Willem Hendrik "Butch" van Breda Kolff (October 28, 1922August 22, 2007) was an American basketball player and coach. Biography Early life and career Butch was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, son of Dutch soccer player Jan van Breda Kolff. He gained an affection for basketball while growing up in Montclair. He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He then attended Princeton University, where he played basketball for Franklin "Cappy" Cappon, and New York University, where he also played basketball. Signed by the New York Knicks in 1946, he spent four seasons playing as a professional. The New York Knicks played in the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which merged with some of the better teams of the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association in (NBA) in 1949. In the four years (1946–50) van Breda Kolff played in the BAA and the NBA, he turned in a relatively unimpressive performance, shooting just .305 from the field, .669 from the line, and averaging 4.7 points in 175 contests. He was elected team captain of the Knicks. After leaving the NBA in 1950, van Breda Kolff began a coaching career. He took over as head coach at Lafayette College, where he remained from 1951 to 1955. He also coached soccer and lacrosse at Lafayette. He then coached for Hofstra University from 1955 to 1962, and Princeton from 1962 to 1967. He is one of four men to have coached both an NCAA final Four team (Princeton, 1965) and an NBA Finals squad (the Los Angeles Lakers, 1968 and 1969). (The others are Larry Brown, Jack Ramsay, and Fred Schaus.) Van Breda Kolff also spent time running a women's professional team and later coached a high school team in Picayune, Mississippi. "Coaching is coaching", he once told a reporter. "Give me 10 players who want to work and learn the game and I'm happy. I don't count the house." Pro coaching career Van Breda Kolff's success in college attracted the attention of the NBA. The Lakers hired him in 1967, and in his first season guided the team to the NBA Finals, where they lost to the Boston Celtics in six games. In his second campaign for the Lakers, his team — with Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain — notched a 55–27 record and reached the Finals again, but van Breda Kolff and Chamberlain did not get