Red Holzman

Holzman was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City,[2][3][4] on August 10, 1920, to Jewish immigrant parents, as the son of a Romanian mother and Russian father.[5][6] He grew up in Brooklyn's Ocean Hill–Brownsville neighborhood[3] and played basketball for Franklin K. Lane High School in the mid-1930s. He attended the University of Baltimore and later the City College of New York, where he played for two years until graduation in 1942. Holzman joined the United States Navy in the same year, and played on the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Base team till he was discharged from the Navy in 1945.[4]

Holzman in 1950, when playing for the Rochester Royals.

After the Navy, Holzman joined the NBL Rochester Royals, which won the NBL championship in Holzman's first season, and he was named Rookie of the Year in 1944–45.[7] In 1945–46 and 1947–48 he was on the NBL's first All League team; in the interim year he was on its second team.[8] Holzman stayed with the team through their move to the NBA and subsequent NBA championship in 1951. In 1953, Holzman left the Royals and joined the Milwaukee Hawks as a player-coach, eventually retiring as a player in 1954 but continuing as the team's head coach.[3][4]

During the 1956–1957 season, Holzman led the Hawks (then in St. Louis, Missouri) to 19 losses during their first 33 games, and was subsequently fired.[3][4] He then became a scout for the New York Knicks for the next ten years, till 1967, whereupon he became the team's head coach for the most part until 1982.[3] Holzman's former player, Willis Reed, replaced him as Knicks head coach in 1977, but Holzman returned near the start of the 1978–1979 season. During this 15-year span as Knicks' coach, Holzman won a total of 613 games, including two NBA championships in 1970 and 1973.[3]

In 1969, Holzman coached the Knicks to a then single-season NBA record 18-game win streak, breaking the 17-game record first set back in 1946. For his efforts leading up to the Knicks' 1970 championship win, Holzman was named the NBA Coach of the Year for that year. He won his second NBA championship as the Knicks won the 1973 NBA Finals against the Lakers.[9] He was one of very few individuals to have won an NBA championship as both player and coach. As a coach, his final record was 696 wins and 604 losses. At the time of his retirement in 1982, he had the second most career victories as a head coach in NBA history.[10]

In 1985, Holzman was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The New York Knicks have retired the number 613 in his honor, equaling the number of wins he accumulated as their head coach.[3] He is also a member of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame[10] and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.

Holzman lived with his wife in a home they bought in Cedarhurst, New York in the 1950s. Following his lengthy NBA coaching career, Holzman was diagnosed with leukemia and died at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York in 1998.[3] In 2000 a clock tower was erected in his honor at the intersection of Central Avenue and Cedarhurst Avenue in Cedarhurst as part of “Operation Downtown,” a project started by Nassau County presiding officer Bruce Blakeman and mayor Andy Parise.

• Source: Basketball Reference

• Holzman, Red (1970). The Red Holzman Pro Basketball Guide 70-71. Aurora Publishers. OCLC 423856.
• Holzman, Red (1971). The Knicks. Dodd, Mead & Co. ISBN 978-0-396-06342-1.
• Holzman, Red; Lewin, Leonard (1973). Holzman's Basketball: Winning Strategy and Tactics (1st ed.). The Macmillan Company. ISBN 978-0-0255-3500-8.
• Holzman, Red (1974). Defense! Defense!. Warner Paperback Library. ISBN 978-0-446-78498-6.
• Holzman, Red (1980). A View from the Bench (1st ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-33623-8.
• Holzman, Red (1987). Red on Red: The Autobiography of Red Holzman. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-27316-8.
• Holzman, Red (1991). Holzman on Hoops: The Man Who Led the Knicks Through Two World Championships Tells It Like It Was. Taylor Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-878-33745-3.
• Holzman, Red; Lewin, Leonard (1993). My Unforgettable Season 1970 (1st ed.). Tor Books. ISBN 978-0-312-85453-9.

• List of select Jewish basketball players

• Zachter, Mort (2019). Red Holzman: The Life and Legacy of a Hall of Fame Basketball Coach. Sports Publishing. ISBN 978-1-683-58288-5.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Red Holzman.

• Red Holzman at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
• Biography of Red Holzman
• The NBA at 50: Red Holzman
• NBA statistics as player
• NBA statistics as coach
• Red Holzman at Find a Grave