Today we learned of the passing of Rollie Massimino, the coach of the 1985 Villanova Wildcats, a team which did what no one thought they could- defeat Patrick Ewing and the mighty Georgetown Hoyas.
Coach Massimino had been coaching at Keiser University, an NAIA school located in West Palm Beach, Fla., for the last 11 seasons. They announced his passing on Twitter.
KeiserUniversity on Twitter
Keiser University Mourns the Loss of College Basketball Legend Coach Rollie Massimino https://t.co/4XPC2PFeL0
Massimino was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 for a career in which he won 816 games over 41 seasons as a coach. He began his career at Stony Brook and also coached at UNLV and Cleveland State. But it was at Villanova, where he won 355 games during his 19 years at the helm of the Wildcats, where he left his biggest imprint on the world of college basketball.
The New Jersey native began his journey on the basketball sidelines in 1959 as an assistant high school basketball coach and for the next 58 years, he helped coach boys into men across the country.
RIP Coach.
