Dave Gavitt’s basketball career included impressive accomplishments as a player, a coach, and an administrator.
 
The founder of the Big East Conference, former president of USA Basketball and a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1959, the late Dave Gavitt was a member of the last two Big Green men’s basketball Ivy League championship teams in 1958 and ’59.
 
During his Dartmouth career, Gavitt scored 320 points and grabbed 128 rebounds as the Big Green won 62 games and lost just 18 in his three seasons. The point guard earned a reputation as one of the top sixth men in the country, leading Dartmouth in assists, helping the team advance to the East Regional final during his junior campaign and returning to the NCAA Tournament the following year.
 
After serving two years as an assistant coach at Providence, he returned to his alma mater in 1966-67 as the freshman coach, only to be thrust into the head coaching role of the varsity team when the legendary Doggie Julian suffered a stroke in the middle of the season. The following season he was named the New England Coach of the Year by both United Press International and the New England Basketball Writers’ Association for his efforts in rebuilding the Big Green team.
 
Gavitt returned to Providence in 1969 as the Friars head coach, a position he held for 10 seasons while compiling a .713 winning percentage (209-84) that still ranks as the best in program history. Two years later, he became the school’s athletics director, then led the basketball team to the Final Four in 1973, one of five years that Providence played in the NCAA Tournament during his tenure. He also served on the NCAA Division I Basketball Committee for four years (1980-84), chairing the committee the last two of those years when the tournament expanded to 64 teams and signed its first contract with CBS.
 
The driving force behind the formation of the Big East Conference in 1979, Gavitt served as its first commissioner until 1990 as the league established itself as one of the nation’s premier conferences. He was selected as the head coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Basketball team, which did not compete in Moscow due to the U.S. boycott. But during his term as president of USA Basketball, Gavitt oversaw the introduction of NBA players onto the U.S. roster, including the Dream Team in 1992.
 
Gavitt went to become the CEO of the Boston Celtics in 1990, then the team’s Vice Chairman of the Board in 1994. From 1995-97, he also served as President of the NCAA Foundation.
 
An inaugural member of Dartmouth’s Wearers of the Green in 1984, Gavitt was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
 
Gavitt, who passed away in 2011 at the age of 73, had two sons with his wife, Julie — Dan and Corey. Dan is currently the NCAA senior vice president of basketball after serving seven years as the associate commissioner of the Big East Conference, and before that, the athletics director at Bryant University.