Lon Walter Jourdet (September 12, 1888 – August 31, 1959) was the head men's basketball coach for the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

from 1914–1920 and then again from 1930–1943. He is credited with inventing an early version of the

zone defense Zone defense is a type of defense, used in team sports, which is the alternative to man-to-man defense; instead of each player guarding a corresponding player on the other team, each defensive player is given an area (a zone) to cover. A zone def ...

used in modern basketball. During his coaching career, he amassed an overall record of 226 wins and 143 losses. His 1919–20 team finished the season with a 21–1 record and was retroactively named the national champion by the

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his ownership ...

and the

Premo-Porretta Power Poll The Premo-Porretta Power Poll is a retroactive end-of-year ranking for American college basketball teams competing in the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons. The Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of informa ...

. Jourdet's win total was the highest in Penn men's basketball history until

Fran Dunphy Francis Joseph Dunphy (born October 5, 1948) is an American college basketball coach, who is the head coach of the La Salle Explorers of the Atlantic 10 Conference. He is the former men's basketball coach at Temple University and the University o ...

surpassed him in 2001–02, and his seven conference titles are second to Dunphy's 10. As a student athlete at the University of Pennsylvania, Jourdet played on the

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and basketball teams. He lettered in basketball from 1910–11 to 1912–13, while in football he lettered from 1910 to 1912. As a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

during the 1912 season, Jourdet was named a football All-American. The reason for his extended absence as Penn basketball's head coach between 1920 and 1930 was summed up by ''

The Pennsylvania Gazette ''The Pennsylvania Gazette'' was one of the United States' most prominent newspapers from 1728 until 1800. In the several years leading up to the American Revolution the paper served as a voice for colonial opposition to British colonial rule, ...

'' in its December 3, 1920 issue, which said Jourdet "on account of a business transfer to another part of the country, has been obliged to give up coaching." He transferred to Kentucky and became engrained in both high school and college basketball there. Jourdet even officiated some of the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

men's basketball games. Upon returning to the Philadelphia area, Jourdet coached the Quakers for 13 more seasons and won three more

Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League The Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League was an athletic conference for men's college basketball, beginning with the 1901–02 season and ending with the 1954–55 season. Its membership ranged from four to eight members; all of these te ...

championships (the conference precursor to the modern

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

). From 1949 to 1959, Jourdet worked in a state liquor store in

Lancaster, Pennsylvania Lancaster, ( ; pdc, Lengeschder) is a city in and the county seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. With a population at the 2020 census of 58,039, it ranks 11th in population amon ...

. In mid-August 1959, he was admitted to the Samuel G. Dixon Tuberculosis Hospital. On August 31, he jumped out of the third-story window of the hospital, suffering a broken neck. Jourdet was 70 years old at the time of his suicide.

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jourdet, Lon 1888 births 1959 suicides 1959 deaths American football ends Basketball coaches from Pennsylvania Basketball players from Pennsylvania College men's basketball head coaches in the United States College men's basketball referees in the United States Penn Quakers football players Penn Quakers men's basketball coaches Penn Quakers men's basketball players People from Crawford County, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania Sportspeople from Lancaster, Pennsylvania Suicides by jumping in the United States American men's basketball players Suicides in Pennsylvania