Don Beck (born June 2, 1953) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

coach.

Career

A 1975

Quinnipiac University Quinnipiac University ( ) is a private university in Hamden, Connecticut, United States. The university grants undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. It also hosts the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. History What became ...

graduate, Beck began his career on the sideline as assistant coach at

Santa Barbara City College Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) is a public community college in Santa Barbara, California. It opened in 1909 and is located on a campus. History Santa Barbara City College was established by the Santa Barbara High School District in 1909, m ...

in 1978, before taking his first head coach position at Santa Barbara City College in 1979, where he coached the women's team during the 1979-80 season. Other assistant coach stints came at

Bentley College Bentley University is a private university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1917 as a school of accounting and finance in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. Bentley has one undergraduate school which offers 17 business ma ...

(1981–85),

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

(1985–86) and

Fresno State University California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers 60 ba ...

(1986–90). In March 1990, when head coach Ron Adams was released, Beck and Frank Carbajal were named Fresno State's interim co-head coaches for the remainder of the 1989-90 campaign. In 1992, Beck was named head coach of

Sunair Oostende Basketball Club Oostende, for sponsorship reasons Filou Oostende, is a Belgian professional basketball team. The club is based in Ostend and was founded in 1970. The club competes domestically in the BNXT League and internationally in the Baske ...

, a first-division team from Belgium. During his seven-year tenure at German

Basketball Bundesliga The Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) (English language: ''Federal Basketball League''), for sponsorship reasons named easyCredit BBL, is the German basketball league system, highest level Sports league, league of professional club basketball in German ...

side TVG Trier (1994–2001), Beck guided the team to two German Cup titles (1998 and 2001) and a trip to the Bundesliga semifinals in 1998. In 2001, Beck took the reins at fellow Bundesliga team

EWE Baskets Oldenburg Baskets Oldenburg, for sponsorship reasons EWE Baskets Oldenburg, is a professional basketball club that is based in the city of Oldenburg, Germany. The club plays in the Bundesliga. The club's name is derived from the team's main sponsor EWE AG ...

, where he worked until May 2007. In the summer of 2002, he served a four-month stint as head coach of the Luxembourg men's national team. After parting ways with Oldenburg, Beck was named head coach of Euphony Bree of Belgium in 2007, where he stayed until January 2009 and served as head coach of the Eiffel Towers Den Bosch, a member of the Dutch top-flight

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; "Honour Division" or "Premier Division") is a professional association football league in the Netherlands and the highest level of the Dutch football league system. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start o ...

, from January 2009 to April 2010, winning the Dutch cup competition in 2009. From 2010 to 2015, Beck was at the helm of Japanese side

Toyota Alvark Alvark Tokyo is a Japanese professional basketball team located in Tokyo. The team, which is sponsored by Toyota, currently plays in the Japanese B.League. Until 2000, the team was known as the Toyota Pacers. Founded as Toyota Pacers in 1948, ...

. He received

JBL JBL is an American audio equipment manufacturer headquartered in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. The company was founded in 1946 by James Bullough Lansing, an American audio engineer and loudspeaker designer. JBL currently serves the ho ...

Coach of the Year honors in the 2011–12 season after guiding the team to a championship title and led Alvark to a second-place finish in 2014–15. He served as head coach of the

Toyota Antelopes The Toyota Antelopes () are a professional basketball club based in Nagoya, Aichi, playing in the Women's Japan Basketball League. From 2024 they are playing in the upper “W-League Premier”, after the women’s league is split into two divisio ...

in the Women's Japan Basketball League from 2015 to 2018 and then accepted the head coaching job with the

Toyama Grouses The Toyama Grouses (富山グラウジーズ,''Toyama Guraujīzu'') are a Japanese basketball team, playing in the second division of the B.League. They are based in Toyama Prefecture. Head coaches *Masato Fukushima *Takatoshi Ishibashi *Charle ...

of Japan's

B.League The B.League is a men's professional basketball league in Japan. The league is operated by the Japan Professional Basketball League and was formed as a result of a merger between the National Basketball League that was operated by the FIBA-affi ...

in July 2018. He coached the Toyoma team until 2020. In May 2021, he was named head coach of the

Kumamoto Volters is a Japanese professional basketball team in Kumamoto, Kumamoto. The team competes in the B.League. The team name "Volters" is a coined term using "VOLCANO," meaning volcano, and "WATER," meaning water, symbolizing the abundant water sourced fro ...

of Japan's B2 league. Beck coached the team in the 2021-22 season. On May 11, 2023, German ProA side

Gladiators Trier Gladiators Treves, for sponsorship reasons known as Römerstrom Gladiators Trier, is a professional basketball club based in Trier, Germany. The club plays in the ProA. Its home arena is Trier Arena, which has a capacity of 5,495 people. From 1990 ...

announced the appointment of Don Beck as the club's new head coach. Beck returned to the town, where he had worked from 1994 until 2001. In the 2023-24 season, his Trier team fell just short of winning promotion to the German top-tier Bundesliga, dropping the ProA semi-final series in five games. Beck stepped down after one season at the helm of the Gladiators and was appointed the team's President of Basketball Operations.

Head coaching record

, - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2010–11 , 36, , 23, , 13, , , , style="text-align:center;", 3rd in JBL, , , -, , -, , -, , , style="text-align:center;", - , - , - style="background:#FDE910;" , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2011–12 , 42, , 29, , 13, , , , style="text-align:center;", 2nd in JBL, , , 6, , 5, , 1, , , style="text-align:center;", JBL champions , - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2012–13 , 42, , 32, , 10, , , , style="text-align:center;", 2nd in JBL, , , 3, , 1, , 2, , , style="text-align:center;", 3rd place , - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2013–14 , 54, , 45, , 9, , , , style="text-align:center;", 2nd in NBL-E, , , 5, , 2, , 3, , , style="text-align:center;", 3rd place , - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2014–15 , 54, , 40, , 14, , , , style="text-align:center;", 3rd in NBL-E, , , 9, , 5, , 4, , , style="text-align:center;", Runners-up in NBL , - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , 60, , 32, , 28, , , , style="text-align:center;", 3rd in Central, , , 2, , 0, , 2, , , style="text-align:center;", Lost in 1st round , - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , 41, , 17, , 24, , , , style="text-align:center;", 3rd in Central, , , -, , -, , -, , , style="text-align:center;", - , -

References

External links

Eurobasket profile

Bundesliga profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beck, Don 1953 births Living people Basketball coaches from New York (state) Alvark Tokyo coaches American expatriate basketball people in Belgium American expatriate basketball people in Germany American expatriate basketball people in Japan American expatriate basketball people in the Netherlands Fresno State Bulldogs men's basketball coaches Junior college men's basketball coaches in the United States Rutgers Scarlet Knights men's basketball coaches Basketball players from New York City Toyama Grouses coaches American men's basketball players Heroes Den Bosch coaches Baskets Oldenburg coaches BC Oostende coaches 20th-century American sportsmen