How Well Do You Know These Famous Sports Coaches?

George Wilson coached the Miami Dolphins until 1969, but the team didn't enter its golden age until Don Shula arrived in 1970. Just two years later, Shula led his legendary Miami Dolphins to the only undefeated season in NFL history. Shula retired after 26 seasons with a .658 career winning percentage, two Super Bowl championships, and a slew of conference and divisional championships.

Richard Williams, the father of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams, was also their coach and began teaching them the sport when they were very young. With 30 Grand Slam titles between them, the Williams sisters are arguably the greatest athletes to ever play the sport.

With a more than 150-year-long history, the sport of baseball has seen many great coaches, including Tommy Lasorda (L.A. Dodgers), Joe Torre (New York Yankees), and Bobby Cox (Atlanta Braves). However, Bob Knight, the legendary former coach of Indiana University’s men’s basketball team, is not among them.

In December 2020, Tara VanDerveer became the winningest coach in women’s college basketball history, surpassing legendary coach Pat Summitt. As of 2022, she has 1,125 wins, and she continues to build upon that legacy as a coach at Stanford University.

The NHL’s Stanley Cup is widely considered the hardest trophy to win in professional sports, and Scotty Bowman can claim nine of them in his 30-year coaching career. (The coach with the second-most titles has only three.) Bowman won five championships with Montreal, three with Detroit, and one with Pittsburgh.

Physical education instructor James Naismith created basketball in a gym at Springfield College, then known as the International YMCA Training School. The indoor sport quickly spread through the YMCA global network, then to colleges. In 1898, Naismith became Kansas University’s first men’s basketball coach.

As head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, John Madden never had a losing season and earned the team its first Super Bowl ring in 1977. Although he passed away in 2021, Madden's football legacy lives on. In 1988, his name graced the title of the video game “John Madden Football.” The billion-dollar video game series is now simply called “Madden.”

Between 1967 and 1973, John Wooden and the UCLA men’s basketball team went on an unprecedented championship run, winning seven consecutive tournaments. In total, Wooden won an impressive 10 titles in a 12-year period, a feat which has not been matched since.

From 1959 to 1967, Vince Lombardi led the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships, the last two being the first Super Bowl victories against the American Football League titleholders. During his career as a professional football coach, he never held a losing record. His lasting impact on American football is remembered every year, as the winner of the Super Bowl is given the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady are the winningest duo in NFL history. Together, the two led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl wins between 2002 and 2019 (with Brady winning an amazing seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021). The coach in second place, Chuck Noll, has only four Super Bowl rings.