the United States to an Olympic gold medal one year later — tended to blame the decline of traditional low-post play on college zones that would inhibit the center’s development. He said that when Olajuwon was first sent to him: “He had no moves. What he had was ambidexterity of the feet. I remember asking him, ‘Who taught you to move your feet like that?’ He said, ‘Coach, no one teach me. I play soccer.’ ”
But Olajuwon — like O’Neal, who came later — was described as an eager learner, an honor student. Both became adept not only at creating opportunities for themselves, but recognizing double teams early and making opposing defenses pay with quick passes out.
“It’s like being an N.F.L. quarterback,” said Newell, whose camp began unofficially in the early 1970s when, as general manager of the Lakers, he drafted Kermit Washington, a bull-in-a-china shop power forward out of American University. Washington went to Newell for some offensive tips and such was the camp’s humble origin, five August days of instruction, no scrimmages, jump shots or tuition.
Who can say how Knicks history would have changed had Ewing gotten on a plane when the franchise elders begged him to? Or for that matter, if Eddy Curry had been born a lot sooner?
Who's going to run the big man camps now? One of his former students? Kareem?
Dave Odom?
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