15 Facts About Dave Gavitt

David Roy Gavitt was an American college basketball coach and athletic director at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island.

Dave Gavitt was well known as the first commissioner of the Big East Conference and as part of the committee which created the 1992 Olympic basketball "Dream Team".

Dave Gavitt spent two years as an assistant basketball coach at Worcester Academy before becoming an assistant coach at Providence under the legendary Joe Mullaney in 1962.

Dave Gavitt left in 1966 to become assistant coach and then head coach at his alma mater before taking over for Mullaney at Providence in 1969.

In 1973, Dave Gavitt's team made it to the Final Four for the first time in school history.

Dave Gavitt served as director of athletics at PC from 1971 to 1982, and was at that position when the school's women's athletics programs were started as a result of Title IX.

Dave Gavitt became the conference's first commissioner, from 1979 to 1990.

Dave Gavitt's contributions are memorialized in the Dave Gavitt Trophy, given to the winner of the Big East's men's basketball tournament, which he was responsible for not only creating, but its annual use of Madison Square Garden.

Dave Gavitt was responsible for the playing of Final Four games in larger venues such as domed stadiums, and the first full contract with a television network to provide universal coverage of the tournament, further adding to the tournament's popularity and prestige.

Dave Gavitt would go on to serve on the Olympic governing body, including a presidency from 1988 to 1992.

Besides these responsibilities, Dave Gavitt was CEO of the Boston Celtics from 1990 to 1994, President of the NCAA Foundation from 1995 to 1997, and Chairman of the Board of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame until 2003.

Dave Gavitt is a member of the Providence College Athletic Hall of Fame, National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame, and the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame.

Dave Gavitt was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on September 8,2006.

Dave Gavitt became the third former member of the Friar athletic program, and the first native of Rhode Island to be enshrined.

Dave Gavitt died on September 16,2011, from congestive heart failure in a hospital near his hometown of Rumford, Rhode Island.