George Edward "Skip" Prosser (November 3, 1950 – July 26, 2007) was an American college basketball coach who was head men's basketball coach at Wake Forest University at the time of his death. He was the only coach in NCAA history to take three separate schools to the NCAA tournament in his first year coaching the teams. In 21 years as a collegiate coach, he made 18 postseason appearances.
Previously, he coached Xavier University for seven seasons, where he achieved great success. He spent his first year coaching at the collegiate level at Loyola College in Maryland, taking the Greyhounds to the team's first modern-day NCAA Tournament appearance.
Prosser was the Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 2003.
Early life
Prosser was born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania suburb of Carnegie and graduated from Carnegie High School, where he played football and basketball. He played basketball and rugby union at the United States Merchant Marine Academy where he earned a degree in nautical science in 1972.
Prosser coached at Linsly Military Institute in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he achieved a 38–9 record. He then was hired as a history teacher at Wheeling Central Catholic High School, where he coached his teams to a state championship in 1982, five regional championships and three conference titles over a period of six years and a record of 104–48. Prosser would say later in his career that he would be happy if he were still teaching and coaching at Central Catholic High. One of the players on his championship team was Doug Wojcik, former head coach at the College of Charleston. Prosser earned his master's degree in secondary education from West Virginia University while he taught at Wheeling Central.
Coaching
Prosser coached 15 seasons as head coach at the collegiate level. He began his college coaching career when he was hired by Coach Pete Gillen as an assistant coach for eight seasons at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, starting with the 1985–86 season, and he became Gillen's top assistant.
His collegiate head coaching career began at Loyola College in Maryland on April 1, 1993. Besides replacing Tom Schneider, who had resigned amid a then-school-worst 2–25 season, Prosser inherited a program that had completed its sixth straight losing campaign. In his only season at Loyola, the Greyhounds finished with a 17–13 overall record and won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship to earn its first-ever NCAA Division I tournament berth. He returned to Xavier precisely one year later, on April 1, 1994, to succeed Gillen, who had accepted a similar position at Providence College two days prior. Prosser became the second-winningest coach in Xavier history after Gillen.
Prosser began his career at Wake Forest in 2001 and led the Demon Deacons to the NCAA tournament in each of his first four years there. Prosser is credited for sparking participation in the Wake Forest student Screamin' Demons and increasing attendance with game-time antics, like having the Demon Deacon mascot enter Lawrence Joel on a Harley Davidson and filling the coliseum with Zombie Nation's "Kernkraft 400" at tip-off and when the Deacons would go on a run. During Prosser's tenure as head coach, home season tickets sold out for the first time ever in 2004. During the 2004–05 season, the team was ranked #1 by the Associated Press for the first time in the school's history and won a school-record 27 games. At Wake Forest, Prosser won 100 games faster than all but two ACC coaches. In 2003, his Demon Deacons squad became the first from the ACC to ever lead the nation in rebounding. In the summer of 2007, Prosser had organized what was said to be a top-five recruiting class for the upcoming year.
Prosser was the collegiate coach of current or former NBA players Aaron Williams, James Posey, David West, Josh Howard, Darius Songaila and Chris Paul; he won national recruiting wars for Paul and Eric Williams. He amassed a career record of 291–146 (.666).
Every senior whom Prosser coached earned his degree in four years.
Coaching style
Prosser's teams were known for their fast tempo and offensive explosiveness.
During his last two troubling seasons, Prosser would quote Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, Friedrich Nietzsche, or William Shakespeare to his players to inspire them. In the spring semester before summer exhibition tours, Prosser would require that every member of his team take a one-credit class on the history of the place they would be visiting. He would also attend the class and write the required term paper.