Gregg Popovich
Gregg Popovich ( born January 28, 1949 in East Chicago, Indiana ) is an American basketball coach with Serbian ancestors.
Popovich made at the United States Air Force Academy, where he also played four years in basketball team in 1970 with a degree in Soviet Studies. As a senior (fourth season), he was the team captain and top points scorer. After graduating Popovich served five years in the military. During this time he traveled through Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces basketball team.
1973 Popovich returned to the Air Force Academy as an assistant coach back. He stayed there for six years, during which he also passed his Masters in Physical Education and Sports Sciences at the University of Denver.
In 1979 he was appointed head coach of Pomona - Pitzer in Claremont (California ), where he spent the next eight years. 1985/86 he led the team to the first Conference Championship in 68 years and the NCAA Division III Tournament.
Gregg Popovich joined in July 1988 in the NBA, where he began working as an assistant coach under Larry Brown with the San Antonio Spurs. In the summer of 1992, he was appointed assistant coach under Don Nelson at Golden State Warriors.
On 31 May 1994, Popovich Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager of the San Antonio Spurs; a job he at only eight years later, R. C. Buford handed over on 1 July 2002.
Since 1996, he coached the Spurs head coach and led them in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007 to four NBA championships. In the season 2002/ 03 and 2011/12 season he was voted coach of the year. On 2 March 2006, he celebrated his 500th against the Dallas Mavericks victory as coach of the Spurs ( at 245 defeats).
With a win rate of 68 % ( 847 wins to 399 losses) Popovich is one of the most successful coaches in the NBA history. Among other things, he led the Spurs 13 seasons in a row to 50 or more victories. This was surpassed the longest series of this kind ( Los Angeles Lakers between 1979/80 and 1990 /91). In addition, managed the Spurs in the 2012/13 season for the sixteenth consecutive year in the NBA playoffs - and make them the longest current streak in the NBA.
Popovich worked as an assistant coach for the men's selection of the United States from 2002 to 2004 (for example, at the 2002 World Championships, the FIBA America Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in 2003 and the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 ).
Gregg and his wife Erin have two children.