Gregg Popovich

Gregg Charles Popovich (born January 28, 1949) is an American professional basketball executive and former coach who is the president for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was the head coach of the Spurs for 29 seasons from 1996 to 2025, during which he won five NBA championships, and was the longest tenured active coach in the NBA as well as all other major sports leagues in the United States. He has been a member of the Spurs organization since 1994, originally as president of basketball operations and general manager, before taking over as coach in 1996. Nicknamed "Coach Pop", Popovich has the most wins of any coach in NBA history, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches of all time.

Popovich led the Spurs to a winning record in each of his first 22 full seasons as head coach, surpassing Phil Jackson for the most consecutive winning seasons in NBA history. During his tenure, the Spurs have had a winning record against every other NBA team. Popovich has been a key figure in the sustained success of the Spurs in the 1990s, the 2000s, and most of the 2010s. Popovich has led the Spurs to all five of their NBA titles, and is one of only five coaches in NBA history to have won five titles. He was also the head coach of the U.S. national team at the 2020 Summer Olympics, leading the team to a gold medal. In 2023, Popovich was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

After 29 seasons as head coach of the Spurs, Popovich stepped down in 2025 and transitioned into a front office role as the team's president of basketball operations.

Popovich was born on January 28, 1949, in East Chicago, Indiana, to a Serbian father and Croatian mother. He graduated from Merrillville High School in 1966.

Popovich attended the United States Air Force Academy. He played on the academy's Air Force Falcons men's basketball team, and in his senior year was the team's captain and leading scorer. He graduated from the Academy in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in Soviet studies. Popovich underwent Air Force intelligence training and briefly considered a career with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Popovich served five years of required active duty in the United States Air Force, during which he toured Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with the U.S. Armed Forces Basketball Team. In 1972, he was selected as captain of the Armed Forces Team, which won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship. This earned the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) guard an invitation to the 1972 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team trials.

In 1973, Popovich returned to the Air Force Academy as an assistant coach under the school's head basketball coach Hank Egan. Egan later became an assistant coach under Popovich for the San Antonio Spurs. During his time as an assistant coach at the Academy, Popovich earned a master's degree in physical education and sports sciences from the University of Denver.

In 1979, Popovich was named the head coach of the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, the joint men's basketball team of Pomona College and Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Popovich coached the Pomona-Pitzer men's basketball team from 1979 to 1988, leading the team to its first outright title in 68 years.