http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/BREAKING-Daly-Fighting-Pancreatic-Cancer/wE8oIFfac0uenvPhu9y7HA.cspx


(WXYZ) - Chuck Daly, the longtime coach of the Detroit Pistons who won two NBA championships with the organization, has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and is currently undergoing treatment for the disease.

The cancer has also spread to his liver.

After experiencing stomach pain in January, Daly visited doctors in Florida. Tests from that visit revealed the cancer.

He then went to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, accompanied by his friend, Billy Cunningham, who played and coached in the NBA.

Daly spent three days in New York.

Additional tests were administered and Sloan-Kettering doctors confirmed the original diagnosis. Daly and the medical staff devised a plan to fight the cancer.

Since returning to Florida, Daly has undergone two rounds of chemotherapy. The prognosis is not positive, and Daly is well aware this is the ultimate fight of his life.

Daly, 78, was the Pistons coach from 1983-1992. He won 467 regular season games and led the team to world titles after the 1989 and 1990 seasons. His playoff record with the Pistons was 71-42.

Daly also was the head coach of the United States Olympic men’s basketball team in 1992, the original Dream Team. That squad, led by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, won the gold medal in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

After the Olympics, Daly took over the head coaching duties for the New Jersey Nets, leading them to the postseason in both of his two years on the sidelines.

After three years away from the sidelines, Daly returned for one final stint in the NBA, coaching the Orlando Magic from 1997-99.

Daly was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on May 9, 1994 and the number “2” was retired by the Pistons to signify the number of championships he won with the team.

Daly has regularly contributed to WXYZ’s coverage of the NBA and the Pistons, most notably on Channel 7’s pregame and postgame shows prior to the NBA Finals in 2004 and 2005.

He last appeared with Don Shane as an analyst for WXYZ’s coverage of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Pistons and Boston Celtics on May 24, 2008.

Born July 20, 1930 in St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, Daly attended St. Bonaventure University from 1948-49 before transferring to Bloomsburg University for his final three collegiate years.

Before his 14-year NBA coaching career, Daly was the head coach for a number of college basketball teams, including Boston College and the University of Pennsylvania.

He entered the NBA as an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers in 1978, serving under head coach Billy Cunningham for three seasons before assuming the head coaching duties in Cleveland.

Stay with Channel 7 and wxyz.com as we gather reaction from the basketball community regarding this troubling news.

Color me depressed.

Here's something uplifting that came out recently, and almost certainly the way that Daddy Rich will want to be remembered:

http://www.oleantimesherald.com/articles/2009/02/09/sports/doc499075888714c674388846.txt


In the spring of 1963, I was a high school basketball coach in Punxsutawney, Pa. The NCAA Final Four was held in Louisville that year. Since I had never been to a Final Four, I was thrilled when I received a call from an attorney friend, Jesse Long, inviting me on his private plane to Louisville. He said, “I can get you to the Final Four, but I cannot help you with tickets or a hotel room.”

I took Jesse up on his offer, somehow found a place to stay, and bought a scalped ticket for the championship game in Freedom Hall. That was the year Loyola of Chicago upset Cincinnati in a classic Final Four contest.

I saw it all from the last row behind the basket up in the nosebleed section - the worst seat in the house.

I took the whole game in, had the time of my life and flew back home on Jesse’s plane.

I had been writing letters to various college coaches for years hoping to move up in the coaching ranks from high school to college. After the Final Four that spring, Fred Shabel, an assistant to Vic Bubas at Duke University, left to become the head coach at the University of Connecticut. I wrote a letter to Coach Bubas and applied for the assistant’s job. I had never met Vic, and I knew it was the longest of long shots.

At the end of May, Vic invited me down for an interview. We met for four hours talking basketball, and later he took me to a social event. I’m sure it was to get a read on how I would handle myself.

I went back home not knowing what sort of impression I had made on Coach Bubas.

One day at school they came and got me out of class for a phone call in the principal’s office. I had never had a phone call at school before. I picked up the phone and it was Vic Bubas who said, “Chuck, how would you like to be a Duke Blue Devil?”

I was ecstatic and accepted the job right away.

I loved my new job at Duke. I was on the road a lot scouting and recruiting. I coached the freshmen and helped Vic with the varsity. We had a terrific season ripping through the NCAA tournament and ended up in the Final Four, played in Kansas City. We got to the final game and lost to UCLA, which was the first of Coach John Wooden’s 10 NCAA titles.

In March 1963, I bought a scalper’s ticket and sat in the last row of the upper deck of the Final Four. One year later, I was sitting next to Vic Bubas helping coach the Final Four championship game. I went from the worst seat in the house to the best! If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. There’s always hope. Never fear moving up the ladder.

T&P Chuck

R.I.P. Chuck D.

R.I.P. Chuck D.

Ehhhhhhhhh........