Vincent Joseph Boryla (March 11, 1927 – March 27, 2016) was an American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player, coach and executive. His nickname was "Moose". He graduated from

East Chicago Washington High School East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

in 1944. He played basketball at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

and the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

, where he was named a consensus All-American in 1949. Boryla was part of the U.S team that won the gold medal at the

1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an international multi-sport event held from 29 July to 14 August 1948 in London, England, United Kingdom. Following a twelve-year hiatus ca ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Boryla played for the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

in the early 1950s. In 1951, Boryla scored nine points in the inaugural

NBA All-Star Game The National Basketball Association All-Star Game is a basketball exhibition game hosted every February by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and showcases 24 of the league's star players. It is the featured event of NBA All-Star Weekend, a ...

and played in the NBA Finals in 1951 and 1953. Boryla did not participate in the 1952 playoffs. He later became the Knicks' coach from 1956 to 1958, and had an 80–85 record with them. Later in his career, Boryla became the

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the

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, ...

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...

early in their history when they were first the Kansas City ABA team and then the

Denver Larks Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He was also the general manager of the ABA's

Utah Stars The Utah Stars were an American Basketball Association (ABA) team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Under head coach Bill Sharman the Stars were the first major professional basketball team to use a pre-game shootaround. History prior to moving to ...

. Boryla later rejoined the Nuggets when the franchise joined the NBA. He won the

NBA Executive of the Year Award The National Basketball Association's Executive of the Year Award is an annual award given since the 1972–73 NBA season, to the league's best general manager, president of basketball/business operations, or another high-ranking executive. Befor ...

with the Nuggets in 1985. His son

Mike Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and docume ...

was a

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

; Vince served as his agent. Boryla was inducted into the

Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame The Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame is a sports museum and hall of fame in New Castle, Indiana. While it honors men and women associated with high school, college, and professional basketball in Indiana, an emphasis is placed on the athlete's high ...

, and in 1984 into the

National Polish-American Hall of Fame The National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame and Museum was founded in 1973. The mission of the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame is to recognize and preserve outstanding achievement by individuals of Polish heritage in the field of ...

. Boryla died in Denver, Colorado on March 27, 2016 from complications of pneumonia, aged 89.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

Playoffs

References

External links

*
Vince Boryla (as coach) Statistics
at Basketball-Reference.com
National Polish-American Sports HOF profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boryla, Vince 1927 births 2016 deaths All-American college men's basketball players Amateur Athletic Union men's basketball players American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Indiana Basketball players at the 1948 Summer Olympics Basketball players from Indiana Denver Pioneers men's basketball players Medalists at the 1948 Summer Olympics National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association executives New York Knicks head coaches New York Knicks players Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball players Olympic gold medalists for the United States in basketball Power forwards (basketball) Small forwards Sportspeople from East Chicago, Indiana United States men's national basketball team players Utah Stars executives Deaths from pneumonia in Colorado American people of Polish descent