Joe Vancisin, Yale’s all-time winningest men’s basketball coach, has been elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame along with seven other college basketball greats.


The class of 2011 was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Sunday, November 20, 2011, at the Midland Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. Joe’s career in basketball covered more than 54 years as a player, coach and administrator. He took over at Yale in 1956, and promptly led the Bulldogs to their first official Ivy League title. He returned the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament in 1962, and Yale shared the Ivy title in 1962-63 but fell to Princeton in a playoff game. Vancisin, who had a 206-242 record as the Bulldogs’ head coach, left Yale in 1975 to become the NABC’s executive director for 17 years before his retirement in 1992. Under his leadership, the NABC debuted its college all-star game at the NCAA Final Four.


At Dartmouth, where he played basketball and baseball, he was a starting guard when Dartmouth was edged in overtime in the NCAA championship game by Utah in 1944. Coach OzzieCowles persuaded Vancisin to remain to coach the freshman team and, after one season, he enlisted in the Air Force. 


Vancisin traveled extensively, giving clinics around the world, and was a member of two U.S. Olympic basketball staffs—on the gold medal-winning team headed by Dean Smith in 1976 and with the 1980 team, coached by Dave Gavitt ’59. In addition to all these feats, Joe is a loyal classmate and regular at all reunions.


We have been notified that Richard Victor Wilson died on August 1; we extend our condolences to his family.


—Betty Munson ’44a, 23 Linscott Road North, York, ME 03909; emmunson1944@gmail.com