Daniel John Fitzgerald (March 3, 1942 – January 19, 2010) was an American

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

coach and

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches a ...

Gonzaga University Gonzaga University (GU) ( ) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in Spokane, Washington, United States. It is Higher education accreditation in the United States, accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges ...

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

. Fitzgerald was the head coach at Gonzaga for 15 seasons between 1978 and 1997 (except for 1981 to 1985) with an overall record of 252–171 (). He led the Bulldogs to their first appearance in the NCAA tournament in

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

, after leading them to their first post-season tournament, the

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is an annual men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Since 2023, all rounds of the tournament are played at various sites across the country whi ...

(NIT) in

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

, where they won at

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

in the first round. They had narrowly missed an NIT selection the previous two seasons. Gonzaga returned to the NIT in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

. Among his recruits was future

Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pres ...

member

John Stockton John Houston Stockton (born March 26, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player. Regarded as one of the great point guards of all time, he spent his entire NBA career (1984–2003) with the Utah Jazz, and the team made the pla ...

, out of Gonzaga Prep in 1980. Fitzgerald was also responsible for hiring coaches

Mark Few Mark Norman Few (born December 27, 1962) is an American college basketball coach who has been the head coach at Gonzaga University since 1999. He has served on Gonzaga's coaching staff since 1989, and has led the Bulldogs from mid-major obscur ...

, Dan Monson, and Bill Grier to Gonzaga. His win total was a school record until Few passed him in 2009. Prior to his hiring in April 1978, Fitzgerald was an assistant coach for three seasons at Santa Clara, with a previous two-year stint as an assistant at Gonzaga under Adrian Buoncristiani, a high school teammate whom Fitzgerald ultimately succeeded. In between, he worked in the private sector for a year. At Gonzaga, his first season as head coach was their final year in the

Big Sky Conference The Big Sky Conference is a List of NCAA conferences, collegiate athletic conference, affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's NCAA Division I, Division I with college football, football competing in the Football Cha ...

. Shortly after his arrival in Spokane, "Fitz" stated he was a strong proponent of moving out of the Big Sky to the WCAC. After becoming part-owner of the Spokane Indians, athletic director (and former baseball coach) Larry Koentopp resigned in the fall of 1978 and Fitzgerald took on the AD position as well. Following his third year as head coach, Fitzgerald stepped down in 1981 to focus his efforts as athletic director and hired assistant and GU alumnus Jay Hillock as head coach. Hillock resigned after four seasons in April 1985 and Fitzgerald returned to coach the Bulldogs. After making it to the NCAA Tournament a decade later, he announced in 1995 that he planned to coach two more seasons and promote Monson, a GU assistant since 1988, to head coach. After 19 years as athletic director, Fitzgerald resigned in December 1997, and was succeeded by Mike Roth. Fitzgerald then worked in private business in the Spokane area. He died in Spokane at age 67 after an apparent

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

on January 19, 2010. Fitzgerald was also responsible for Gonzaga being put on four years of probation for keeping an illegal slush fund for recruiting purposes, hiding almost $200,000 from the NCAA. The NCAA investigators agreed that Gonzaga did not gain a competitive advantage from use of the money, since the totals spent on recruiting fell within NCAA guidelines. Born in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, Fitzgerald went to high school at St. Ignatius and graduated in 1959, then attended college at Santa Clara and San Francisco State, and graduated from Cal State, Los Angeles. Prior to coaching at the college level, Fitzgerald was a high school coach and English teacher in California at Daniel Murphy (St. John Vianney) in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and Archbishop Mitty (1968–1971) in San Jose.

Head coaching record

*West Coast Athletic Conference was renamed

West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting o ...

in summer 1989.

References

External links

Sports-Reference.com
– college basketball – Dan Fitzgerald
Gonzaga University Digital Collections
– Dan Fitzgerald {{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzgerald, Dan 1942 births 2010 deaths American men's basketball coaches Basketball coaches from California California State University, Los Angeles alumni College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Gonzaga Bulldogs athletic directors Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball coaches High school basketball coaches in the United States San Francisco State University alumni Santa Clara Broncos men's basketball coaches Santa Clara University alumni Sportspeople from San Francisco St. Ignatius College Preparatory alumni