Michael Goldberg (March 16, 1943 – January 20, 2017) was executive director of the

National Basketball Coaches Association The National Basketball Coaches Association (NBCA) is an American organization and union that represents coaches in the National Basketball Association. It was founded in 1976 and consists of all NBA head coaches, assistant coaches and alumni's. ...

in the United States for more than 30 years. He began as the general counsel of the fledgling

American Basketball Association The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a major men's professional basketball league from 1967 to 1976. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger, American Basketball Association–National Basketball Association merger in 1976, ...

in 1974 and later helped engineer the merger of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

and

in 1976. He became the executive director of NBCA in 1980 and was credited with improving the retirement and insurance plans of coaches. The

Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pre ...

announced it would be giving the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award to him in 2017. The NBCA announced that they would be creating a coach-of-the-year award, which would be named for Goldberg. He was known for preferring to wear a bow tie, and after his death in 2017, a number of NBA coaches wore bow ties during games in his honor. In 1981, he founded and continued to be CEO of a sports marketing company, National Media Group. He claimed to be responsible for getting the face of gymnast Mary Lou Retton, one of his clients, on the front of a Wheaties cereal box. He is a graduate of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

and the St. John’s University School of Law.

References

1943 births 2017 deaths American business executives New York University alumni St. John's University School of Law alumni {{1940s-US-basketball-bio-stub