Hall of Fame coach 'Lefty' Driesell dies at 92

Hall of Fame college basketball coach Charles Grice “Lefty” Driesell, who won 786 games while leading four different Division I schools to 100 victories, died Saturday morning. He was 92.

Maryland announced Driesell’s death. His grandson, Ty Anderson, an assistant coach at Wofford, told The Washington Post that Driesell died at his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Driesell coached Division I basketball for 41 seasons — at Davidson, Maryland, James Madison and Georgia State — and when he retired in 2003, only Bob Knight, Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith had won more games. He reached the NCAA tournament at all four schools and took Maryland and Davidson to the Elite Eight twice each.

He was known as much for his personality as for his success on the court, with his big, booming voice, his Virginia Tidewater drawl and his comic style of storytelling.

Driesell was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018, at the age of 86 — an honor that seemed long overdue. He came to the stage leaning on a walker, accompanied by coaches Mike Krzyzewski, John Thompson and George Raveling, and gave a typically funny, rambling, memorable Driesell speech, interrupted often by laughter from the crowd.

“Lefty should have been in years ago,” Krzyzewski said at the time. “His contributions to the game go way beyond wins and losses, and he won a lot. It’s an honor he’s deserved for a long time.”

Driesell was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

Born Dec. 25, 1931, in Norfolk, Virginia, Driesell, the son of a jeweler, played college ball at Duke. After success as a high school coach, he got his first college head-coaching job in 1960 at Davidson, a college of only 900 in North Carolina. Driesell led Davidson to four top-10 finishes and a 176-65 record in nine years at the school.

He was recruited to coach Maryland in 1969, and although the school had been to the NCAA tournament only once in 46 years, he made the bold promise on his arrival that he would turn the school into the “UCLA of the East.” Driesell never won an NCAA title at Maryland, but he led the Terrapins to a 348-159 record, eight NCAA tournament appearances, an NIT championship, two ACC regular-season titles and one ACC tournament crown.

A Maryland icon. A college basketball legend.

We mourn the passing of the one and only Lefty Driesell

More: https://t.co/uIZdljbUTt pic.twitter.com/r5F8R8suS2

— Maryland Men’s Basketball (@TerrapinHoops) February 17, 2024

He’s credited with inventing Midnight Madness when he put his players through a 1-mile run at Cole Field House at 12:03 a.m. on Oct. 15, 1971, the first legal day of NCAA practice. Two years later, he opened the Field House at midnight and thousands of fans came to watch an open practice.

In 1974, the No. 4 Terrapins played No. 1 NC State for the ACC tournament title in a game that is regarded as one of the greatest college basketball games ever played. Eight of the 14 players who saw action in that game became NBA draft picks. Maryland was led by Len Elmore, John Lucas and Tom McMillen; NC State by David Thompson and Tom Burleson. NC State won 103-100 in overtime, meaning that Maryland would not go to the NCAA tournament, which was then for conference champions only.

The next year, the NCAA selection committee decided to add at-large bids, a change known as “The Maryland Rule.”

Driesell’s tenure as Maryland coach ended in 1986 after the death of Len Bias, one of the greatest players in Maryland history. Two days after the two-time ACC player of the year was drafted by the Boston Celtics with the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft, Bias died of a cocaine overdose.

A grand jury investigation cleared Driesell of any wrongdoing but the coach, who had signed a 10-year contract in 1985, was reassigned to athletic department duties. Driesell left Maryland in 1988 to become coach at James Madison.

“Maryland paid me every dime of that contract for the whole 10 years,” Driesell later said. “If I had done something wrong, they never would have had to pay me.”

At James Madison, Driesell led the Dukes to five Colonial Athletic Association regular-season championships, one tournament championship and an appearance in the NCAA tournament. He went 159-111 in nine seasons at the school. He was fired in 1995 after surprising school officials by saying that the next year would be his last.

Driesell moved to Georgia State, where he compiled a 103-59 record over six seasons before retiring in 2003 in the middle of his 41st season as a head coach.