Felton Jeffrey Capel II (January 6, 1953 – November 13, 2017) was an American

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

assistant coach, and, prior to that, a

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

head coach. He was head coach of the

Old Dominion Monarchs The Old Dominion Monarchs are composed of 18 intercollegiate athletic teams representing Old Dominion University, located in Norfolk, Virginia. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, football, golf, sailing, soccer, swimming, and tennis. W ...

team from 1994 to 2001, of the North Carolina A&T Aggies from 1993 to 1994 and of the

Fayetteville State Broncos The Fayetteville State Broncos and Lady Broncos are the athletic teams that represent Fayetteville State University, located in Fayetteville, North Carolina Fayetteville () is a city in and the county seat of Cumberland County, North Caroli ...

from 1989 to 1993. He was the father of Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Jeff Capel III and former Appalachian State Mountaineers head coach Jason Capel. He was also an assistant coach with the NBA's

Charlotte Bobcats Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populous ...

. On November 15, 2011, it was announced that Capel was hired as an assistant coach for the

Philadelphia 76ers The Philadelphia 76ers, colloquially known as the Sixers, are an American professional basketball team based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The 76ers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Ea ...

Early life

Born in Southern Pines, North Carolina, Capel graduated from Pinecrest High School in 1970. He went to Fayetteville State University and played on the basketball team as a freshman, then served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

from 1971 to 1975. Capel says that serving in the Army provided discipline and structure in his life. Capel returned to Fayetteville State and played another season on the basketball team as a senior before graduating in 1977 with a degree in health and physical education.

Coaching career

In 1978, Capel returned to his alma mater Pinecrest High School to be a volunteer basketball coach. He also coached wrestling, baseball, and junior varsity football at Pinecrest. He then was the head varsity basketball coach from 1980 to 1986. Capel also was an assistant principal at Pinecrest. From 1986 to 1989, Capel was an assistant coach at

Wake Forest University Wake Forest University is a private university, private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Wake Forest, north of Rale ...

under

Bob Staak Robert John Staak (born December 22, 1947 in Darien, Connecticut) is a former American college basketball and professional basketball coach. Early life Staak attended Darien High School in Darien, Connecticut, where he played basketball and bec ...

. Fayetteville State hired Capel as head coach in 1989. In four seasons (1989–1993), Capel had a 63–51 record at Fayetteville State, with berths in the 1991 CIAA basketball tournament semi-finals and 1992 NCAA tournament. Future NBA player Darrell Armstrong was among players Capel coached. In the 1993–94 season, Capel was head coach at North Carolina A&T, who finished 16–14 with the MEAC tournament championship and automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. Capel then was head coach at Old Dominion from 1994 to 2001. Under Capel, Old Dominion won two CAA tournament championships (

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

and

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

). Old Dominion made the second round of the 1995 NCAA tournament and first round of the 1997 NCAA tournament, as well as the second round of the 1999 National Invitation Tournament. At Old Dominion, Capel had a 122–98 record. In 2001, the Fayetteville Patriots of the NBA's startup minor league National Basketball Development League (NBDL) hired Capel as head coach. Capel was head coach from 2001 to 2004; the Patriots finished first in the NBDL for the 2002–03 season and were runners-up in the 2003 NBDL Finals. From 2004 to 2011, Capel was an assistant coach for the NBA expansion team

. He was then an assistant coach for the

from 2011 to 2013. On January 25, 2017, writing in '' The Players' Tribune'', his son Jeff Capel III disclosed that Capel had been diagnosed in 2014 with

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

. He died on November 13, 2017, from the disease.

Head coaching record

College

Professional

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References

External links

NBA profile

(2003)

(2000) {{DEFAULTSORT:Capel, Jeff, Ii 1953 births 2017 deaths African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players Basketball coaches from North Carolina Basketball players from North Carolina Charlotte Bobcats assistant coaches College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Fayetteville Patriots coaches Fayetteville State Broncos basketball coaches Fayetteville State Broncos basketball players High school basketball coaches in North Carolina North Carolina A&T Aggies men's basketball coaches Old Dominion Monarchs men's basketball coaches Neurological disease deaths in North Carolina Deaths from motor neuron disease Philadelphia 76ers assistant coaches United States Army soldiers Wake Forest Demon Deacons men's basketball coaches People from Southern Pines, North Carolina American men's basketball players 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people