Driesell finally gets his Hall of Fame moment
At dinner Thursday night in Springfield, Mass., some of Lefty Driesell’s former players and assistants sat around a table trying to figure out why it took so long for the now-86-year old coach to be selected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
“The conclusion we came to was that he couldn’t hold his speech to five minutes,” former Maryland basketball star Tom McMillen joked Friday, a few hours before Driesell and 12 others gathered at the city’s Symphony Hall for their induction into the game’s greatest shrine.
Speaking without the teleprompter most of the other honorees used, Driesell went a little longer — nearly 15 minutes — in talking about an achievement he waited 15 years since his retirement and three previous unsuccessful attempts to achieve.
Driesell was joined for the ceremony by his wife of 66 years, Joyce, his four children (including son, Chuck, who played for his father at Maryland) and grandchildren, as well as nearly 20 players from the four different schools where he coached in his career.
In a rambling, rollicking speech that had those in attendance roaring in laughter, Lefty Driesell speaks during the induction ceremonies Friday in Springfield, Mass. Driesell opened by saying, “I’m so happy to be here. This is probably one of the happiest days of my wife — my life and my wife, whatever.”
Then came the first self-deprecating joke.
“Is there anybody else in here 86 years old? Raise your hand, will ya?” Driesell said. “So listen, if I l screw up,wait ’till you get to 86.”
A couple of times he looked up at the monitor and asked, “Is my time over yet? You know, I’ve been practicing this for three days and they said, ‘Five minutes.’ So I got two minutes left or something.’"
The jokes kept coming.
Talking about legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who along with fellow Hall of Famers John Thompson Jr. and George Raveling presented Driesell, the longtime Maryland coach said, “He graduated from West Point, and at West Point, you lead guys and if they don’t listen to you, they get killed.”
Of Thompson, the former Georgetown coach, Driesell said, “I used to be a hero around D.C. ’till he came. He took little old Georgetown, who we used to beat easy and I quit playing him. … He has done more for basketball than anyone in the country. He made Georgetown. Most of y'all never heard of Georgetown until he got there.”
Calling Raveling his “main man” as his first assistant at Maryland — the first African-American coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference — Driesell said, “I know he’s been pushing me for this for about 20 years. I heard them say Lefty got credit for [starting] Midnight Madness. It was me and George. In fact it was probably George’s idea because I’m not smart enough to do stuff like that.”
Driesell recalled how he got interested in basketball as a 9-year-old in Norfolk, Va., becoming the team manager for Granby High where he would later star and eventually coach, giving up a job at Ford Motor Company for a junior varsity coaching job that paid half of what he was making.
“I came home and told Joyce, ‘I think I’m going to take that Granby coaching job,’ ” Driesell said. “‘I always wanted to coach.’ She said, ‘What does it pay?’ I said, '$3,200.’ She said, ‘And you’re making $6,200 at the Ford Motor plant and you'’ll take that job?’ I say, ‘I love coaching. I’ll work in the summertime selling encyclopedias to make some money.’ So that’s what I did.”
Driesell talked about how he then went to Newport News High, where the team won 57 straight games, which is still a state record. Pointing to Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning in the audience, “He won 52 straight and Moses [Malone] won 54. But we won 57 straight.”
Speaking of Malone, who died in 2015, Driesell said he wished he and legendary coach Red Auerbach could have been there to present him as well. Driesell had signed Malone at Maryland before the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association offered him a $1 million contract to jump straight from high school.
“I loved Moses and if he had played for me, I would have been up here a long time ago,” Driesell said.