Jack Riley played for Dartmouth College in 1940-42, before joining the US Naval Air Corps as a pilot during World War II. He played for the US National Team as a left winger at the 1948 Winter Olympics and the 1949 World Championships, and then played one season with the Boston Olympics of the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. Riley then became a hockey coach at West Point, and one of the most renowned in US collegiate ice hockey history. He coached West Point from 1950-86, and was US Coach of the Year in 1957 and 1960, in addition to coaching the US gold-medal winning team at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. Riley was inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979 and the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998. He won the Lester Pearson Award in 1986 and 2002 and was made a member of the Army Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.