Paul Westhead
American basketball coach (born 1939)
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Key Takeaways
- Paul William Westhead (born February 21, 1939) is an American former basketball coach.
- Westhead won titles in both the NBA and WNBA, and he is also remembered as the coach of the Loyola Marymount University (LMU) men's basketball team.
- " He was nicknamed "The Professor" due to his former career as an English teacher prior to coaching and his tendency to quote Shakespeare and other literary sources while coaching.
- 1960s and 1970s St.
- Joseph's under head coach Jack McKinney, who became an assistant at the school during Westhead's senior year.
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Source summary
WikipediaPaul William Westhead (born February 21, 1939) is an American former basketball coach. He was the head coach for three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and an assistant for four others, and also coached in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), American Basketball Association (ABA), and Japan Basketball League (JBL). In his first year as an NBA head coach, he led a rookie Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers to the 1980 NBA Finals, which they won in six games for the team's first title in eight years. Westhead won titles in both the NBA and WNBA, and he is also remembered as the coach of the Loyola Marymount University (LMU) men's basketball team. Westhead is known for an unorthodox, run-and-gun style called "The System." He was nicknamed "The Professor" due to his former career as an English teacher prior to coaching and his tendency to quote Shakespeare and other literary sources while coaching. He attended Saint Joseph's University.
Westhead's first assistant coaching role was at St. Joseph's under head coach Jack McKinney, who became an assistant at the school during Westhead's senior year.
Westhead started his coaching career at Cheltenham High School in suburban Philadelphia; in 1968, he coached the Panthers to a loss in the Pennsylvania state championship. One of his players at Cheltenham was future University of Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage.
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