Lefty Driesell was all of those plus many other adjectives and adverbs and the Hall of Fame coach's recent passing at the age of ninety-two brought lots of memories back to me (perhaps even more if I hadn't somehow lost the first version of this).
Lefty Driesell was the originator of Midnight Madness, a master recruiter who landed the top player in the country three times (although Moses Malone turned pro with the ABA Utah Stars), and a man so beloved by his fanbase that the Maryland band would play "Hail to the Chief" when he walked onto the floor with Lefty returning the V for Victory sign.
Lefty came to Maryland in 1969 from Davidson, where he had reached the Elite Eight in the previous two seasons, vowing to turn the Terrapins into the "UCLA of the East".
Driesell may have fallen short of that prediction but he turned the DMV into a basketball area and set the stage for some of the best basketball that this area has seen.
Under Lefty, Maryland won its second ACC Tournament (1984) in program history, won its only NIT (1972) in the days when the NIT was more than a consolation prize, took Maryland to its only Elite Eight appearances (1973 and 1975) before the Gary Williams Final Four teams in 2001 and 2002, won the first two ACC regular season titles (1975, 1980) in program history, and won twenty or more games on ten occasions.
Driesell recruited the top player in the nation to Maryland three times. Tom McMillen and Albert King played for Maryland, and Moses Malone committed to the Terrapins before signing with the Utah Stars of the ABA.
Driesell also coached nine first-round picks in the NBA draft, including John Lucas (first overall in 1976), Len Bias (second overall in 1986), and Buck Williams (third overall in 1981).
Driesell also indirectly played a part in the gradual expansion of the NCAA Tournament when his 1973-74 Terrapins were a top-four team but due to the NCAA"s one team per conference rule, were unable to participate when they lost their classic 103-100 overtime game in the 1974 ACC tournament final to the eventual NCAA champions in N.C. State.
Lefty is also the only coach in college basketball history to win one hundred games at four schools, Davidson, Maryland, James Madison, and Georgia State, and to take each of those teams to the NCAA tournament.
Lefty wasn't known as a great X and O coach and that was a major criticism about him through the years as his teams lost more than their share of big games in crunch time.
Lefty finally won the title that he wanted most in 1984 when the second-seeded Terrapins caught a break when unbeaten (in conference) regular season champion North Carolina was upset in the semi-final round by Duke, allowing Maryland to play the Blue Devils in the ACC Tournament final, emerging with a 74-60 victory with Len Bias as tournament MVP as a sophomore.
While I can understand how Juan Dixon could be considered to be the greatest player in program history with Dixon as the star of the only national championship team, I'd make the argument that Len Bias was the best player with two ACC Player of the Year awards and it was Lefty Driesell who recruited him to Maryland.
Lefty Driesell's reign may not have been as successful as Gary Williams's as Williams won the school's first and only national title but some of his seventies teams might have won a national title if those tournaments played with sixty-four teams and it was the success of the Driesell era that is the foundation of the tradition of Maryland basketball.
I wonder if Lefty would have been elected to the Hall of Fame earlier had the Len Bias tragedy not occurred.
Maryland was still a consistent NCAA tournament participant under Driesell and my guess is he would have been at Maryland for another ten to fifteen years, so the numbers would have been large enough at the top level of the sport that they couldn't have been ignored.
And there are the memories I have of Lefty and his Terrapins that are so meaningful to me today because it was Maryland basketball that I shared with my father.
We rooted for different teams in sports except for Maryland basketball and those childhood memories of watching Lefty's coaches show on winter Saturday mornings and ACC battles with my dad or telling him the next morning of a game that he missed because he worked second shift the night before.
The highs and lows of Maryland basketball (and sports in general) were something that I could share with my dad to find common ground in a relationship that didn't have many common interests aside from sports and I always smile thinking of those twelve years of childhood rooting for Maryland with my dad.
From the crushing defeats to North Carolina and N.C. State to the euphoric wins over some of the best teams in the country, Lefty Driesell, and his teams helped me fall in love with basketball and share that with my father.
I'm sure Lefty would have rather raised a national championship trophy but somehow turning an entire region into a basketball-crazed area is a nice consolation prize.
I'm sorry this is being posted ten months after Lefty's passing.
I had an entire post written and ready over the summer but a snafu just before uploading caused the original to be lost.
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