George Raveling, Legendary Basketball Coach and Visionary Nike Executive, Dies at 88

George Raveling, a Hall of Fame basketball coach and influential Nike executive, died at the age of 88 on September 1, 2025, after a courageous battle with cancer. He was surrounded by family and passed peacefully.

Raveling was a trailblazer as the first Black head coach in the Pacific-8 Conference and coached at Washington State, Iowa, and USC. Beyond coaching, he was instrumental in bringing Michael Jordan to Nike, helping to launch the iconic Air Jordan brand.

He was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015. Raveling also played a role in the 1984 and 1988 U.S.

Olympic basketball teams as an assistant coach and was involved in civil rights activism, including participating in the 1963 March on Washington where he was entrusted with Martin Luther King Jr.’s original “I Have a Dream” manuscript.