Joe Vancisin coached at Yale for 19 seasons, leading the Bulldogs to two Ivy League titles and a pair of NCAA tournament appearances. He is the second winningest coach in school history with 206 career victories. Among his notable accomplishments was leading the Elis to the championship of Hawaii’s Rainbow Classic, defeating heavily favored LSU and Pete Maravich in the final game. Vancisin left Yale in 1975 to become the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) executive director—a role in which he served for 17 years until 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. He received the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, which is the highest and most prestigious honor presented by the hall other than enshrinement. He is also a member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, to which he was inducted as a contributor in 2011.

Vancisin was also a standout Ivy League athlete, competing in basketball and baseball at Dartmouth. He was the starting point guard on Dartmouth’s 1944 Eastern Intercollegiate Championship team that reached the NCAA championship game. He also coached at Dartmouth, Michigan and Minnesota before landing his first and only head coaching gig at Yale.