Legendary Chisholm boys’ basketball coach Bob McDonald, the winningest coach in Minnesota history, died Wednesday after being diagnosed with COVID-19. McDonald died in Hibbing at the age of 87.
In 53 years as the coach in Chisholm, McDonald won a state-record 1,012 games before retiring after the 2013-14 season. He led the Bluestreaks to 11 state basketball tournaments and won three state championships (1973, 1975, 1991).
McDonald graduated from Chisholm in 1951, and spent one year at the University of Michigan before ending up at UMD. He led the Bulldogs in scoring twice during his career there. He made coaching stops in McGregor and Barnum before moving back to Chisholm in 1961.
McDonald’s strict rules — short, above-the-ears haircuts for all players, who were mandated to wear shirts and ties in public — were famous throughout the state. But the Bluestreaks’ success over his more than half-century of coaching was a different kind of legend. McDonald’s 1,012 wins are not only a Minnesota record, but it places him among just 20 boys’ basketball coaches in the United States to compile 1,000 victories.
Chisholm named its high school gym in McDonald’s honor in 2017. He was inducted into the Minnesota High School Basketball Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class in 2018 and the DECC Hall of Fame in 2015. His six children — four sons and two daughters — all played basketball before becoming coaches. Grandson Rhett McDonald is the current boys’ basketball coach at Duluth East.
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