Maryland men’s basketball legend Lefty Driesell, who coached the Terps from 1969-1986 and helped put the program on the national map, died on Feb. 17 at the age of 92.
Driesell finished his tenure at Maryland with a 348-159 mark, two ACC regular-season championships, one ACC tournament title and one NIT championship. He also coached at Davidson (1960-1969), James Madison (1988-1996) and Georgia State (1997-2003), putting together a career record of 786-394 as a Division I head coach.
Driesell was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
Former ACC coaching rivals Bobby Cremins, Cliff Ellis, Dave Odom, Bob Wenzel and Roy Williams recently spoke to PressBox’s Luke Jackson about what it was like coaching against Driesell, their favorite stories about the Maryland legend and more.
Cremins was the head coach at Georgia Tech from 1981-2000. Ellis was the head coach at Clemson from 1984-1994. Odom was an assistant at Wake Forest from 1976-1979 and at Virginia from 1982-1989. Wenzel was an assistant at Duke from 1975-1980. Williams was an assistant at North Carolina from 1978-1988.
What was it like coaching against Lefty Driesell?
Cliff Ellis: First time I met Lefty was [my] first ACC meeting. The first night of the meeting we’re all congregated at this one establishment and he pulls me over and he’s giving me the ins and outs. I was very appreciative of it. He was giving me advice about different things, different people, how to go about things in the league. I told him I really appreciated it. The last thing he said: “All in all, you’re welcome, but just know this — when we play, I’m going to try to kick your ass.” That’s what he said. A special guy. I loved him to death. I talked to him up until about six weeks before his passing. Just a jewel of a guy. He was somebody that you could run things across. He was a fun guy. He was a lot of fun. On the court, he was very serious, looking for that advantage. Off the court, he made you laugh.
Dave Odom: Eventful. Every night was different. It challenged the other coaches, the other bench to be at our best because he was always at his best. His best, in my opinion, was strategically very, very strong as a coach, but he was absolutely in a league by himself in terms of distracting the game. He distracted the other coaches. He distracted the officials. He distracted the other players. And all of that was to his advantage. I say all of that with great respect. As you move through this coaching profession, every coach worked and coached to his advantage. I think Lefty’s was one of distraction. Lots and lots of times, we would be in games and think we had the game right by the neck, and the next thing you knew there were some phantom calls from the referees or the crowd got involved or Lefty was stomping his foot — anything to distract. He was a master at that.
What made Lefty Driesell special?
Bobby Cremins: I’ve never seen anybody so persistent. He didn’t take no for an answer. When he came to Georgia State, I was coaching at Georgia Tech and he wanted to play. I felt bad because Georgia State had let go of my friend. I said, “Coach, I can’t play you because I’m mad at Georgia State for letting my friend go.” I thought he understood. He said, “All right.” The next day he called me again. He said, “Your friend wouldn’t mind if we play.” And then he just kept on calling. He was a great recruiter, absolutely incredible recruiter, great promoter. Just great for the game, great for the ACC.
Cliff Ellis: The big thing is his wife Joyce. She was the one person that kept him grounded. You talk about special, she was a special, special lady — very cordial. They were lifetime partners, meeting early in their life. He thought the world of her. When she passed away, that was the start of Lefty’s demise, I would think. I’ll never forget one time, I think it was the year they honored him at the Final Four for being in the NABC Hall of Fame. I was sitting there with him, and John Thompson was sitting there too. Joyce was right there. My wife Carolyn was there. We were just talking about life in general. He said, “You know, I told my wife Joyce she better not go before me because I don’t know what I’ll do.” And unfortunately, a few years later, she did. I’ll never forget that.
Dave Odom: I remember sitting on the bench in College Park one Sunday afternoon, two really good teams going at it. We always said, “Be alert when you play Maryland and Lefty because he’s going to show you something that you weren’t prepared for.” Think about that. You sit there on edge. He’s going to show you something that day that you had never seen out of him. I remember this particular Sunday. I was sitting next to the other assistant and we were watching, and there was a play that involved Len Bias. He looped over the top of it and they gave him the ball. The way they got him open and got the ball to him and the way he magically got by the defense to put the ball in the basket, I turned to the other assistant. He turned to me at the same time and we simultaneously said, “That’s it. That’s the thing we’re going to see today that we haven’t seen out him.” He’d always give you something like that.
What are your favorite stories about facing off against Lefty Driesell on the court or on the recruiting trail?
Bobby Cremins: The first time I really noticed Lefty was my senior year [as a player at South Carolina]. We went to play at Maryland. It was ‘69-’70. We were ranked very high. Lefty came out of the tunnel with his arms up like Muhammad Ali and had the whole place cheering and yelling. I looked over and I said to myself, “What the hell is he doing?” Because I didn’t think they had a chance to beat us. … We had the better team, and I knew that. We beat them, [101-68]. I remember him coming out of the tunnel, waving his hands like they were going to kick our ass. I said, “This is not going to happen unless there’s something I don’t know about.” But sure enough, he had tremendous enthusiasm.
