In the early 1960's Jim McGregor the US Olympic Basketball Coach came to Ireland to give a clinic with the hopes of helping the Irish Basketball community become more competitive on the European and world stage. Along with his extensive Olympic coaching resume, McGregor became famous for leading his travelling College All Stars on their annual Barnstorming Tours of Europe. ( see stories and links below).
CALLED FOR TRAVELLING
This offbeat biography records the well-travelled career of an American basketball coach who has spent virtually his entire professional life on foreign courts. Ousted from Whitworth College, a small religious school in Washington State, for questionable but fruitful recruiting practices, and blacklisted, he claims, by the Northwest coaching fraternity, McGregor was obliged to hit the road. In the early 1950s he sold airlines on the commercial possibilities of organizing tours for basketball teams from faraway places. Subsequently, he spent 25 years teaching basketball to Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, Swedes, and Filipinos, helping make it a truly international game. He's also conducted clinics for equatorial Africa's legendary Watusi as well as for Indians at the headwaters of the Amazon. All told, the author has coached the national teams of eight countries. Over the past decade, McGregor has also shepherded aggregations of U.S. players abroad, both for the State Department and for such multinational sponsors as Gulf Oil, TWA, and Gillette. (The latter insisted on a clean-shaven image for the players.) At 55, McGregor has settled down to run an international basketball camp in Long Beach, Calif. But he seems willing to pick up and go at the drop of a ball--and he's certainly seen the world for his pains.
- Check Out "Called for Travelling" ( Free Ebook on Arcive.org )
- The Legacy of Jim McGregor (International Basketball Ambassador) - 2003
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