Lefty Driesell, a Hall of Fame coach best known for building Maryland into a national force, died Saturday at 92. Driesell also coached Davidson, James Madison and Georgia State, in addition to his legendary 17-year run with the Terrapins.
Driesell was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018 and ranks 17th on the sport's all-time wins list with a record of 786-394 in a career that spanned 41 seasons. He was the first college basketball coach to win 100-plus games at four different schools. He also won Coach of the Year at the conference level at each of those institutions.
Driesell was the first coach to guide four programs to the NCAA Tournament. His first was with Davidson in 1966; his last came at Georgia State in 2001. Driesell is regarded as one of the best college basketball coaches to never reach a Final Four, though he made four Elite Eight appearances.
After inheriting a Maryland program with a scant basketball history in 1969, he quickly laid a foundation that led to five consecutive top-15 finishes in the Associated Press poll and two Elite Eights between 1972 and 1976. One of his best teams at Maryland didn't make the NCAA Tournament when the No. 4 Terrapins lost in overtime to NC State 103-100 in the 1974 ACC Tournament championship in an era when only conference champions made the Big Dance.
He also proved to be a great promoter. Driesell, along with his assistant, George Raveling, contrived the concept of "Midnight Madness," by opening up preseason practices at the earliest possible minute: midnight of Oct. 15.
In 1971, Maryland held its Midnight Madness for the first time. Within a few years, schools across the country emulated the idea. It reached its peak in the 1990s, with multiple schools earning time on national television for glorified practices.
Though the "midnight" part of it isn't as commonplace in the modern era, the concept has grown magnificently.
Driesell was mostly solely credited with the concept for decades, but upon his induction into the Hall of Fame in 2018, he made sure to acknowledge that Raveling was, at worst, a co-creator. Driesell's hiring of Raveling also marked a key moment in the integration of college basketball's coaching ranks as Raveling was the first Black assistant in ACC history. Raveling went on to be the head coach at Washington State, Iowa and USC.
Maryland had reached four consecutive NCAA Tournaments when Driesell resigned shortly before the 1986-87 season and became an assistant athletic director. The move came amid fallout from the drug-related death of former star player Len Bias, which rocked the sports world and brought scrutiny on Driesell and the Maryland program.
Driesell didn't stay away from coaching long, landing the James Madison job in 1988 and leading the Dukes to an NCAA Tournament appearance in 1994. He posted a 159-111 record in his nine seasons there before finishing his career at Georgia State.
Charles Grice Driesell was born on Christmas Day 1931, in Norfolk, Virginia, and played college basketball at Duke from 1951-54. Before breaking into the college coaching ranks, he spent several seasons as a high school coach in Newport News, Virginia.
He made the jump from high school coaching to become head coach at Davidson in 1960, thereby launching a four-plus decade career at the Division I level. The Wildcats had finished below .500 in 12 consecutive seasons when he arrived. But Driesell posted a 176-65 record highlighted by consecutive Eight Eight appearances before leaving for the Maryland job.
