Norm Ellenberger, college basketball coach, Died at 82/83

  Sports

Norm Ellenberger was born on November 15, 2015, and died on November 14, 2015.

He was a former American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach.

Norm was head coach of the University of New Mexico Lobo basketball team from 1972 to 1979, winning Western Athletic Conference championships in 1974 and 1978 and compiling an overall record of 134–62 (.684).

His players included the future National Basketball Association (NBA) defensive stand-out Michael Cooper.

Norm was dismissed as Lobo head coach due to a recruiting scandal known as “Lobogate”.

Norm later became lead assistant coach under Don Haskins at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) from 1986 to 1990 and under Bobby Knight at Indiana University from 1990 to 2000.

He served as an assistant for the Chicago Bulls of the NBA from 2000 to 2003 before coaching boy’s and girl’s high school basketball in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Norm returned to professional basketball coaching in 2012 as an assistant for the New York Liberty of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

He graduated in 1955 from Butler University, where he played for basketball coaching legend Tony Hinkle.

Norm was also captain and all-conference player on the football team, and he pitched a no-hitter on the baseball team.

In 2012, Norm was inducted into the Butler Athletic Hall of Fame.

After a brief stint in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, he taught science and coached basketball and other sports from 1957 to 1964 at New Haven High, near the Indiana farm where he grew up.

In 1964 Norm began coaching at Monmouth College in western Illinois, where he led the football, basketball, and baseball teams at one point.

His basketball teams compiled a record of 30–36, including a 14–8 campaign in 1965–1966.

Norm passed away at age 82 to 83.