Coach Dan Peterson, the coach of the 1987 Champions Cup and the 1985 Korac Cup, who at the helm of Olimpia Milano reached two other European finals and won four Italian league championships (plus one in Bologna) was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame, class of 2024. For Coach Peterson, who is already a member of the FIP and Olimpia Halls of Fame, this is another prestigious recognition of an extraordinary career in which he also coached at college level (Delaware) and one National team (Chile). Olimpia even retired the number 36 acknowledging his legacy. 36 is the year he was born and the team was founded.
Dan Peterson, born on January 9, 1936 in Evanston, Illinois, joins five FIBA Hall of Fame members who also represent our club: Dino Meneghin, Cesare Rubini, Sandro Gamba, Bogdan Tanjevic and Ettore Messina. The ceremony will take place on September 14th in Singapore.
The year was 1978. Olimpia had just survived the biggest crisis in its history: the relegation to A-2 at the end of the 1975-76 season. After the 1977-78 season, Olimpia hired Dan Peterson, who was coaching Virtus Bologna during the previous five seasons. Peterson would take over for Filippo ‘Pippo’ Faina, who succeeded the legendary Cesare Rubini in 1974-75, as Rubini’s long-time assistant, Sandro Gamba, had taken over Varese in 1973-74. Faina had done what he could, even winning the 1975-76 European Cup of Cup Winners, but was unable to avoid that relegation, though he brought the team back up to A-1 immediately. In April of 1978, however, Faina resigned from Olimpia. Dan Peterson had won the Italian Cup with Virtus Bologna in 1973-74 and the national championship in 1975-76. His team finished 2nd in the playoffs in both 1976-77 and 1977-78. Before coming to Italy, Peterson was an unknown quantity as a coach, though he had been an assistant at Michigan State and Navy, and had enjoyed excellent success at the University of Delaware. He arrived in Bologna by way of the National Team in Chile, where he took ‘Los Rojos’ to the 4th place in the 1973 South American Championship and to the 7th place in the 1973 World Festival. With Olimpia Milan, Peterson had extraordinary success. In his first year, with the so-called ‘Basset Hounds,’ because they were not only the youngest team but also the smallest, they reversed every prediction by going all the way to the championship series before losing to his old team, Virtus Bologna, using ‘small ball’ before that term was even invented. In 1981-82, he took Olimpia to its first title in 10 years, this time going with a bigger lineup, with 6’11” John Gianelli, 6’10” Dino Meneghin and 6’9″ Vittorio Ferracini in the line-up. During the 1981-87 period, Peterson took Olimpia to six straight playoff finals, winning the title in 1982, 1985, 1986, and 1987. Over that period, Olimpia also won the newly-reformed Italian Cup, in 1986 and 1987. They lost the 1983 European Cup of Champions final game by one point to Ford Cantù and lost the 1984 Cup of Cup Winners by one point to Real Madrid. However, they won the European Korac Cup in 1985, beating Star Varese, 91-78, in the final, and the European Cup of Champions in 1987, beating Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the final, 71-69, thus completing a rare Grand Slam: Italy Cup, European Cup; Italian Playoffs, all of them in the same season. He was also an innovator, as his practices were widely copied, as was his ‘L’ play, the first Pick & Roll seen in Serie A, with Dino Meneghin setting the screen for Mike D’Antoni; and the famous 1-3-1 half-court zone trap defense, which was the signature for the many great comebacks made by the team in his time. He was also famous for his slogans, like “Spit blood!”, which he shouted to the team during games. And, “We are the 24th team of the NBA” after the team swept the Italian Playoffs (6-0) and the Korac Cup (9-0) in 1984-85, behind ex-NBA superstar Joe Barry Carroll. He retired in 1987, at the top of his profession. But in 2010-11, Olimpia called and The Coach was back to finish the season!
