Lefty Driesell, the Hall of Fame coach who built nationally prominent basketball teams at the University of Maryland in the 1970s, and who at the time of his retirement in 2003 was the fourth NCAA Division I men’s champion, died Saturday at his home in Virginia. Beach. It was 92.
His death was announced by the university.
Driesell (pronounced drih-ZELL) was the first coach to win more than 100 games at each of the four major college programs. Over five decades, his teams won a total of 786 games.
He coached at Maryland from 1969 to October 1986, posting an overall record of 348-159 in College Park. His Terps reached eight NCAA postseason tournaments, won the 1972 National Invitation Tournament championship and captured an Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship in 1984. They finished high in the Associated Press national basketball rankings in the early 1970s.
He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
Across Davidson, Maryland, James Madison and Georgia State, Driesell had an overall record of 786-394. He coached James Madison to four consecutive NIT appearances and led the team to the 1994 NCAA National Tournament.
He finished his coaching career at Georgia State, where he was the head coach from 1997 to 2003. He led the team to a huge upset of Wisconsin in the opening round of the 2001 NCAA Tournament.
His coaching win total ranks in the top 20 all-time among NCAA Division I coaches and 23rd overall across all levels of NCAA basketball.
But for all his coaching success at Maryland, Driesel’s record was not without controversy. In 1983, a female student at the university accused her of making threatening phone calls after she had accused one of his players, Herman Veal, of sexual harassment, resulting in Veal being ruled out for the rest of the season. The student said Dressel had told her her “name would be dragged through the mud” if she did not retract her statement.
Driesell issued a statement saying, “In this matter I never intended to harass, intimidate or abuse anyone, and I do not believe I did. I realize that some of my comments made in the heat of the moment were not appropriate and if my call to the young woman offended her, I apologize.” He was reprimanded but faced no additional disciplinary action, according to a New York Times report.
Just a few years later, in October 1986, Driesell was forced to quit after his former co-star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose in his college dorm. An investigation found Bias, who was drafted by the Boston Celtics, was 21 credits short of graduating despite having attended Maryland for four years, exhausting his athletic eligibility.
Questions were raised about whether Dressel and the school administration had properly monitored the behavior and academic standing of Maryland basketball players.
“I make this announcement with mixed emotions because I have enjoyed every one of my 17 years as the head coach at Maryland,” Dressel said at a press conference announcing his resignation. “But obviously the management want to make a coaching change and I don’t want to coach if they don’t want me.” He accepted a position as an assistant athletic director at Maryland and remained there until 1988.
Charles Grice Driesell was born on Christmas Day 1931 in Norfolk, Va. His father, Frank, a jeweler, had immigrated from Germany. He was a basketball star at Granby High School in Norfolk, then coached basketball there and in Newport News, Va.
A left-handed 6-foot-5 forward and center (he became known as Lefty in fourth grade), he received an athletic scholarship to play basketball at Duke University. After graduating in 1954, he hoped to play in the NBA, but no team would sign him.
Driesell is credited with coming up with the idea for college basketball’s first “Midnight Madness” in 1971. At Maryland, it called for basketball players to run a mile on the track in front of the campus stadium just after midnight on the first day of practice for the next season.
Driesell’s survivors include his daughters, Pamela Driesell Anderson, Patricia Driesell and Carolyn Driesell; His son, Chuck, who played for his father in the early 1980s and became his assistant at James Madison and later coached at the Citadel. and 11 grandchildren. His wife, Joyce (Gunter) Driesell, died in 2021.
As Dressel approached his 86th birthday, he reminisced with sportswriter Dave Kindred about the day in 1969 when Maryland was trying to convince him to become the basketball coach. Ted Williams managed the Washington Senators of the American League and Vince Lombardi coached the National Football League’s Washington team.
“I was told that summers belonged to Ted Williams, Falls to Vince Lombardi and winters would belong to Lefty Driesell,” he recalled. “That sounded really good.”
