Meet Coach Love

Basketball has been a lifelong passion for Dave Love. The Calgary native began his career in the sport at the age of 10 when picked up a ball for the first time. This has led to a three decade odyssey.

In 2001, Dave began to teach a program that would enable basketball players of all ages and skill levels the opportunity to improve their shooting ability. The Love of the Game was born.

In the early years, the Love of the Game program was localized out of Southern Alberta. With tangible results for many players the word of Dave’s unique ability to relate with the players while teaching them the program quickly spread. Suddenly, the Love of the Game clinics began popping up throughout Western Canada.

Dave’s reputation and the success of the program preceded him. A flood of opportunities were created due to the success of the Love of the Game. Dave was offered the position of Shooting Coach with a university Men’s Basketball Team for the 2005 season. Dave has held the position for nine seasons, and this has allowed him to work with such players as Boris Bakovic (Canadian Junior National Team member, all-time leading scorer in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) history) and Matt Letkeman (Canadian Junior National Team member).

Continued hard work and success eventually led to recognition from the best league in the world. The National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns hired Dave as a Shooting Consultant for the 2009-10 season. Dave worked exclusively with Louis Amundson, and the impact was immediately recognizable. Louis’s free throw percentage improved by 11% over the previous season, and he also achieved career highs in field goal and free throw percentage.

This opportunity spurred several others including working with both Grant Hill and DeShawn Stevenson. The Oklahoma City Thunder became interested in Dave’s success and hired him as their Shooting Consultant for their D-League team, the Tulsa 66ers, in 2010-11. His work with players Ryan Reid, Jerome Dyson and Elijah Millsap led to his promotion as Shooting Consultant for the Thunder.

In 2013 Coach Love was hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers to work with fellow Canadian Tristan Thompson. Thompson became the first player in NBA history to switch is dominant shooting hand, and under Coach Love’s guidance increased his career high from the free throw line from 60% to 69%.

Dave is current working with players from the Orlando Magic.

While working with NBA teams and players has given Dave wonderful experiences and has allowed him to work with some of the best players in the world, his true calling and passion lies in working with young basketball players and helping them improve their shooting skills.

The Love of the Game now runs clinics across North America and averages well over a 1,000 participants a year. This has also allowed Dave to help assist local community basketball groups raise thousands of dollars through his clinics over the years.

Dave has run clinics for Basketball BC, Basketball Saskatchewan, Basketball Manitoba, Basketball New Brunswick, the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, the University of Lethbridge, UPEI and the University of Regina.