Former NFL coach Dennis Green died at 67 today. While not young, there’s many head coaches in their 60s and I’m racking my brain to think of the last Head Coach or Manager of a major league team to die WHILE being the coach. Closest example I can think of is the head coach of Scotland dying after a World Cup qualifier.
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Does it have to be professional sports?
Skip Prosser died in 2007 while head coach of Wake Forest University’s men’s basketball team.
He had a heart attack at 56.
Flip Saunders was head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves (NBA team) when he died in 2015 from Hodgkins’ lymphoma
I can only think of Skip Prosser. There’s been several that had life threatening illnesses that took significant time off during the season. For example…
Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg had open-heart surgery
Denver Broncos John Fox had heart surgery
Duke Mike Krzyzewski has had several surgeries hips, knee, hernia
UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun had spinal surgery
I Got Ninja’d I should have typed faster. 
This is the only actual death I can think of.
Thats a good one, but now Im going to add a caveat due to this passage from Wikipedia:
As a result, during his recovery, he would delegate his coaching position over to assistant coach and former NBA Coach of the Year winner Sam Mitchell.
Now I want to know which coach who was in COMPLETE CONTROL of the team dropped toes up dead as coach, with full coaching powers. (Just when you think you have the answers, I CHANGE THE QUESTIONS!!!)
Then Skip Prosser in 2007, as noted above.
Not NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL
Vince Lombardi, perhaps?
Right after the Penguins won the Cup in 1991, Bob Johnson developed brain cancer and died three months later.
Head Coach Rick Tolley of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team died suddenly during the 1970 season, along with his team.
Red Sox manager Chick Stahl committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid during spring training in 1907. Why he did is still a mystery.
Dick Howser, manager of the 1985 World Champion Kansas City Royals, developed a brain tumor that was detected the following year. I know that the man who replaced him for the second half of 1986 was only considered an “interim manager”, which implies that Howser was still considered the real manager during that time; I’m not sure about Howser’s status during the 1987 season until he died in July of that year, but he might fit the OP.
This topic will probably be a fine subject for zombie resurrection in the future as head coaches and managers shuffle off the mortal coil with their cleats on. (Especially with the qualifier “latest”. That just begs for updates in the future.)
Adelaide coach Phil Walsh was murdered last year, two days before his team’s next game (which was cancelled).
<nevermind, already posted>
Well, if we’re putting in college athletics, Northwestern has had two in my lifetime. Ricky Byrdsong, basketball coach, was murdered in the mid-90s by a white supremacist and Randy Walker, football, died in 2006. Both died in the off-season.
ETA: Whoops. Ricki was in '99 and he had stopped coaching NU by then. Memory is weird. I thought it was earlier than that and he still was coach.
I know this is college not pros, but I’m thinking the situation with Rick Majerus at St. Louis U. was similar. I know he was not actively coaching, but if I remember right he was still “head coach” when he died and his replacement was an acting or interim coach.
Filling in a couple more:
Brad McCrimmon, head coach of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, also died along with his team. Strictly speaking, it was before the first game of the 2011-12 KHL season.
Manchester United manager Matt Busby survived the Munich Air Disaster in 1958, along with future England manager Bobby Charlton.
Don McCafferty, who won the Super Bowl his first year while coaching the Baltimore Colts in 1970. In 1972, he was fired five games into the season (the team got old, collapsed, and he refused to bench quarterback Johnny Unitas) so in 1973 he was hired to coached the Detroit Lions and went 6-7-1. On July 28, 1974 he died from a heart attack while cutting the grass at his home at age 53
Maggie Dixon was coach of the West Point women’s basketball team when she died at age 28