We were really sorry to hear that former Temple coach John Chaney passed away Friday. We always admired him.
He was born in 1932 and coached from 1963 to 2006. He started coaching a junior high team then moved on to Philadelphia’s famed Simon Gratz High. From there he took the Cheyney State job in 1972 and six years later won the D-II national championship, the same month that Duke made a surprise trip to the 1978 Final Four.
In 1982, he took the Temple job and moved from being a very good but somewhat unknown coach to being an icon.