PASSINGS: Don Meyer

Don Meyer

One of the winningest coaches in men’s college basketball

Don Meyer, 69, one of the winningest coaches in college basketball who came back from a near-fatal car accident and liver cancer before closing out his career, died Sunday of cancer at his home in Aberdeen, S.D., said a family spokeswoman.

Meyer led his teams into the playoffs 19 times and compiled a 923-324 record during his 38-year career, most of which he spent at Lipscomb in Tennessee and Northern State in South Dakota.

Four months after a near-fatal car accident and a cancer diagnosis, Meyer passed Bob Knight as the NCAA’s winningest coach in men’s basketball history in 2009. He retired following the 2010 season at Northern State and a 13-14 record — only his fourth losing season.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski surpassed Meyer’s record in 2012.

Meyer kept coaching after being critically injured in a traffic accident in September 2008. Multiple operations followed to remove his spleen, repair cracked ribs and deal with a mangled left leg that had to be amputated below the knee.

He would later call the accident a blessing, because doctors also found cancer in his liver and small intestine.

Four months later — while coaching from a wheelchair — he became the winningest men’s basketball coach, on Jan. 10, 2009.

He was honored in 2009 with ESPN’s Jimmy V Perseverance Award, named for former North Carolina State coach Jimmy Valvano, who died of cancer in 1993. Meyer also was given the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.

A native of Wayne, Neb., Meyer was a standout baseball and basketball player at Northern Colorado. He graduated in 1967 and began his head coaching career in 1972 at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.

— Times staff and wire reports

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