These College Basketball Coaches Revolutionized the Game

Now that basketball is over for a few months, but it is never completely over for me, I thought I would publish this article I wrote a couple years ago about college coaches. These are coaches that I think revolutionized the college basketball game in some way. I am not talking about the greatest coaches necessarily, but some of them obviously fit into this category. These are coaches that I personally saw or in a couple of cases coached against their teams. My list is based on three criteria: 1) had a direct impact on the way the game was played (offensively or defensively) 2) altered in some way the way the game was played or the players that played the game 3) considered a "rebel" or a "different" approach to the game than their peers.

The first college basketball coach that I remember as being "different" and coaching different was a coach that recruited me out of high school and was already a legend in coaching, E.A. Diddle of Western Kentucky University. He coached at WKU from 1922-1964 and was the first coach to win 1,000 games at one school. When he came to my house to visit me, he was 66 years old and needed help to climb the 4 or 5 steps up to our front porch. His overall record was 759-302. What sets him apart, in my opinion, was his fastbreak style of play and his personal excitement for the game. He would excite the fans by waving his red towel during the games. He was an outstanding recruiter and always maintained that he was an entertainer as much as a basketball coach. He is also responsible for breaking the color barrier at Western. The current arena is named after him.

I didn't sign to play at Western or for Coach Diddle but chose instead to play for another coach that was somewhat of a revolutionary college coach. Ken Trickey, who like me, was from a small town in southern Illinois, grew up playing in an integrated atmosphere in Cairo. Coach Trickey played his college basketball at Middle Tennessee State University in a segregated program in Murfreesboro, Tenn. (Several great Civil War battles took place within just a few miles of Murfreesboro.) In 1967 when I got to MTSU as a transfer student from the University of Missouri, there were no black basketball players on campus. In 1968, just one year after Coach Trickey became the head basketball coach, there were three. Before he left MTSU to become the head basketball coach at Oral Roberts University, he would be the first coach to start an ALL black team at a D1 school in Tennessee. Coach Trickey, like Coach Diddle whom he played against, believed in playing fast and giving his players "freedom" to use their God given talent. Basketball was entertainment and fans liked fast play and a lot of scoring. I played for him for three years at MTSU and later served on his staff as an assistant coach at ORU. Our ORU teams led the nation in scoring for several years. In 1974, after only five years at ORU, we played Kansas in the finals of the mid-west regional to go to the Final Four. (Lost in OT 93-90.) His teams were 118-23 in his five years at ORU. Coach Trickey went to a state (Oklahoma) that idolized a great Hall of Fame basketball coach, Henry Iba, and changed the perception of the way basketball fans in Oklahoma viewed how the game should be played.

We played against some great teams and coached against some great "revolutionary" coaches, but one stands out above the others, Jerry Tarkanian. "Tark the Shark" became a legend in college coaching at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, but he was a great coach long before he got to UNLV. Our ORU team played Coach Tarkanian's Long Beach State teams in 1970 or 1971 and lost to them both times. Long Beach State was a small "no name" college in basketball circles before Coach Tarkanian got there in 1968. Five years later playing predominantly African American players, he compiled a 122-20 record and built a national basketball powerhouse. Coach Tarkanian's incredible coaching and recruiting ability was often overshadowed by his "run-ins" with the NCAA. He won a national championship in 1990 with UNLV, went to 4 Final Fours, and was 778-206 in 31 years of coaching at the college level. In those 31 years, his team's only failed to win 20 games in ONE season! The Runnin Rebels are still talked about these 35 years later in college basketball folklore.

The third coach on my list of revolutionary coaches that I knew or personally witnessed is Nolan Richardson. Coach Richardson made "40 minutes of hell" more than just a rally call. During his 17-year coaching tenure at the University of Arkansas, he compiled a 389-169 record. I never played or coached against his teams personally but as a junior college coach in Kansas in the 80s I "tried" to emulate some of the things he did at Western Texas JC in my program at Butler County CC. His 1980 junior college team went 37-0 and won the National Junior College Championship. He came to Tulsa as the basketball coach just a few years after we left ORU, but what he accomplished there in 5 years was reminiscent of what we had achieved in our 5 years at ORU during the early 1970s. He won an NIT in 1981 and went on to go 119-37. Tulsa won the Missouri Valley Championship in his last two years at Tulsa. He took over the Razorback basketball program from another college basketball icon, Eddie Sutton. His teams dominated the Southwest Conference before Arkansas became a member of the Southeastern Conference in 1991-92. His Arkansas teams were a nightmare to play against with his full court defensive pressure and fastbreak "peddle to the meddle" offensive scheme. His teams prided themselves on being in superb condition and wearing their opponents down in the second half of the game. Arkansas won a National Championship in 1993-94 when the Razorbacks went 31-3. He is the only coach in the history of college basketball to win a Junior College Championship, the NIT Championship, and the NCAA Championship. Coach Richardson was a "special" one-of-a-kind coach that won and won big……his way!

