Larry Costello was an NBA player and coach who was active in the NBA from the 1950s to the 1970s. Costello played for the Philadelphia 76ers and was the Milwaukee Bucks' first head coach. He is just one of thirteen people to win a championship as a player and a coach in the NBA. Click on the basketballs to learn more about Costello's life and career.
The 1971 Bucks hold the record for the quickest NBA expansion team to win a championship. Here's how long it took for other expansion teams to win their first title.
1931- Costello was born in smalltown Minoa, New York. The town has a population of about 3,500 people. Costello would play basketball in the neighborhood and went on to play for Minoa High School.
1951- Costello graduated High School and signed to play basketball for Niagra University, a small Catholic university right next to the US-Canada border and just a few minutes away from Niagra Falls. In a six-overtime game against Siena his junior year, Costello played 69 minutes and 40 seconds, and the school switched his jersey number to 69.
1954- Costello was drafted into the NBA as the 12th pick. He signed with the Philadelphia Warriors who were located in Philadelphia at the time before becoming the San Francisco Warriors a few years later.
1957- The Warriors traded Costello to the Syracuse Nationals, an NBA team located in Syracuse, New York and just about 20 minutes away from Costello's hometown of Minoa.
1963- The Nationals were bought and relocated to Philadelphia, becoming the Philadelphia 76ers. They were bought to fill the void the Warriors left in 1962 in order to keep basketball in the City of Brotherly Love. In the '63-'64 season Costello led the league with the highest free throw percentage at 88%.
1965- Costello led the leauge in free throws again, this time shooting at 87% from the line.
1967- At the end of the 1965 season Costello decided to retire after 12 years in the NBA. However, in 1967 the 76ers' head coach, Alex Hannum, asked Costello to come back as he felt the team had a real shot at winning the championship and he wanted a veteran point guard on his team. Costello agreed, returing to the team. He played with Wilt Chamberlain and the 76ers wound up in the NBA championship playing none other than the San Francisco Warriors. The 76ers won the series 4-2, winning their second NBA championship.
1968- The year after winning a championship with the 76ers, Costello became the first head coach of the newly-founded Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks were a new expansion team, entering the league alongside the Phoenix Suns.
1971- Between '68 and '71 Costello led the Bucks to become one of the top teams in the nation. 1971's roster included Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who was then known as Lew Alcindor. The Bucks went to the NBA championship and swept the Baltimore Bullets 4-0. This made the 1971 Bucks the quickest expansion team in NBA history to win a championship, a record that holds today.
1978- Costello stayed with the Bucks a few more seasons before resigning. Shortly after he went on to coach the Chicago Bulls for part of the 1978 season. Costello landed the job because he would often travel to Chicago to watch the Bulls play while coaching in Milwaukee, as Chicago was the next closest city with an NBA team.
1979- Costello returned to Milwaukee, but this time to coach the Milwaukee Does, a women's professional basketball team in the Women's Professional Basketball League, a precursor to the WNBA. Costello coached them until the league disbanded in 1980. This was Costello's final professional head coaching job.
2001- Throughout the rest of his career, Costello went on to coach for Utica College in New York until offically retiring in 1987. Costello was inducted into the Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame and the Great Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame, although the NBA Hall of Fame has evaded him. Costello died in 2001 at the age of 70 after a batlle with cancer. Costello is one of the top sports icons in upstate New York, earning the title "Minoa's favorite son."
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