In his 15 years as head coach of the Heat, Erik Spoelstra has already built a case as one of the best coaches in NBA history.
Coach "Spo" has won two championships during his tenure (2012 and 2013) and won another as an assistant coach under Pat Riley in 2006. He has worked his magic once again in 2023, leading his 8-seeded Miami squad to huge upsets over Milwaukee and Boston en route to the NBA Finals.
Despite barely scraping into the playoffs, the Heat are on the cusp of a title as they battle the Nuggets in the Finals. It is another feather in the cap of Spoelstra, who was named one of the top 15 coaches of all time as a part of the NBA's 75th0anniversary celebrations last year.
Spoelstra isn't the only person in his family who has been successful in the world of sports. Here's everything you need to know about the longtime Heat coach's family tree and background:
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Erik Spoelstra's father: Jon Spoelstra
Erik Spoelstra was born in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill. in 1970. He moved around the country with his family, spending his childhood primarily in Buffalo, N.Y., and Portland, Ore.
His father, Jon Spoelstra, was a sports marketer who spent decades working as an executive in the NBA for the Buffalo Braves, Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, and New Jersey Nets.
Jon Spoelstra served as team president of the Nets for several years and successfully increased the franchise's home attendance from the lowest in the league to the highest. One of his most famous marketing ploys was a campaign in which he mailed rubber chickens to season ticket holders that had not yet renewed for the following season. The chickens came with an attached message that read "Don't Fowl Out!"
Despite working in the NBA during Erik's childhood, Jon says he never pushed his son to enter the basketball world.
"I never tried to steer him into any industry," he told USA Today in 2013. "There was no ulterior motive. ... I would think if I was a plumber, I'd have my little boy following me around and I'd show him what a wrench does."
Erik Spoelstra's mother: Elisa Celino
Spoelstra is half-Filipino. His mother, Elisa Celino, was born in San Pablo, Laguna, Philippines.
When Spoelstra was appointed by the Heat in 2008, he became the first Filipino-American to ever serve as an NBA head coach. He has since become something of a sporting icon in the country and has visited to organize basketball camps on a number of occasions.
However, his popularity has sometimes made that difficult.
“We showed up one place and there must have been eight to ten thousand people there," he told ESPN's Cassidy Hubbarth in March. "So we pull up in the bus, they’re rocking our bus and everything and there’s no way security could stop them.
"So somehow we tried to like carve out a court and do a clinic with the kids. And as soon as we were done with the clinic, they just swarmed us. ... It got to the point where [assistant David Fizdale] and my other assistant, Chet Kammerer, were signing kids foreheads."
I may refer to him as ‘Filipino Jackson’ from time to time but IN THE Philippines Erik Spoelstra is truly transcendent. Listen to Episode 5 of Hoops Paradise: The Philippines Love of the Game featuring the first Asian-American head coach in the history of the NBA.
— Cassidy Hubbarth (@CassidyHubbarth) March 26, 2023
🔗:… pic.twitter.com/Vad70jfbYq
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Erik Spoelstra's sister: Monica Spoelstra
Erik's sister, Monica, is partially responsible for persuading him to enter the NBA.
In 1995, at the age of 24, Erik was trying to choose between playing professionally in Germany or becoming a video coordinator for the Heat. However, the job in Miami was only supposed to be a temporary position.
"It wasn't a guarantee that it would last past the summer," Spoelstra said. "I was not set on that. It was probably the toughest decision I had made in my life because I just had an opportunity in Germany for another two-year deal."
Then, Monica weighed in with her two cents.
"I don't know if these are the right words," their father, Jon, recalled. "But she said, 'What the (expletive) are you thinking? Do you realize how difficult it is to get into the NBA? Just because Dad is there doesn't mean it's easy. To get a job on the basketball side? You have to be an idiot."
It helped convince Erik to take the job with the Heat. From there, he worked his way up from video coordinator to advance scout to assistant coach before Pat Riley hand picked him as his successor. The rest, of course, is history.
Erik Spoelstra's grandfather: Watson "Waddy" Spoelstra
Erik and Jon aren't the only Spoelstras to have succeeded in the sports world. Erik's paternal grandfather, Watson, spent many years as a sportswriter for the Associated Press and The Detroit News. He also spent more than three decades as a correspondent for The Sporting News, filing "almost weekly reports from Detroit."
Watson covered many of Detroit's professional teams — including the Tigers, Lions and Pistons — as well as University of Michigan athletics. He also served as president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America in 1968.
In addition to his writing, he founded Baseball Chapel in 1973. The organization provides Christian chaplains to professional baseball teams. It now serves teams in leagues around the world, from Latin America to Japan.
