Weber State University Athletics
Dick Motta receives NBA Lifetime Achievement Award
6/10/2015 10:35:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Former Weber State men's basketball head coach and longtime NBA head coach Dick Motta was honored with the 2015 Chuck Daly NBA Lifetime Achievement Award. Motta, 83, was given the award Tuesday prior to Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
Motta had a 25-year career as a head coach in the NBA and guided the Washington Bullets to the 1978 NBA Championship. He won 935 games in his career in the NBA with Chicago, Washington, Dallas, Sacramento and Denver. He was named the 1971 NBA Coach of the Year with the Bulls. Motta ranks sixth all-time in regular season games coached and is 12th all-time in coaching victories.
The Grace, Idaho native graduated from Utah State and then served in the U.S. Air Force before beginning his coaching career at Grace High School.
Motta was Weber State's first head coach when the school became a four-year and Division I school in 1962. He spent eight total years at the school, two as a junior college coach starting in 1960, and six years as the head coach at the Division I level. In those six seasons, he compiled a 120-33 overall record, and still ranks third in winning percentage in Big Sky history. In five seasons in the Big Sky he posted a 40-15 record and won three conference titles. He was named Big Sky Coach of the Year in 1965 after leading the Wildcats to their first conference title. In 1968, he led the Wildcats to another conference title and their first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.
He left Weber State in 1968 to become the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, having never seen an NBA game before. He is one of very few coaches in NBA history, and probably the most successful, that never played basketball in high school, college or the pros.