SPOKANE--One of the greatest basketball coaches in the history of the Greater Spokane League died Monday morning.
Dave Robertson was suffering from leukemia at the time of his death. He was 78 years old.
Robertson is a member of the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame for his outstanding work at Gonzaga Prep and Shadle Park over the course of three decades. In a coaching career that spanned five decades, he compiled a record of 358-129 as a head coach.
He started as a football-basketball-baseball coach in 1953 at a high school in Laraja, Colorado.
He later moved on to teach math and coach for 16 years at Shadle Park in Spokane.
His 1981 Shadle team won the AAA State Championship in a dramatic 66-65 win over Mercer Island. That team included Spokane high school legends Mark Rypien and Scott Poole. He took advantage of an early retirement offer after the 1982 season when he led the Highlanders to fifth place at state.
In 1988 he jumped at a chance to jump back into coaching and became the head coach at Gonzaga Prep.
He coached several years there before retiring again, highlighted by the fourth place finish of his 1990 team, led by Todd Doolittle, Hugh Stephens, Kevin Meyers and Jason Rubright and the fifth place finish of his 1991 team led by Tom Rinehart, Matt McFarland, Brian Caffero and Jeff Hansen.
All of his teams were characterized by defenses that pressed all over the court and offenses that loved to run.
His funeral service will be held Monday, October 12 at 1:30 p.m. at St. Mark's Lutheran Church on Spokane's South Hill.
