Joan E. Burnham Guokas, teacher, in NBA family

Joan E. Burnham Guokas, 92, a teacher and the wife and mother of NBA champion players, died Saturday, June 18, at St. Joseph Villa in Flourtown.

Mrs. Guokas grew up in Pelham, N.Y., and Philadelphia. She graduated from the former St. Mary's Academy on Broad Street and attended Chestnut Hill College.

She met Matt Guokas Sr. at the Jersey Shore. They married in 1940. A star at what is now St. Joseph's University, he went on to play for the Wilkes-Barre Barons and the Trenton Tigers in the American Basketball League. He played on the Philadelphia Warriors' 1947 championship team.

In June 1947, he lost his right leg in an auto accident. His wife assisted with his rehabilitation, and became his chauffeur when he shifted careers and became an announcer for Eagles games and a sports director at WPEN-AM.

Mrs. Guokas told the Orlando Sentinel in 1992 that one good outcome of her husband's accident was that he was able to spend more time with their two children.

While her husband encouraged their athletic pursuits, she cultivated other interests. Matt Guokas Jr. studied piano for eight years and during one four-month stretch joined his sister, Mary, in tap lessons. "We have a photo of them in costumes," she told the Sentinel.

Mrs. Guokas was supportive of her son's basketball career. Like his father, he was a star at St. Joe's, and he went on to play with the 76ers when they won the NBA championship in 1967.

After a career playing for several NBA teams, Matt Guokas Jr. coached the 76ers from 1985 to 1988 and the Orlando Magic from 1989 to 1993. He is now a broadcaster for the Magic.

He left St. Joe's before graduating to join the Sixers. When he later returned to the school, a professor asked him why he was pursuing a college degree. "To make my mother happy," he replied.

When a grandson, Matt III, played basketball for St. Joe's from 1988 to 1992, Mrs. Guokas and her husband attended the games. He sat in the press box, but she sat with the students, their granddaughter Jody Kuntz said.

After her children were in school, Mrs. Guokas earned a bachelor's degree from St. Joe's, and taught school for years in Catholic and public schools in Philadelphia. She was teaching English as a second language at McCall School in Society Hill when she retired in the mid-1980s.

She and her husband lived in Washington Square and summered in Ocean City, N.J., until his death in 1993, when she moved to the Shore.

In addition to her son and daughter, Mary Tyrrell, Mrs. Guokas is survived by six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 22, at St. Joseph Villa, 110 W. Wissahickon Ave. Friends may call from 9:30. Burial will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Cheltenham.

Donations may be made to Chestnut Hill College, Office of Institutional Advancement, 9601 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia 19118.