NBA, Olympic coach Chuck Daly dies at 78

Charles Jerome "Chuck" Daly died. Daly was an American basketball head coach. He is famous for coaching the Detroit Pistons for nine years, winning consecutive NBA championships in 1989 and 1990, and for coaching the gold medal-winning basketball Dream Team in the 1992 Summer Olympics. During his 14-year NBA career, Daly also coached the Cleveland Cavaliers, New Jersey Nets and Orlando Magic. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on May 9, 1994. (July 20, 1930 - May 9, 2009[1])

The Detroit Pistons, a club that had never recorded back-to-back winning seasons, hired Chuck Daly in 1983. The Pistons got into the playoffs every year he was there and reached the NBA finals three years in a row, winning two consecutive championships, in 1989 and 1990. Daly, who retired from coaching the first time, after the 1993-94 season with the New Jersey Nets, coached a total of 14 NBA seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, New Jersey Nets and Orlando Magic. He compiled a 564-379 (.598) career record, 13th best among all coaches and ninth best by percentage. On the combined NBA/ABA victory list, Daly's 564 wins places him 17th all-time. His 74-48 playoff record, which includes back-to-back NBA championships ranks fourth best in NBA history by wins and eighth best by percentage (.607). He is the only Hall of Fame coach to win both an NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal. In the strictest sense, Chuck Daly is a player's coach. His success at all levels of competition has been built around taking diverse personalities and creating a harmonious, successful team. Daly had started his coaching career at Punxsutawney High School, the home of the famous ground hog Phil, in Pennsylvania. He was a high school coach for seven years, then became an assistant at Duke University. He spent two years as head coach at Boston College, before going to the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. Daly guided Penn to four Ivy League championships and two second-place finishes in six years. He compiled a 151-62 record in eight college seasons, including four straight 20-win seasons at Penn. He died Saturday morning in Jupiter, Fla., with his family by his side, the Pistons said. The team announced in March the Hall of Fame coach was being treated for pancreatic cancer.
In 1978, Daly joined the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers as an assistant coach. During the 1981 season, he was hired as head coach by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but was fired before the season ended. He then returned to the 76ers as a broadcaster until he was hired in 83' by the Pistons. He gained worldwide notoriety as coach of the famed Olympic Dream Team, but long before Barcelona and the gold medal, Daly had established himself as one of the game's premier coaches. Daly was coach of the U. S. "Dream Team" that swept to an easy gold medal at the 1992 Olympics. He had resigned from the Detroit job and was hired by the NBA's New Jersey Nets that fall. After two seasons with the Nets, Daly retired. However, he returned to coaching in 1997 with the Orlando Magic. Daly spent two more seasons in Orlando before retiring permanently at the end of the 1998-99 season.

Daly died of pancreatic cancer on May 9, 2009. He had been diagnosed with the disease the previous March.

Dominick "Dom" DeLuise died he was 75

Dominick "Dom" DeLuise died he was 75. DeLuise was an American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, and chef. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur, and the father of actor, writer, director Peter DeLuise, and actors David DeLuise and Michael DeLuise.
(August 1, 1933 – May 4, 2009)

DeLuise was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Vincenza "Jennie" (née DeStefano), a homemaker, and John DeLuise, who was a civil servant. DeLuise graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. He later attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.


DeLuise generally appeared in comedic parts, although an early appearance (in the movie Fail-Safe as a nervous enlisted airman) showed a possible broader range. His first acting credit was as a regular performer in the television show The Entertainers in 1964. In the 1970s and 1980s, he often co-starred with Burt Reynolds; together they appeared in the films The Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II, Smokey and the Bandit II, The End, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and All Dogs Go to Heaven. DeLuise was the host of the television show Candid Camera from 1991 to 1992.

TV producer Greg Garrison hired DeLuise to appear as a specialty act on the popular Dean Martin show. DeLuise ran through his "Dominick the Great" routine, a riotous example of a magic act gone wrong, with host Martin as a bemused volunteer from the audience. Dom's catch phrase in broken Italian dialect, No Applause Necessary, Sava to the End. The show went so well that DeLuise was soon a regular on Martin's program, participating in both songs and sketches. Garrison also featured DeLuise in his own hour-long comedy specials for ABC. (Martin was often just off-camera when these were taped, and his distinctive laugh can be heard loud and clear.)

DeLuise was probably best known as a regular in Mel Brooks's films. He appeared in The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, History of the World, Part I, Spaceballs & Robin Hood: Men in Tights. In Silent Movie (1976), Brooks plays a film director and his strange friends, DeLuise (as "Dom Bell") and Marty Feldman, struggle to produce the first major silent film in forty years. Brooks' late wife, actress Anne Bancroft, directed Dom in Fatso (1980). He also had a cameo in Johnny Dangerously as the Pope, and in Jim Henson's The Muppet Movie as a wayward Hollywood talent agent who comes across Kermit the Frog singing "The Rainbow Connection" in the film's opening scene.



DeLuise exhibited his comedic talents while playing the speaking part of the jailer Frosch in the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera. In the production, while the singing was in German, the spoken parts were in English.

An avid cook and author of several books on cooking, in recent years he appeared as a regular contributor to a syndicated home improvement radio show, On The House with The Carey Brothers, giving listeners tips on culinary topics. He also wrote several children's books.



DeLuise died in his sleep around 6 p.m. on May 4, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. He was hospitalized at the time, suffering from kidney failure and respiratory problems.DeLuise was 75 years old.

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