DeNIKE

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Monday, March 01, 2010 at 07:04:56 :

Marin Independent Journal
Tuesday, November 26, 1985
Section A, page 4

THOMAS DeNIKE

A funeral will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Mount Tamalpais Mortuary in San Rafael for Thomas DeNike, a longtime San Francisco high school coach.

Mr. DeNike, 94, died Saturday at Bayside Convalescent Hospital in Kentfield.

He was born in Tracy and lived in Forest Knolls for 50 years.

Mr. DeNike was a graduate of Lowell High School in San Francisco and Springfield YMCA College in Massachusetts, said to be the school where basketball was first played.

He served in the Army during World War I.

Mr. DeNike coached briefly at Polytechnic and Lowell high schools after the war before joining the charter faculty at Galileo High School.

During his 38-year tenure there, the basketball won 30 league championships.

Among the players he coached was Hank Luisetti, who gained All-American status and is credited with inventing the one-handed basketball shot and the jump-shot.

Mr. DeNike also served as president of the league’s Policy Enforcement Committee and devised the universally used exponet system, by which athletes are categorized on the basis of age, height and weight.

After his retirement, Mr. DeNike took up photography and golf.

He had no immediate survivors.

Burial will be at Mount Tamalpais Cemetery.

Friends may call from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday at Mount Tamalpais Mortuary in San Rafael.