Jack Riley, 1st Coach To Lead US Hockey Team To Gold Medal, Dies

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP/CBS) — Jack Riley, a former Army hockey coach who guided the U.S. team to its first Olympic gold medal in 1960, has died. He was 95.

The U.S. Military Academy announced in a statement that Riley died Wednesday in Massachusetts. No cause of death was provided.

Riley compiled a record of 542-343-20 during a 36-year college coaching career that started at West Point in 1950. When he retired in 1986, the Massachusetts native was second in wins in NCAA history. He is currently ranked 18th on the all-time list.

Riley played hockey and soccer at Medford High School, and went on to serve as captain of the hockey team at Dartmouth. That was interrupted when he served as a Navy pilot in World War II, but he returned to Darmouth and graduated in 1947. He played on the U.S. Olympic team in 1948, 12 years before coaching the U.S. team to a gold medal by upsetting the Soviet Union at the 1960 Squaw Valley Games in California.

Riley was named the NCAA Coach of the Year in 1957 and 1960, and was elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979.

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