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On April 29, 2008, the Bobcats named Larry Brown as the third head coach in franchise history. Brown, who was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002, brings 23 years of NBA head coaching experience to the Bobcats.
The fifth-winningest coach in NBA history with 1,010 career victories, Brown has led his teams to 17 playoff appearances, eight 50-win seasons, seven division titles, three conference championships and one NBA Championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2003-04. Brown also led the University of Kansas to an NCAA title in 1987-88, listing him as the only head coach ever to win both an NCAA title and an NBA Championship.
Brown was named NBA Coach of the Year in 2000-01 after leading the Philadelphia 76ers to a 56-26 regular-season record and a berth in the NBA Finals. He was also named ABA Coach of the Year three times – once with the Carolina Cougars (1972-73) and twice with the Denver Nuggets (1974-75, 1975-76) – in his four seasons in the league.
He began his career in 1972-73 in the ABA, where he coached Carolina for two seasons before taking the helm in Denver for two seasons. He continued with the Nuggets following their move to the NBA for the 1976-77 season, and he has since served as head coach of the New Jersey Nets, San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks. In addition, Brown spent seven seasons on the collegiate level, two at UCLA and five at Kansas.
Brown also served as head coach of the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 and was an assistant coach for the 1980 team and for the 2000 team that won a Gold Medal in Sydney. Winning a Gold Medal as a player on the 1964 U.S. team, he is the only male basketball participant to both play and serve as head coach for the U.S. Olympic team.
No stranger to North Carolina basketball fans, Brown played collegiately at the University of North Carolina from 1959-63 and served as an assistant coach at UNC from 1965-67 before returning to the Carolinas to coach the Cougars from 1972-74.
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Lee Rose is in his first season as the Bobcats’ lead assistant coach, continuing a successful and extensive coaching career that spans over 40 years on the collegiate and professional level. He previously enjoyed a 15-year run in the NBA as a coach and front-office executive with the Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets, San Antonio Spurs and Charlotte Hornets.
He started his NBA coaching career in San Antonio during the 1986-87 season, then spent two seasons with the Spurs and one with the Nets before moving to Milwaukee for seven seasons with the Bucks. Rose also served as Director, and later as Vice President, of Player Personnel with the Bucks.
In 19 seasons as a college head coach, his teams participated in 13 national tournaments - seven NCAA appearances, five NIT appearances and one NAIA berth - and he was named Coach of the Year in each of the conferences his teams played in. Rose is the only person to have coached in the NCAA Division I, II and III, NAIA and NIT tournaments over his collegiate coaching career.
Rose began his coaching career at his alma mater, Transylvania University, serving as an assistant coach for four seasons before moving into the head coaching role during the 1964-65 season. Rose has also held head coaching posts at UNC Charlotte, Purdue University and the University of South Florida, and is one of only a dozen coaches to lead two different college teams to the NCAA Final Four - UNCC in 1977 and Purdue in 1980. He also served on the nine-member selection committee for the U.S. men’s basketball teams that won Olympic Gold Medals in 1984 and 1996.
A member of the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, Rose recently authored The Basketball Handbook, which includes drills, techniques and diagrams for players and coaches at all levels.
Most recently, Rose served as supervisor of coaches for the NBA Development League.
Rose and his wife, Eleanor, have two sons, Mike and Mark, and four grandchildren.
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Phil Ford enters his first season as a Bobcats assistant coach after spending the previous two seasons as an assistant with the New York Knicks. He made his NBA coaching debut with the Detroit Pistons during the 2004-05 season. Ford previously served as an assistant coach at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina, for 12 seasons, including nine under Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith.
The 1979 NBA Rookie of the Year, Ford averaged 11.6 points in 482 games over his seven-year career with the Kansas City Kings, New Jersey Nets, Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets. The second overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft, he also earned All-Rookie and All-NBA Second Team honors that season. During his third year in the league, he led the Kings to the 1981 Western Conference Finals.
Prior to the NBA, Ford was a standout player at UNC, where he still holds the school’s career scoring record (2,290) and ranks third in career assists (753). He earned First Team All-America and All-ACC honors in 1976, 1977 and 1978. Ford won the John Wooden Award and was named ACC Player of the Year in 1978, and was named ACC Athlete of the Year in both 1977 and 1978. Ford, who led the Tar Heels in scoring three times and led the ACC in assists three times, had his No. 12 jersey retired by the school. He was also a member of the Gold Medal-winning United States team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where he averaged 11.3 points during competition.
