Jack Ramsay was born in 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Milford, Connecticut, and in Philadelphia. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, he studied at St. Joseph's College (later St. Joseph's University) in Philadelphia, where he played both basketball and baseball. After playing minor league professional baseball for six seasons, he worked as head basketball coach at St. Joseph's from 1955 to 1966. He then became the general manager and later coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, a National Basketball Association (NBA) team. He subsequently coached the Buffalo Braves (later the Los Angeles Clippers) before becoming the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in Portland, Oregon, in 1976. The Trail Blazers won the NBA championship in 1977, and subsequently made it to the playoffs in every season that Ramsay was coach. Ramsay was fired from the Blazers in 1986 after the team was knocked out of the first round of the playoffs. He then coached the Indiana Pacers' coach until 1988. After the end of his coaching career, Ramsay gave basketball clinics on behalf of the NBA and worked as a basketball broadcast commentator. He retired from broadcasting in 2013, and died in 2014.

Sources: Obituary in the New York Times, April 28, 2014; "Jack Ramsay (1925-2014)," by Kerry Eggers, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/ramsay_jack/