John Chaney (born January 21, 1932 in Jacksonville, Florida) is a well known American college basketball coach. He began his career after graduating from Bethune-Cookman College and spending some time in the Eastern Professional Basketball League. Chaney's first team was at the middle school level in 1963. He moved to Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia where he had an impressive 63-23 record. Chaney then moved to college basketball.
The first collegiate position held by John Chaney was at Division II Cheyney State. At Cheyney, Chaney was 225-56. He won his only national title in 1978.
After a decade at Cheyney, Chaney moved to Division I Temple University in Philadelphia. Chaney built a reputation as a tough coach who always demanded excellence on and off the court. He is well known for his 6 AM practices, unique match-up zone defense, and winning basketball teams.
Chaney has won a total of 711 career games as of December 12, 2004. He has taken Temple to the NCAA tournament 17 times. His 1987-88 Owls team entered the NCAA tournament ranked #1 in the country, and he has reached the Elite Eight on five different occasions. He was consensus national coach of the year in 1988. In 2001, Chaney was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
On December 20, 2004, Chaney became the fifth active coach and 19th all-time to appear on the sidelines for 1,000 games, joining Lou Henson (New Mexico State, Illinois), Bob Knight (Army, Indiana, Texas Tech), Eddie Sutton (Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma State), and Hugh Durham (Florida State, Georgia, Jacksonville). With the win over Princeton that night, the coach now owns a career record of 724-297.
Looking back on his career that spans four decades and now 1,000 games, Chaney downplayed the numbers. “It’s about names and faces, the people you meet. That’s what it means to me.”
On March 13, 2006, Chaney announced his retirement from coaching at a press conference, to be effective after Temple's play in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). Assistant coach Dan Leibovitz will serve as acting head coach for those games, as per Chaney's request.
