Levi Driesel, the coach of the Corridor of Fame, who constructed nationally distinguished basketball groups on the College of Maryland within the Seventies and who, at his retirement in 2003, was the fourth winner coach of NCAA within the nation on Saturday at his house in Virginia. He was 92.
His demise was introduced by the college.
Driel (pronounced DRI-Zell) was the primary coach to win greater than 100 matches in every of the 4 main school applications. For over 5 a long time, its groups have received a complete of 786 video games.
He was a coach at Maryland from 1969 to October 1986, publishing a complete document of 348-159 at School Park. Its Terps reached eight NCAA tournaments after the season, received the Nationwide Championship for Invitation Tournaments in 1972 and received the Atlantic Coast Convention Championship in 1984. They completed excessive within the Nationwide Basketball Chart at the start of the Affiliate President at the start of the 7 -year -old Presid.
It was launched into the Naismit Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2018.
In Davidson, Maryland, James Madison and Georgia, Driesel had a complete document of 786-394. He educated James Madison to 4 consecutive NITs and introduced the crew to the NCAA Nationwide Match in 1994.
He closed his teaching profession in Georgia, the place he was the chief coach from 1997 to 2003. He led the crew to an enormous Wisconsin dysfunction within the preliminary spherical of the NCAA match in 2001.
His complete teaching victory is within the high 20 of all time among the many coaches of NCAA Division I and twenty third normally in any respect ranges of NCAA basketball.
However for all his teaching success in Maryland, Driesel’s document was not with out dispute. In 1983, a pupil on the college accused him of finishing up intimidating cellphone calls to her after she accused one in all his gamers Herman Wale, in sexual issues, which led to the veal was declared unacceptable to play the remainder of the season. The scholar mentioned Driesel had instructed her that “her identify might be dragged by means of the mud” if she didn’t refuse her assertion.
Driesel issued an announcement saying: “In no second on this problem, I didn’t intend to harass or intimidate or abuse somebody and don’t consider that I did it. I noticed that a few of my feedback made within the midst of the second weren’t applicable and if my name to the younger lady, I apologize.” He was reprimanded however didn’t encounter further disciplinary motion, in response to Reporting from The New York TimesS
Only a few years later, in October 1986, Driesel was compelled to resign after the demise of his former star Len, Len, grew to become hooked on cocaine overdose within the school hostel. An investigation discovered that the biases, which was made by Boston Celtics, has 21 credit to graduate, though he has visited Maryland for 4 years, exhausted his athletic admissibility.
Questions had been raised whether or not Driesel and the college administration had appropriately monitored the conduct and educational place of Maryland’s basketball gamers.
“I make this message with combined feelings as a result of I cherished each one in all my 17 years as the principle coach in Maryland,” mentioned Driesel at a press convention during which he introduced his resignation. “However it’s apparent that the administration desires to make a training change and I don’t need to practice if I am not requested.” He accepted a place as an athletic director at Maryland and remained there till 1988.
Charles Gris Driesel was born on Christmas in 1931 in Norfolk, Washington, his father Frank, a jeweler, emigrated from Germany. He was a basketball star on the Grani Excessive Faculty in Norfolk, then a basketball coach there and Newport Information, VA.
Ahead and the middle of the left hand 6 feet-5 (he grew to become generally known as Levi in ​​fourth grade), he acquired an athletic scholarship to play basketball at Duke College. After graduating in 1954, he hopes to play within the NBA, however no crew will signal it.
Driesel was credited to generate the concept of ​​basketball’s first “half -crazy” school in 1971 in Maryland, which referred to as for basketball gamers to carry a mile on the runway in entrance of the campus stadium simply after the midnight on the primary day of coaching for the subsequent season.
Driesel’s survivors embody his daughters, Pamela Driesel Anderson, Patricia Driesel and Carolyn Driesel; His son Chuck, who performed for his father within the early Eighties and have become an assistant in James Madison, and later the chief coach within the citadel; and 11 grandchildren. His spouse Joyce (Gunter) Driesel died in 2021.
As his 86th birthday was approaching, he reminded the sports activities author Dave Kindred of the day in 1969, when Maryland tried to steer him to turn into his basketball coach. Ted Williams was working the Washington senators of the American Baseball League, and Vince Lombardi educated the Nationwide Soccer League crew in Washington.
“I used to be instructed that summer season belonged to Ted Williams, the falls belonged to Vince Lombardi, and the winters can be on the left driesel,” he recalled. “That sounded fairly good.”
