Amory Tingle "Slats" Gill (May 1, 1901 – April 5, 1966) 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, the head coach at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate degree programs and a variety of graduate and doctor ...

in Corvallis for 36 seasons. As a player, Gill was twice named to the All-

Pacific Coast Conference The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a collegiate athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (includin ...

basketball team. As head coach, he amassed 599 victories with a winning percentage of .604. Gill was also the head coach of the

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

team for six seasons and later was the OSU

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 ...

. Gill is a member of the

Naismith Memorial 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 pre ...

, the

National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Kansas City, Missouri, is a hall of fame and museum dedicated to men's college basketball. The museum is an integral portion of the College Basketball Experience created by the Nation ...

, and the

Oregon Sports Hall of Fame The Oregon Sports Hall of Fame honors Oregon athletes, teams, coaches, and others who have made a significant contribution to sports in Oregon. The first class was inducted in 1980, with new inductees added in the fall. Operated by the Oregon Sports ...

. He is also honored as the namesake of

Gill Coliseum Gill Coliseum is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Corvallis, Oregon, located on the campus of Oregon State University. Opened in December 1949,Heartwell, James C. ''The History of Oregon State College Basketball, 1901/02–1952/53.'' Corvallis, OR: ...

, opened in 1949, venue for basketball, wrestling, volleyball, and gymnastics at OSU.

Early years

Born in Salem,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, Gill was the youngest of eight children and his father died when he was a child. His nickname "Slats" was given to him at age 12; he was swimming in a local pond one summer afternoon and upon exiting the pond, a buddy joked with Gill about his scrawny frame with his ribs protruding, which he said looked like slats in a

picket fence Picket fences are a type of fence often used decoratively for domestic boundaries, distinguished by their evenly spaced vertical boards, the ''pickets'', attached to horizontal rails. Picket fences are particularly popular in the United States, ...

. Gill was from then on known as "Slats."Jeff Welsch and George P. Edmonston Jr., ''Tales from Oregon State Sports.'' Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 2003; pg. 51 Gill was an athlete from his youth, excelling in

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 ...

and

at Salem High School and graduated in 1920."Salem Men are Awarded Letters at Corvallis"
''Oregon Statesman'', vol. 72 (April 22, 1922), pg. 1. Gill was named to all-state teams as a junior and senior. Gill attended Oregon Agricultural College (now

) in Corvallis. While at OAC, he played baseball and earned varsity letters in basketball from 1922 to 1924. A forward for the "Aggies" on their starting five, Gill was named to the All Conference team for the

in 1922. In March 1923, Gill was unanimously elected captain of the OAC basketball team by his peers for his 1923–24 senior season. He was named to the All-Pacific Coast Conference team for a second time following that 1923–24 season. Gill met his wife, the former Helen Boyer of Portland, on a blind date at OAC in the early 1920s. The couple married in 1932. They raised two children, daughter Jane Gill (born 1933), and son John Amory Gill (1937–2014).

Basketball coaching career

With his all-star basketball credentials firmly established, Gill was determined to go into the coaching profession following graduation. Gill's first head coaching job was at a high school in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. After one season coaching there, the popular former collegiate star Gill was able to win an appointment at his alma mater as an instructor of physical education and director of restricted gymnastics for the 1926–27 academic year."'Slats' Gill Appointed,"
''Eugene Guard,'' vol.70, no. 139 (June 21, 1926), pg. 8. Gill was also tapped to serve as head coach of the OAC freshman men's basketball team and to help coordinate the school's program of intramural athletics and general gymnastics. The 1926–27 freshman team proved to be a bit of a disaster, losing every game on its schedule, so in December 1927 Gill organized a mass try out for the 1927–28 squad."Beaver Rooks Swarm at Call,"

alem Alem is a village in the Dutch province of Gelderland. It is a part of the municipality of Maasdriel, and lies about 10 km north of 's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Ne ...

