About Dick Motta
John Richard Motta (born September 3, 1931) is an American former basketball coach whose career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) spanned 25 years. Motta coached the Washington Bullets to the 1978 NBA Championship, and he won the 1971 NBA Coach of the Year Award with the Chicago Bulls. Motta is eighth all-time with 1,952 games as coach, while ranking 13th in wins and fourth in losses; he has the most wins of eligible coaches not currently inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In 25 seasons as a coach, he reached the postseason fourteen times. Known as a strict disciplinarian with high expectations for his players, Motta developed a reputation for putting together well-conditioned, tough, physical teams. He was known for his eccentric personality and fiery temper, which included throwing his jacket at a referee, kicking a basketball into the stands and throwing a dollar bill onto the court and demanding it to play after a GM traded one of his players for cash considerations. He retired from coaching in 1997 and ran a bed and breakfast with his wife in Bear Lake, Idaho. Under the direction of Motta and assistant coach Phil Johnson, Weber State won three Big Sky Conference championships (1965, 1966, 1968). He once said in an interview that winning the state championship (AA) at Grace in 1959 was his greatest thrill as a coach, even topping the NBA championship he won two decades later. It did not translate to playoff success, as the Bulls won just one playoff series (1974) in that span.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.