Keith Dambrot

Keith Brett Dambrot (born October 26, 1958) is an American former college basketball coach who was most recently the men's basketball head coach of Duquesne University. In his final year, he led them to their first tournament appearance since 1977, and first tournament win since 1969.

During his high school head coaching career, he coached future NBA star LeBron James for two years. During 13 seasons of head coaching at the University of Akron, he had a regular game season 305–139 record and was the winningest coach in the program's history.^{[citation needed]}

He is a three-time Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year. In 2010, he was elected into the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame, and in 2013 he won the Red Auerbach Coach of the Year Award as the country's top Jewish college basketball coach.

Dambrot was born in Akron, Ohio, and is Jewish. Dambrot's mother, Faye, was a psychology professor at the University of Akron while he was growing up. His father Sid Dambrot played on Duquesne Dukes men's basketball teams that were ranked No. 1 in the nation from 1952 to 1954. His uncle Irwin Dambrot played basketball for the 1950 City College of New York (CCNY) team, the only school to win both the NCAA Tournament and the NIT in the same season, and was the MVP of the NCAA tournament that season and the No. 1 draft pick (selected seventh overall) by the New York Knicks in the 1950 NBA draft.

Dambrot attended Firestone High School, playing baseball and point guard in basketball for the school teams. In college at the University of Akron, he played third base on the Akron Zips baseball team (of which he was captain and MVP) for the school, establishing what at the time was a school record for career hit by pitch, with 28. He graduated in 1982 with a degree in management. In 1984 he earned an MBA from the University of Akron.

His first basketball coaching job came while he was a college student, when he helped coach the high school junior varsity at his alma mater Firestone, and they won the Akron City Series JV championship.

Upon graduating college, he started as an assistant basketball coach at Akron.

Dambrot began his head coaching career at Division II schools Tiffin University for two seasons from 1984 to 1986 and at Ashland University for two seasons from 1989 to 1991, At Ashland, he led his team each year into the NCAA D-II men's basketball tournament. In between, he was an assistant coach at Eastern Michigan University.