Cliff Ellis: One thing I remember about Cole Field House, they would burn you out in those locker rooms. Oh my god, it must have been 150 degrees in there. It was a sweatbox. … Everybody’s looking for an advantage. It was the hottest place to be in the ACC. Golly, you couldn’t breathe in there.
Dave Odom: I was a young coach at the time — first year at Wake Forest, ‘76. We were both recruiting a certain tournament — not necessarily a player but a tournament. We came off the plane and both of us kind of ran into each other in the gift shop. I went in to get maybe a newspaper and he was in to get cough drops or something, I don’t know. He said to me, “I’ve seen the results of Wake Forest’s early recruitment of some of these players that you’ve been getting. Looks like you’re off to a good start.” I rhetorically said back to him, “Yeah, but you know, Coach, these guys are just freshmen and it’s going to take awhile to get them to a point where they can help us.” He turned and looked at me said, “If they can’t play as freshmen, they’ll never help you as seniors.” I listened to that. I’m not saying that was an absolute truth, but it was more true more often than not as I went through my coaching career. I always kind of used what he told me from that standpoint.
Bob Wenzel: At Duke, the students are creative — or you could label it differently depending on who you root for. There was one game where I remember John Lucas was playing at the time for them. Lefty was bald in the front, right? And these students — a whole bunch of them — put these skullcaps on. You know on old cars where there was empty and full and the needle would point to where it was in terms of how much gasoline you have in your tank? They were trying to make fun of him and say that he wasn’t too smart. They put these skullcaps on, and the pointer was pointing toward empty. I remember that distinctly as one of the things when they came into Cameron.
Roy Williams: The legendary stories for sure were about Moses Malone and how hard they worked to get Moses. They did get him. He signed with them, but the problem is the ABA gave him a better contract than what Lefty could give him, so Moses didn’t play for him. But he always felt like, “I beat all you other guys. I got Moses. I just couldn’t beat the ABA.”
I also remember some great battles. I remember some funny situations. Going off the court at Maryland one year, he and [then-North Carolina assistant] Eddie Fogler bumped into each other as we were leaving because we went through the same tunnel to get to the locker rooms. They were bumping each other and saying things back and forth. I said, “Guys, let’s get on to the locker room, good gosh.” I sort of stepped between them. And Lefty said, “He’s crazy.” I said, “We’re all crazy.” The next morning it came out in one of the papers that Lefty and I had words. I thought that was just the funniest thing to me.
One thing that I remember more than anything is that when Lenny Bias passed, it was just a terrible situation. A year or so later I ran into Lefty, because he and [then-Carolina head coach Dean Smith] had some big-time battles — and it got personal sometimes, it really did. He said, “All that stuff going on with me and Dean? Dean’s the only one that stood up for me. Push come to shove, Dean stood up for me. Nobody else did.” What he was talking about was Coach Smith had written a letter to the chancellor at Maryland saying what Len Bias did was no reason to make a change and fire Lefty Driesell. It was not his fault, that kind of thing. Lefty really appreciated that.
Do you think Lefty Driesell gets as much credit for his coaching as he should given his larger-than-life persona?
Bobby Cremins: One of the games that they say changed everything, of course, was that NC State-Maryland [ACC championship game in 1974]. Both teams were in the top five and only one could go [to the NCAA Tournament]. I think losing those games to great teams, great players, great coaches, it definitely took away some of his coaching legacy. It’s just natural. Lefty and I competed hard against each other, but we became friends. But at first, it was hard. At first, he wanted to kick my butt and I wanted to kick his butt. But I respected him and we became friends. I was really happy to see him get into the Hall of Fame.
Cliff Ellis: In the ACC, a lot of people didn’t give the credit where the credit was due because everything centered around a couple other teams. I think Lefty got his due. I think he got his due at the end [with the Naismith Hall of Fame induction]. … He got to see in the end how much he was appreciated, how much he did for the game, how much he did not only at Maryland but Davidson and [other] places he had been, how much he did with people. When you look at the people that reached out when Lefty was passing away and all the people that he touched … he was appreciated.
Bob Wenzel: This is not necessarily my opinion, but in my eyes the general thing about him was that he was a great recruiter but he wasn’t a great coach — and this is when he was at Maryland. And then of course he went on to other places and he won and he won and he won. To me, how could he not be a good coach who knows what he’s doing? Because he wins wherever he goes. I think my own personal thing about him was when we were coaching against him when I was at Duke and he was at Maryland, I probably believed that scenario that I was describing to you. And then later on when I was gone from coaching and I was doing the television thing, it became evident to me that that was not the case.
Roy Williams: No, I don’t, but he probably caused a lot of that appearance because he said, “I can coach.” That was his famous quote to some of the media, and they sort of poked fun. I don’t know if I’d say made fun, but they poked fun and I think that bothered him. When one guy did it, somebody else did it, so I think that was the sad thing. But he knew what he was doing over there on the bench.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics