Jim Jabir, who won more than 500 games as a Division I women’s college basketball coach and guided Dayton to the Elite Eight in 2015, has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 63.
Social media accounts for the University of Dayton athletics announced his passing on Thursday night.
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“On behalf of the University of Dayton and the women’s basketball program, we mourn the passing of former head coach Jim Jabir,” Dayton athletics director Neil Sullivan said in a statement. “We offer our most heartfelt prayers and condolences to his wife, Angie, and the entire Jabir family.”
When Jabir is mentioned around Dayton, Ohio, the folks there will always remember the Flyers’ historic run in 2015.
After losing in the Atlantic 10 conference tournament title game to a George Washington team powered by future WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones, Dayton received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament and was seeded No. 7. The Flyers — powered by Andrea Hoover and Ally Malott — defeated Iowa State, Kentucky and Louisville to reach the regional final in Albany, New York.
Unfortunately, Jabir’s Flyers ran up against Geno Auriemma’s UConn amid a historic run for the Huskies and Dayton lost 91-70. Dayton was just the third team that season to score at least 70 points against the vaunted Huskies.
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The 2015 tournament is the only time Dayton has played in the second weekend of March Madness, and it was the sixth consecutive season that Jabir guided the Flyers to the NCAA Tournament.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Jabir got his first head coaching job at the age of 23, leading Division III Buffalo State. After taking the Bengals to the postseason, he was named the head coach at Siena a year later. Then, after rattling off three winning seasons, he was hired to be the head coach at Marquette, where he took the Golden Eagles to a pair of NCAA Tournaments and won two conference titles.
Jabir didn’t find the same sort of success at Providence and resigned after six straight losing seasons. He spent a year as an assistant at Colorado — helping the Buffs make the Sweet 16 — and then landed the job at Dayton in 2003.
It took time, but Jabir eventually turned the program into a mid-major power. The Flyers had eight consecutive seasons of at least 20 wins, won the A-10 three times, and had that magical Elite Eight run in 2015.
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He stepped away from Dayton in 2016, citing personal and health reasons.
“Some of the greatest people I have ever known and coached are Flyers. Since the Elite Eight run in 2015, I have been emotionally and physically exhausted. I feel it’s now time to take care of my family and personal health,” Jabir said in a statement when he stepped away from Dayton. “I have given everything I had to the program and I am very proud of what we have built over the past 14 years. Our amazing players and the program deserve the very best from their head coach and I feel at this time, I can’t give them that. I want to catch my breath and spend time with my family.”
But Jabir couldn’t stay away from basketball long. The next year, he was coaching a professional men’s team in Denmark, guided the squad to the playoffs and was named Coach of the Year of the league. He returned to the women’s college game after that, coaching four seasons at Florida Atlantic and then returned to Siena for another four seasons before retiring in 2024.
According to a story published in the Dayton Daily News last month, doctors discovered in 2024 that Jabir had a “baseball-sized” tumor in his pancreas. The tumor was removed last year, but the cancer returned last September in his stomach lining.
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“I think I may be gone in anywhere between a couple of weeks to a couple of months,” he told the Dayton Daily News while watching NCAA Tournament games with his son.
Jabir won 551 games and is 19th all-time in games coached in the history of Division I women’s college basketball. He was twice named A-10 Coach of the Year.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jim Jabir, longtime women’s basketball coach, dies after cancer battle