Ford was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1991 and was voted one of the ACC’s Top 10 all-time male athletes, as well as one of its Top 50 all-time male basketball players, during the conference’s Golden Anniversary celebration in 2003.
Ford and his wife, Traci, have a daughter, Tyler, and a son, Mitchell.
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Paul Mokeski is in his first season as a member of the Bobcats coaching staff after most recently serving as an assistant coach with the Fort Worth Flyers of the NBA Development League. Prior to his one-year stint in Fort Worth, he spent five seasons with the Dallas Mavericks in a dual role as player development coach and advance scout.
Mokeski’s experience also includes two seasons as head coach of the Connecticut Pride/Hartford Hellcats of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) and one season as head coach of the Connecticut Skyhawks of the United States Basketball League (USBL). He also spent one season each as an assistant coach at Stony Brook University and the University of Southern California before joining the Mavericks in 2001.
A 12-year NBA veteran, Mokeski averaged 4.0 points and 3.4 rebounds in 694 games for the Houston Rockets, Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks. A high school All-American in 1975, Mokeski was a two-time All-Big Eight selection at the University of Kansas.
Off the court, Mokeski had a charity golf tour to benefit the Milwaukee Children’s Hospital. In four years, the Paul Mokeski/Childrens Hospital Celebrity Golf Tour raised over $350,000 for the organization.
Mokeski and his wife, Linda, have two sons, both of whom are currently playing college basketball. Michael is a 6-9 junior at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Bryan is a 7’1” sophomore at Highland Community College in Kansas.
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After successful head coaching tenures at the college and minor league levels, Jeff Capel has served as an assistant coach for the Bobcats since the team’s inaugural season.
He was the head coach of the Fayetteville Patriots in the NBA Development League for two-plus seasons, with a 69-61 (.531) record. He took over the head coaching job midway through the Patriots’ inaugural season in 2001-02. In his first full season, he guided the team to the D-League Finals and a league-best 32-18 record. In 2003-04, Capel coached four players who earned call-ups to the NBA and still led the Patriots to the postseason.
Capel spent 12 years as a college head coach at Old Dominion, North Carolina A&T and Fayetteville State, with a combined record of 201-162 (.554). In a seven-year run at Old Dominion, Capel compiled a 122-98 (.555) record, a school-record 25-win season, two NCAA Tournament appearances and one postseason NIT berth. Capel spent the 1993-94 season at North Carolina A&T, where he led the Aggies to the MEAC Championship, an NCAA Tournament berth and a 15-13 record. His first head coaching job on the college level came at his alma mater, Fayetteville State, where he posted a 64-51 (.557) record from 1989-93.
Capel and his wife, Jerry, are the parents of a pair of former ACC collegiate basketball players. Jeff Capel III played at Duke University from 1993-97 and Jason Capel attended the University of North Carolina from 1998-2002, before playing for his father for two seasons with the Fayetteville Patriots. Jeff Capel III is in his second season as head men’s basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma
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Mike Sanders is in his first season with the Bobcats as an assistant coach. Sanders joins the organization after spending two seasons as an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks. Prior to that, he spent four seasons as an assistant coach and Director of Player Personnel for the Asheville Altitude of the NBA Development League, helping lead the team to back-to-back D-League Championships in 2004 and 2005.
In addition to one season as an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons (2000-01), Sanders has four seasons of head coaching experience with the Black Hills Gold of the IBA (1999-2000), the Washington Congressionals of the USBL (2000) and the Adirondack Wildcats of the USBL (2002-04).
An 11-year NBA veteran, Sanders averaged 8.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists over 648 career games with San Antonio, Phoenix, Cleveland and Indiana.
Sanders played collegiately at UCLA, where he won the John Wooden Award as team MVP in 1981 and 1982. A three-year starter, he averaged 11.1 points and 5.3 rebounds in 109 career games for the Bruins.
A native of DeRidder, Louisiana, Sanders was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in June of 2000.
Sanders, who graduated from UCLA in 1982 with a degree in history, has one son, Lamar, and one daughter, Kendra.
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