''Capital Journal,'' vol. 49, no. 287 (Dec. 2, 1927), pg. 6. An incredible 106 aspirants responded to Gill's call to try out for the team, with the horde winnowed down to a squad of 25 through successive cuts. In the summer of 1928, OAC's varsity head coach Bob Hager was fired by university president William Jasper Kerr. Kerr did not need to look far for his replacement, promoting the 27-year old Gill from freshman to varsity head coach. Under Gill, the Beavers basketball team would come to be known for a fundamentally sound and defensively oriented style of play. On the other side of the ball, Gill was known for making use of a slow, methodical "percentage offense" built around the meticulous creation of short shots and

free throw In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the restricted area. Free throws ...

opportunities from a half-court set. His teams were frequently involved in low-scoring defensive struggles. In the years before

video tape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocasset ...

and legions of professional advanced scouts, Gill was regarded as a formidable game scout and adaptive defensive coach, the subject of a legend in the early 1940s that if "Gill has seen your basketball team in action, then his team will beat yours if the two are ever matched." During Gill's 36-year tenure as head coach, Oregon State won five Pacific Coast Conference titles, four Northern Division championships, and a pair of Final Four appearances (

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2025 * January 2 – Luis ...

and

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove ...

)."Slats Gill,"
Sports-Reference.com, www.sports-reference.com/ His teams won eight consecutive Far West Classic titles, and Gill had 599 coaching victories with the Beavers, with a winning percentage of .604. Following a game in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

in early 1960, Gill suffered a

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 ...

in his hotel room while with his wife. He was taken to Providence Hospital and stayed for more than three weeks. For the duration of his convalescence, head coaching duties were assumed by assistant coach Paul Valenti. As past president of the

National Association of Basketball Coaches The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, is an American organization of men's college basketball coaches. It was founded in 1927 by Phog Allen, the men's basketball head coach for the Univ ...

, Slats coached in the 1964 NABC All-Star Game.

Athletic director

When Gill retired from coaching in 1964, he became the OSU

, a position he held for two years, until his death. He promoted assistant Valenti to replace him as head coach, and after the

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 – In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patria ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

season concluded with a Rose Bowl appearance on New Year's Day, head coach

Tommy Prothro James Thompson Prothro Jr. (July 20, 1920 – May 14, 1995) was an American football coach and player. He was the head coach at Oregon State University from 1955 to 1964 and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1965 to 1970, com ...

left for

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

. Gill hired Dee Andros of

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

, who led the Beavers to two of their best seasons (

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

& 1968) on the gridiron in his eleven years as head coach and became AD himself in 1976. Andros brought assistant coach Bud Riley with him from

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, and his son Mike Riley (b.1953) was the Beaver head coach for fourteen seasons (

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

–

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

–

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

Baseball coaching career

Gill also coached the Beavers'

baseball team Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play beginning when a player on the fielding team, called ...

from 1932 to 1937, over which he compiled a career coaching record of 56 wins and 70 losses (.444).

Death and legacy

In 1966, Gill was hospitalized in Corvallis on March 26 following what was described as a minor

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

. He remained in the hospital for ten days and seemingly made progress towards recovery until taking a sudden turn for the worse on the morning of April 5. Gill died at 3:25 pm that day at age 64. His funeral was held at Gill Coliseum and he was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Corvallis. Gill was elected a member of the

and the

. Oregon State's basketball arena,

, is named for him. Gill was the first OSU coach to include an African American player on the team. Norman Monroe was a walk-on and was the first black basketball player to play at OSU and played for the team for half of the 1960–1961 season. The first recruited, scholarship black athlete to be named to the OSU basketball team arrived only in 1966, when Charlie White was named to the squad.George Beres
"Basketball's Best Once Were Blackballed from the College Game,"
History News Network, April 3, 2006. Retrieved February 9, 2011.

Head coaching record

Basketball

Footnotes

External links

*
Sports-Reference profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gill, Slats 1901 births 1966 deaths All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball players from Salem, Oregon High school basketball coaches in the United States Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Oregon State Beavers athletic directors Oregon State Beavers baseball coaches Oregon State Beavers men's basketball coaches Oregon State Beavers men's basketball players Sportspeople from Salem, Oregon Basketball coaches from Oregon Forwards (basketball) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees