Sport(s) Basketball 1960–1968 Michigan 1943–1946 Michigan Name Dave Strack | 1948–1959 Michigan (assistant) Role Basketball Coach 1959–1960 Idaho Education Shortridge High School | |
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Born March 2, 1923
Indianapolis, Indiana ( 1923-03-02 ) Died January 25, 2014, Tucson, Arizona, United States | ||
Dave strack a simple tribute
David H. Strack (March 2, 1923 – January 25, 2014) was an American athletic director for the University of Arizona and head basketball coach of the University of Michigan. He was inducted to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Early life
Strack grew up in Indiana. He graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, Indiana where he was the basketball team's captain and MVP in 1941 and named to the Indiana All-Star team. Strack played basketball for the University of Michigan (UM), earning MVP honors in 1943 and 1946.
Basketball career
He briefly played professionally for the Indianapolis Kautskys of the NBL. He returned to UM and served as an assistant basketball coach from 1948 to 1959. Strack left to become the head coach at the University of Idaho for one year.
The following year, he was hired as the head coach for men's basketball at the University of Michigan and served from 1960 to 1968. He led the Wolverines to three Big 10 conference titles (1964, 1965, 1966) and to the 1965 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament title game. Following his team's 24–4 record and runner-up finish in 1965, Strack was named the UPI College Basketball Coach of the Year.
Athletic director
In 1968, Strack became the University of Michigan's business manager, then the associate athletic director in 1970.
Strack resigned in January 1972 to become the athletic director of the University of Arizona. Strack's tenure at Arizona included the hiring of the first African-American head coach of a major university (basketball coach Fred Snowden) and the school's transition into Pac-10 athletic conference. In 1980, Strack was criticized following a scandal involving the football program's use of an athletic slush fund for improper payments to coaches, alumni and recruits. Strack resigned in July 1982 to become a professor of physical education.
In 1992, Strack was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
Personal life
In 1947, while attending the University of Michigan, Strack met and married Ruth Ann Mayer. They briefly lived in East Lansing, Michigan before moving to Ann Arbor to raise their five children. When he took the Arizona athletic director job, they moved to Tucson for his tenure and then to Prescott upon his retirement. They later returned to Tucson, where she died in 2011. Strack, aged 90, died of pneumonia in 2014.