Nashville Business College
| Sport(s) | Women's AAU basketball |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born | July 22, 1915 |
| Died | May 4, 1980 (aged 64) |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1948–1969 | Nashville Business College |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 689–94 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 1950 AAU National Championship 1958 AAU National Championship 1960 AAU National Championship 1962 AAU National Championship 1963 AAU National Championship 1964 AAU National Championship 1965 AAU National Championship 1966 AAU National Championship 1967 AAU National Championship 1968 AAU National Championship 1969 AAU National Championship 1953 World Championship 1957 World Championship 1963 Pan American Games Championship |
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Medal record
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John L. Head (July 22, 1915 – May 8, 1980) was an American basketball coach. He was the head coach of the Nashville Business College women's basketball team from 1948 to 1969. Over the course of 21 seasons, his teams won the national championship eleven times and finished in second place four times.
Head played basketball and baseball at Coopertown High School in Coopertown, Tennessee, where he graduated in 1934. He played basketball and football in college, attending both Lambuth College and Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. His first introduction to coaching was in 1936, when he was coached an intramural sorority team. After college he coached high school teams for twelve years, coaching girls and boys basketball as well as football and baseball.
In 1948 he accepted a position as head coach of the Nashville Business College (NBC) team. Although the team was associated with a school, it was an AAU team; players did not have to be enrolled at the school to play for the team. NBC was a well-respected team, with fourth-place finishes in 1945 and 1948, but had not won a national championship. In Head's first year, the team would finish in second place to another Nashville team, the Goldblumes, but would go on to defeat the Goldblumes in 1950, for their first national championship.
The NBC team also finished second in 1956. From 1958 to 1961, the NBC team finished first or second, with Wayland Baptist in the other position. The NBC first-place finishes were 1958 and 1960. Then, in 1962, NBC reeled off eight consecutive national championships. The last of these championships was in 1969, at which time the sponsor of the team withdrew the sponsorship, and Head retired.
Head's approach to basketball was described by Sue Gunter as a "quiet disciplinarian". The teams' repertoire of plays was quite limited, consisted only of "two defenses, two offenses and two breaks". However, as Gunter explained, "Everybody that we played knew exactly what we were going to do when we came into the gym...But they couldn't beat it, because of the execution." Head stressed practice, but not just practice. He emphasized that you had to practice the right things. One of his All-American players, Doris Rogers, remembers his lesson,"If you keep practicing the same thing wrong you will never get any better. I have never forgotten that."
Head was asked to be the head coach of the USA basketball team for the very first World Championships for women, held in Santiago, Chile in 1953. The team was composed largely of NBC players, along with players from two other schools. The USA would lose one game to Brazil, but ended up with a 5–1 record and the gold medal to take the first World Championship title.
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