Dartmouth Grad Vancisin Elected to Basketball Hall of Fame

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Joe Vancisin, a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1944, has been elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame along with seven other college basketball greats.

Virginia's Ralph Sampson and North Carolina's James Worthy headline the Class of 2011 along with coaches Bob Knight and Eddie Sutton, players Cazzie Russell and Chris Mullin and contributor Eddie Einhorn.

The Class of 2011 will be inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011, at the Midland Theatre in Kansas City as part of a three-day celebration of college basketball. The Hall of Fame is located in the College Basketball Experience, a world-class entertainment facility that provides a multi-faceted interactive experience for fans of the game. On Nov. 21-22, Missouri, California, Georgia and Notre Dame will compete at Sprint Center in the CBE Classic.

Vancisin's career in basketball covered more than 54 years as a player, coach and administrator. The Bridgeport, Conn., native was the captain of the state and New England championship team as a senior at Bassick High, was selected to the all-state and All-New England teams and was recognized as Connecticut's most outstanding scholastic player.

At Dartmouth, he played both basketball and baseball and was a starting guard on the 1943-44 basketball team that advanced to the NCAA championship game, falling in overtime to the Utah Utes, 42-40. Dartmouth coach Ozzie Cowles persuaded Vancisin to remain to coach the freshman team and, after one season, he enlisted in the Air Force. After being discharged, Vancisin followed Cowles once again, serving as an assistant coach at Michigan, helping the Wolverines win the Big Ten title in 1948. He then moved on to Minnesota for seven seasons (1949 to 1956) as a basketball and baseball assistant coach as the Golden Gophers captured both the Big Ten and NCAA baseball championships in 1955.

Vancisin took over at Yale in 1956-57 and promptly led the Bulldogs to the first official Ivy League title. Yale then lost to North Carolina 90-74 in the NCAA Tournament at Madison Square Garden. The Bulldogs returned to the NCAA Tournament in 1961-62 and shared the Ivy title in 1962-63, but fell to Princeton in a playoff game.

After posting a 206-242 record as the Bulldogs' head coach over 19 seasons, Vancisin left Yale in 1975 to become the NABC's executive director for 17 years before his retirement in 1992. Under his leadership, the NABC debuted its college all-star game at the NCAA Final Four, elected its first African-American president in Georgetown's John Thompson and adopted a code of ethics.

Vancisin traveled extensively giving clinics around the world and was a member of two U.S. Olympic basketball staffs — on the gold medal-winning team headed by Dean Smith in 1976 and with the 1980 team, coached by another Dartmouth graduate, Dave Gavitt '59.

Vancisin was an active member of the NABC, served on the board of directors and was the NABC president in 1974. He succeeded Bill Wall as NABC executive director in 1975 and was the recipient of the John Bunn Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993.

“It is always a goal of the selection committee to honor the game's great innovators and players, and every year as we look at the potential candidates, we are humbled by the way they played, coached and contributed to the great game of college basketball,” said Reggie Minton, former Dartmouth head coach, Deputy Executive Director of the NABC and chair of the Hall of Fame selection panel.

In 2006 the first class was inducted into the newly formed National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. That class included the game's inventor, James Naismith, and possibly its greatest coach in John Wooden. Since that time, four more classes have traveled to Kansas City for a weekend of festivities. Those classes have included the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Danny Manning, Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson.

Portions courtesy of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, Yale Sports Publicity and the Ivy League

Schedules