The two classiest coaches I ever met coached against each other in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Now they’re both gone.
I’ve written before about Dean Smith of North Carolina, the only coach I ever knew who apologized to me. The died eight years ago at the age of 83, suffering from advanced dementia.
Now Terry Holland of Virginia is gone as well, dying the other day at 80 after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
The first half of my 30-year career as a newspaperman was spent covering sports, and the most fun I had was covering college basketball I had two traveling beats, covering Missouri from 1984-86 and Nevada from 1988-90. O covered parts of five different NCAA tournaments, including the Final Four twice (in 1985 and 1986). I was one of 50 national voters in the Associated Press poll in 1987-88 and 1990-91.
And I met so many interesting coaches. Norm Stewart at Missouri and Len Stevens at Nevada were the head coaches of the schools I traveled with, but my early years in the Atlantic Coast Conference put me in contact with not only Smith and Holland, but also giants like Jim Valvano, Lefty Driesell and Mike Krzyzewski.
Holland was my favorite, though, at least until Tony Bennett won a national championship at Virginia in 2019.
In more than 65 years as a sports fan, the one team I care the most about is Virginia basketball. From Barry Parkhill and Wally Walker in the ’70s to Jeff Lamp and Ralph Sampson in the ’80s all the way up to DeAndre Hunter, Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy in 2019, I’ve lived and died with the Wahoos.
The Sampson years were the toughest. When the 7-foot-4 phenom decided to come to Charlottesville, people were saying the Wahoos would win multiple national championships. They never even won the ACC tournament. They won the National Invitation Tournament in Sampson’s first year and went to the NCAA Final Four in his second, but that was it.
Of course those in the know blamed Holland, living up to the saying that coaches get too much credit when their teams win and too much blame when their teams lose.
The year after Sampson was a huge surprise. The Hoos started 9-0, but then struggled through the ACC season and finished the regular season 16-10. They lost in the first round of the ACC tournament and it was actually contreoversial that they got a bid to the NCAA tournament.
They beat Iona by one point and then topped Arkansas by two in overtime to reach the East Regional in Atlanta.
Then they stunned Syracuse to reach the regional final.
In the postgame press conference, a reporter asked Holland an expected question.
“Coach, after the criticism you got the last four years, is this year a vindication for you?”
Holland smiled. “You know, I wasn’t as bad a coach as you guys said I was the last four years, and I’m not as good a coach as you’ll say I am now.”
Two days later Virginia stunned Indiana to earn a spot in the Final Four, and when the Hoos got there, they took heavily favored Houston all the way to overtime before losing.
He was that good.
Almost as good as Tony Bennett.