Hall of Fame basketball coach George Raveling, who died Sept. 1 at age 88, got his start coaching a CYO team of seventh and eighth graders at St. Denis School in Havertown.
Raveling went on to coach in college for more than 30 years and won Olympic gold as an assistant for Team USA.
He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.
Those St. Denis team members, now in their 70s, remember Raveling as a “gentleman and a good person,” writes Matt Breen for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Raveling, who played at Villanova University from 1957 to 1960, happened to give a talk at a Little League banquet and inspired the St. Denis kids, who needed a coach for the upcoming basketball season.
“We knew nothing of him until he spoke at that banquet,” said Mike Cawley. “We knew he was a basketball player. So just on a whim, we went up and asked him.”
Raveling agreed to help the boys in the fall of 1962, even though he had never coached before.
He coached St. Denis for two seasons before returning to Villanova as an assistant,
Read more about George Raveling and his connection to St. Denis in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