My fourth coach was referred to as Michelangelo by the Hall of Fame TV personality and former college coach Dick Vitale. That reference by a man that has watched college basketball for 7 decades says it all, Dean Smith is a one-of-a-kind coach. We had a great team at Oral Roberts University in 1973 when we went to the NIT and played our first-round opponent, the North Carolina Tar Heels. Coach Smith's team was the most prepared team that I have ever played against. They took us completely out of our offense and dominated us in every facet of the game. We had two NBA prospects on our team and won 20 games. We led the nation in scoring, a 97 points per game average. We lost to Coach Smith's team by 17 points, and it really wasn't even that close. Coach Smith is a true college basketball coaching legend and is perhaps responsible for influencing how college basketball was played for several decades. His teams won two NCAA Championships, 17 ACC Championships (either tournament or regular season), an NIT Championship, and 879 games (.776%). Off the court, Coach Smith was known as a humble, classy, true professional that ran a "squeaky clean" program that graduated 96.6 percent of his players. He recruited Charlie Scott in 1966, the first black basketball player to be awarded a scholarship to play at North Carolina. Coach Smith is remembered for many college basketball achievements, among them the "four corner offense" or spread offense. (Depending on your point of view.) Finally, on a personal note, I went to a basketball clinic in Kansas City where Coach Smith was a speaker; he was the only coach that had on a suit and tie. I started wearing cuff links after that clinic. College coaches copied a lot of things that Dean Smith did, on and off the court.

Don Haskins took a "no-name" school (Texas Western) and a bunch of "no-name" players to College Park, Maryland in 1966 and won the NCAA Championship. His all-black team beat the all-white "blue blood" team coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp of Kentucky. Many college basketball gurus' rate that game as one of the top five all time championship games in the history of the NCAA tournament. That team was led by a great point guard named Bobby Joe Hill from Highland Park, Michigan. The Miners lost only one game that 1965-66 season despite having to play most of their top opponents on the road since no one wanted to come to El Paso and get humiliated. The gruff and "hardnosed" Coach Haskins, who played for the legendary Henry Iba at Oklahoma State, ended his career with a 719-353 record. He led Texas Western, who would become known as UTEP, to seventeen 20+ winning seasons. When Coach Haskins took over in 1961-62 at Texas Western, one of the players he inherited was Nolan Richardson. (see earlier comments) Coach Haskins recruited and played African American basketball players when most colleges in the country were still segregated. His teams were quick and played tough man-to-man defense, pressing other teams all over the court. The term, underrated, is often used to describe an athlete, in the case of Don Haskins his accomplishments as a great basketball coach and "revolutionary coach", are truly underrated.

Finally, arguably the most controversial coach to ever pace the sidelines but perhaps the best basketball mind in college basketball, Bob Knight. Love him or hate him, he was a dominating figure in college basketball for many years. He won basketball games early (25 years old his first year) as the head coach at Army, he won a lot as the coach at Indiana (31 years old his first year), and he won in his later years (61 years old in his first year) at Texas Tech. Overall his teams won 902 games and lost only 371 (.709%). His Hoosier teams won three NCAA Championships, including the 1975-76 that went undefeated (32-0). In addition, his Indiana teams won 11 Big Ten titles and an NIT Championship. The outspoken and volatile coach was a nightmare for the media, whom he often made fun of and disparaged. Coach Knight is given credit for creating and perfecting the "motion offense". His teams played almost perfect man-to-man defense with help-side and ball-side principles that were emulated by coaches at every level. A friend of mine, who served on Coach Knight's staff at Indiana, told me years ago that "The General" was a fitting name for this iconic college basketball coach.

In any undertaking like this post, it is impossible to list every college basketball coach (in this case) who is unique and has impacted the game. I realize that great, legendary coaches like John Wooden, my favorite coach of all time, brought so much to the game. Mike Krzyzewski, the winningest college basketball coach in history, with 1,202 wins at Army and Duke is a living legend. Rick Pitino has perhaps the most analytical basketball minds in the history of college basketball. Jim Boeheim, who spent 62 years at his alma mater, coached a 2-3 zone at Syracuse better than anyone in college basketball history. He ended his career as the second all-time winningest college coach with 1015. The man in the brown suit, Adolph Rupp, who coached at Kentucky for over 40 years and finished with a 876-190 record was a pioneer of the college game. The Wildcats "owned" the SEC for decades. John Chaney, who coached at Temple University for 24 years, was certainly a revolutionary coach and amassed a career record of 741-312 (.704). Contemporaries like Mark Few, who built a college basketball dynasty at "mid-major" Gonzaga with predominately international players, has had a huge impact on the game. Bill Self at Kansas has won more games than any coach in college basketball over the last 20 years with a .810% and an average of 28.3 wins per season would certainly be on a great coach of all-time list. Tom Izzo, another one of the greats, is from the "old school" of discipline, team play, and developing players at Michigan State. But let me remind you that this post was based on three criteria and one of the criteria was coaches I consider "rebels". Coaches that I considered unique in their coaching style or career. As a former basketball coach, there is no one that appreciates the job that a coach does, at any level, more than I do. When I first started coaching in 1969, a wise coach told me that "it isn't about the xs and os but the Jimmy and Joes".