Deaths
May 26, 2009, Volume 55, No. 34	Print Issue

Mr. Daly, Athletics

Charles “Chuck” Daly, former Penn basketball coach, passed away May 9 at age 78.

Mr. Daly came to Penn in 1971, from Boston College, and guided Penn to a 125-38 record during his six seasons here. During that time, the Quakers also won four Ivy League Championships and made four trips to the NCAA Tournament.

After leaving Penn, Mr. Daly went on to coach in the NBA where he was assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers and head coach for the Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, New Jersey Nets and Orlando Magic. Most notably, he led the Pistons to the 1989 and 1990 championships.

Mr. Daly also coached the gold-medal winning “Dream Team” in the 1992 Olympics. He retired at age 68.

Mr. Daly was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994, into the Penn Hall of Fame in 1998 and is listed as one of the Top 10 Coaches in NBA History.

Mr. Daly was a 1952 graduate of Bloomsberg State (now Bloomsberg University) where he played basketball for two years.

Mr. Daly is survived by his wife, Terry; daughter, Cydney; and grandchildren, Sebrina and Connor.

Dr. Spielman, Genetics

Dr. Richard Spielman, the Butterworth Professor of Genetics in the School of Medicine, passed away on April 25. He was 63 years old.

Dr. Spielman, who joined the Penn faculty in 1974, was a world-renowned expert in the fields of human genetics and genomics.  His seminal work with Dr. Warren Ewens of the biology department, on family-based genetic associations studies, the Transmission Disequilibrium Test (TDT), has been cited more than 2,400 times to date and has had a major impact on the field.  His more recent studies with Dr. Vivian Cheung of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, were the first to investigate the genetics of natural variation of gene expression in humans. 

Dr. Spielman was committed to teaching both graduate students and medical students. He was the founding chair of the Genomics and Computational Biology Graduate Group, which has become the model for similar programs elsewhere.  He also served on multiple academic committees at the School of Medicine over the years.

Dr. Spielman received his AB from Harvard College cum laude in 1967, and both master’s and PhD degrees in human genetics from the University of Michigan.  After completing his postdoctoral training at Michigan in 1974, he joined what was then the department of human genetics at Penn.  He served on the editorial boards of several prominent journals, including the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the American Journal of Human Genetics, and Genome Research. He was a member of multiple NIH study sections, and served on the program committee of the American Society of Human Genetics.

Dr. Spielman is survived by his wife, Vivian; and daughter, Anita.

A memorial service is planned for the fall in Philadelphia.

Contributions may be made to the Richard Spielman Memorial Fund, Department of Genetics, 475 CRB, 415 Curie Blvd., Philadelphia, PA 19104-6145.

To Report A Death Almanac appreciates being informed of the deaths of current and former faculty and staff members, students, and other members of the University community. However, notices of alumni deaths should be directed to the Alumni Records Office at Room 545, Franklin Building, (215) 898-8136 or e-mail record@ben.dev.upenn.edu.