From USU to the NBA
“It’s been a miracle ride,” Dick Motta said.
The son of an Italian immigrant, Motta grew up in tiny Union, Utah with the hope he would someday do something “so great it would get me off the farm.”
Not only did Motta get off the farm, he ended up as one of the winningest coaches in NBA history. His 935 wins place him sixth on the all-time list.
Along the way, Motta picked up an NBA championship, won Coach of the Year in 1971 and in 1978 coined a famous sports phrase: “The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”
“My wife said they were going to kill me when I said that,” Motta said. “I don’t listen to the opera, but I got invited to the Metropolitan and the Grand Ol’ Opry after that.”
Motta, who graduated and got a master’s degree from Utah State, and former BYU football coach LaVell Edwards are the only two members of USU’s HPER Hall of Fame.
A display case in the HPER lobby honors Motta’s accomplishments.
Not bad for a guy who hadn’t even planned on going to college. Motta came to Utah State when a friend who needed a roommate asked him to come.
Motta loved being at college and spending all his free time in the gym playing basketball, but didn’t love his classes. His adviser had signed him up for agronomy classes because he knew Motta was a farm boy.
When Motta found out he could study physical education, he changed his major – without telling his parents.
Motta got his coaching start in Grace, Idaho, where he taught seventh grade and coached for two years before being drafted in the armed services. When he returned, he was given the choice of being the football coach or the basketball coach at the high school.
“I liked football a lot better, but they had the spud vacation up in Idaho and no one ever succeeded after the spud vacation,” he said. “They had a new gym so I took basketball.”
After leading his team to a state championship, Motta took a year off from coaching and returned to Utah State to get his master’s degree.
Motta was named head coach at Weber State, where he stayed for eight years before being noticed by the Chicago Bulls after taking Weber to the national junior college tournament.
He was offered a job as the coach of the Bulls in the second year of their existence.
“The first NBA game I ever saw was the first game I coached in Chicago,” he said. “I had no aspirations of coaching in the NBA.”
Motta’s coaching philosophy was simple: Fundamentals, discipline, and respect for the game. From coaching seventh grade to the NBA, he remained unchanged.
“I might get after [a player] today, but he’d have to look awfully hard to find an enemy at practice tomorrow,” he said.
Every year he would set the rules at the beginning of the season, and he would be consistent in enforcing them.
His first year as a high school coach he cut four of his best players for getting drunk on New Year’s Eve. The next year his players won a state championship.
Motta’s influence is still being felt in the NBA.
In Chicago, Motta coached a young Jerry Sloan, who became one of his favorite players. Sloan is now head coach of the Utah Jazz.
“I don’t know if I coached him or he coached me,” Motta said with a smile.
On his first seventh grade team, he had also coached a kid named Phil Johnson. Johnson played for him at Weber State and now is an assistant coach to none other than Jerry Sloan.
In 1971, Motta was named NBA Coach of the Year as coach of the Bulls, and in 1978 he won a championship with the Washington Bullets (now called the Wizards).
However, Motta’s career wasn’t all success. He learned another important lesson in the NBA, he said.
“You have to learn how to lose in the NBA,” Motta said. “Each team that I had gone to, except the Bullets, was on hard times and I built them up to good teams,” he said.
Motta also lost more games than any coach in history, something he considers a testament to his ability as a coach.
“I lost over 800 games and still had a job,” he said. “That’s more of a testimony to [my ability]. I always took teams that were always at the bottom.”
It is also a testament to Motta’s longevity. He coached more than 25 years in the NBA.
He was the first coach of the expansion Dallas Mavericks. He also coached at Sacramento and Denver, retiring after the 1996 season.
Motta still has local ties to Logan and Utah State. He and his wife Jan run a bed and breakfast hotel, the Bluebird Inn, in Bear Lake where they spend half the year. The rest of the year they spend in Dallas.
“I have to be doing something,” he said. “I can’t just sit around and watch TV.
Jan also runs the Bluebird Candy Company in Logan, while Dick is president of Bear Lake Watch, a homeowner’s association.
Dick funds a scholarship in the Health and Physical Education Department for students who are interested in the coaching profession.
-royburton@cc.usu.edu
Motta and former BYU football coach LaVell Edwards are the only two members of Utah State´s HPER Hall of Fame. (Photo by Ryan Talbot)