Vince Boryla, American basketball player and coach, Died at 89

  Sports

Vincent Joseph Boryla was born on March 11, 1927, and died on March 27, 2016.

He was an American basketball player, coach, and executive.

Vince’s nickname was “Moose”.

Boryla graduated from East Chicago Washington High School in 1944.

Vince Boryla played basketball at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Denver, where he was named a consensus All-American in 1949.

He was part of the U.S team that won the gold medal at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.

He played for the New York Knicks in the early 1950s.

He had scored nine points in the inaugural NBA All-Star Game, in 1951, and he played in the NBA Finals in 1951 and 1953.

However, Vince did not participate in the 1952 playoffs.

Later he became the Knicks’ coach from 1956 to 1958 and had an 80-85 record with them.

Then further on in his career, he would become the general manager of the American Basketball Association’s Denver Nuggets early in their history when they were first the Kansas City ABA team and then the Denver Larks.

He was also the general manager of the ABA’s Utah Stars.

After which Boryla later rejoined the Nuggets when the franchise joined the NBA.

Vince Boryla won the NBA Executive of the Year Award with the Nuggets in 1984.

Vince Boryla has been inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1984 into the National Polish-American Hall of Fame.

Vince Boryla passed away at 89 yrs old.