Former Davidson basketball participant, coach and athletic director and former Virginia coach Terry Holland is pictured throughout a ceremony to retire his jersey in January 2022 in Davidson, N.C.
Brian Westerholt/AP
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Brian Westerholt/AP
Former Davidson basketball participant, coach and athletic director and former Virginia coach Terry Holland is pictured throughout a ceremony to retire his jersey in January 2022 in Davidson, N.C.
Brian Westerholt/AP
Terry Holland, who elevated Virginia basketball to nationwide prominence throughout 16 seasons as coach and later had a distinguished profession as an athletic administrator, has died, the varsity introduced Monday. He was 80.
Holland died Sunday evening, in line with the varsity, which confirmed the loss of life together with his household. His well being had declined since he was recognized with Alzheimer’s illness in 2019 and he stopped taking his outstanding courtside seat at Virginia dwelling video games.
Holland took over a flailing program in 1974. The Cavaliers had had simply three profitable seasons in 21 years and Holland created a tradition that proved a system for fulfillment: His Cavaliers performed rugged protection.
Two of his first three groups completed with shedding information however just one extra did as Holland compiled a 326-173 document, led Virginia to 9 NCAA Tournaments, two Ultimate Fours and the 1980 NIT title. He additionally guided the Cavaliers to their first Atlantic Coast Convention Match title in 1976 regardless of a modest 15-11 regular-season document.
Together with a five-year stint at Davidson, Holland’s document is 418-216.
His greatest victory, nonetheless, seemingly was luring the nation’s most coveted recruit, 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson of Harrisonburg, to affix the Cavaliers for the 1979-80 season, and it was then that the turnaround took off.
“Terry Holland,” Sampson advised The Related Press in an interview earlier this month when requested what made him select upstart Virginia over extra established suitors. “He was primarily the deciding issue. Good faculty, good teammates, good schooling, ACC. I imply, you had Dean Smith and all these folks round, however he understood my demeanor and match what I needed in a coach. He was the right match for me.”
The Cavaliers received the NIT in Sampson’s freshman season and went to the NCAA Match for his final three years, reaching the Ultimate 4 in 1981 earlier than shedding to North Carolina within the nationwide semifinals.
Sampson, a future Corridor of Famer, earned nationwide participant of the yr honors in every of his final three seasons, and the profile his presence offered absolutely aided Holland in constructing his program. Virginia went again to the Ultimate 4 in its first season with out Sampson, shedding in time beyond regulation to Houston within the nationwide semifinals, and appeared within the NCAA Match in 4 of Holland’s last six seasons as coach.
Holland additionally constructed an in depth teaching tree, with many assistants transferring on to turn out to be profitable head coaches themselves. Amongst them: Rick Carlisle of the Indiana Pacers, Jim Larrañaga at Miami, Jeff Jones at Previous Dominion and former longtime school coaches Dave Odom and Seth Greenberg.
With two daughters of his personal, Holland additionally had an appreciation for the ladies’s recreation, former Cavaliers coach Debbie Ryan stated.
“He knew that we needed to go to Clemson and Georgia Tech, so he helped us to get the league to schedule each of us on the identical days to play doubleheaders,” she stated. “We might fly all the way down to Clemson, bus to Georgia Tech after which fly again, the lads’s and the ladies’s crew collectively, in order that it could save us all that put on and tear.”
He additionally was at all times involved about throughout the appropriate factor, she stated.
“He wasn’t impressed with himself in any respect,” she stated, describing him as a Southern gentleman. “He was simply there to ensure these boys turned males and so they turned good males.”
When he stepped down as coach at age 48, it was to return to his alma mater, Davidson, as athletic director, starting an administrative tenure that may convey him again to Virginia 5 years later in the identical place. In 2001, he moved to particular assistant to the president of the college, and in 2004, he started an eight-year stint as athletic director at East Carolina earlier than retiring in 2012.
