Lute Olson
Robert Luther "Lute" Olson was an American basketball coach, who was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the head coach of the Arizona Wildcats men's team for 25 years. He was also head coach for the Iowa Hawkeyes for nine years and Long Beach State 49ers for one season. Known for player development and great recruiting, many of his former players have gone on to have impressive careers in the NBA. On October 23, 2008, Olson announced his retirement from coaching. Olson died on August 27, 2020, in Tucson, Arizona. He was 85 years old.
Biography
Early life
Olson was born on a farm outside Mayville, North Dakota on September 22, 1934, and was of Norwegian-American parentage.In 1939, Olson's father, Albert died of a stroke at age 47. There are memories of Albert giving his children haircuts that morning before church before collapsing. Lute's mother, Alinda, said Albert was "different" returning from WWI, some believed he may have been exposed to poison gas while working in a military construction battalion.
Just a few months later, Olson's older brother Amos, who had returned from Mayville State College to run the family farm, died in a tractor accident on the farm. This forced Alinda Olson to move away from the farm and into Mayville. There, Olson attended his first three years at Mayville High School, before eventually graduating from Grand Forks Central High School after the family moved again. Olson was coached by Harold Poier at Mayville, where he grew to as a junior. At Grand Forks, Olson played in his senior year for Coach Fritz Engel in both summer American Legion baseball and basketball, playing football for Coaches Bob Peskey and Louis King.
In 1951, the family had moved to Grand Forks, where Lute's older sister Kathleen had moved to study nursing. It was there, while singing in the church choir, that Lute first met Bobbi Russell. The pair became inseparable. In 1951–52, Olson led Grand Forks Central to the 1952 state basketball championship, playing center. Central beat Williston 43–38 for the title, as Olson scored 16 points. Earlier in the 1952 state tournament, Olson's Central team had defeated Minot St. Leo's, featuring future Louisiana State University coach Dale Brown.
Olson enrolled at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota after completing high school. There, he played football, basketball and one year of baseball. Olson graduated in 1956 with double major in history and physical education and Olson was awarded the "Augsburg Honors Athlete Award," given annually to the top Augsburg male student-athlete. While at Augsburg, he and Bobbi were married on Thanksgiving, 1953. Reminiscing about winters in Minnesota, Olson said "Growing up, it was fine because I didn't know any better," Olson said. "People from North Dakota go south to Minneapolis for the winter."
After graduating from Augsburg, Olson taught and coached high school basketball for 13 years. First in Minnesota at Mahnomen and Two Harbors, Minnesota for five years total. In 1961, Olson and Bobbi moved west, first to Boulder, Colorado, where Olson was a middle school guidance counselor. Then they moved to California where, in 1962–1963, Olson coached the freshman basketball team at Western High School in Anaheim. In 1963 Olson became the varsity coach at Loara High School, also in Anaheim. In 1964 he was hired as varsity head coach at Marina-Huntington Beach High School.
Head coaching career
Long Beach City College (1969–1973)
In summer 1969, Olson became head coach at Long Beach City College. Olson took the position after desiring to coach in college and seizing the opportunity when coach Rex Hughes left LBCC for the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Olson was 35 years old with 5 children when making the career change from high school to college. As a high school teacher, Olson mentioned he had tired of mundane items such as hall monitoring and checking restrooms for smokers. Olson had also been working side jobs working for Wright Driving School and driving a gas truck for Texaco.Olson later said to the media of his move to LBCC, "I wanted a college job and at 35 I felt I couldn't wait much longer." Olson proved to be an immediate success at the college level, leading his Long Beach City College teams to a 103–22 record over four seasons and capturing the 1971 JC Championship.
Of his tenure at Long Beach City College, Olson said, "I was perfectly content there, and had no plans to go anyplace, I loved it there. Del Walker, a great guy, was the athletic director, and I recall his telling me when he hired me that he wanted me to recruit players strictly from the Long Beach area, which I did."
His success was noticed in Long Beach, leading to an opportunity to enter the NCAA coaching ranks in 1973.
Long Beach State University (1973–1974)
In Olson's one season at Long Beach State, he led the team to an undefeated conference record, a Big West championship and a 24–2 record. The only two losses were two-point losses at Colorado and at #6 Marquette University.Olson had been content to stay at LBCC, but was pursued by LBSU. "I wasn't that interested because there were rumors that Long Beach was about to go on NCAA probation," Olson said. "I told them I'd need about 10 days to think about it. They told me during that time that Long Beach wasn't going to go on probation. I believed them, but they didn't tell me the truth."
Olson followed Jerry Tarkanian as coach, and Tarkanian had built the program into a national power, before leaving for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
Under Olson, the 49ers were ranked as high as #3 behind Coach John Wooden and player Bill Walton's UCLA squad and eventual NCAA Tournament Champion North Carolina State. However, with a #10 regular season ranking, the team was banned from appearing in the NCAA tournament after being put on a 3-year probation mid-season, due to recruiting violations from the Tarkanian era.
Five 49ers players from that season were drafted into the NBA. Drafted were: Cliff Pondexter, his brother Roscoe Pondexter, All-American Glenn McDonald, Leonard Grey and a year later, Bobby Gross . The 24–2 mark still stands as the school's best season winning percentage.
After one season at Long Beach State, Olson accepted the head coaching position at the University of Iowa.
University of Iowa (1974–1983)
Olson left Long Beach for the University of Iowa and later remarked, "People didn't go from Long Beach to Iowa, they went from Iowa to Long Beach," Olson said. "I thought, 'well, I'm just going to break that trend.' I saw an opportunity."" I also liked it at Long Beach State, but I felt I had been lied to and decided to leave even though Iowa wasn't exactly a basketball hotbed," he said.Olson coached Iowa for nine seasons, from 1974 to 1983, with an overall record of 167–91, leaving as the school's all-time wins leader.
Olson inherited an Iowa team that had gone 8-16 under Dick Schultz, finishing 10th in the Big Ten and suffered four consecutive losing seasons. Olson turned the Iowa Basketball program around, going 19–10 in just his second season. Iowa then won the Big Ten Conference Title in 1978–79, earning the first of five consecutive NCAA Tournament berths.
In 1979–1980, Olson led the Hawkeyes to a Final Four appearance in the 1980 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. The team made the now 48-team NCAA tournament with an 18–8 record, despite playing a good portion of the season without injured All-American guard Ronnie Lester. With Lester out, Guard Kenny Arnold had stayed in the line-up and played the entire season with a broken right thumb, leading the team in total points and assists with the injury. Freshman Bobby Hansen played after breaking a bone in his left hand and fellow freshman Mark Gannon was lost for the season with a knee injury. Iowa was also without Assistant Coach Tony McAndrews, who had been in a plane crash mid-season after a recruiting trip. He survived, but was badly injured and did not return to coaching that season.
Lester returned for the end of the regular season and the tournament. In the NCAA, Iowa received a #5 seed in the East Regional. They beat Virginia Commonwealth, North Carolina State and #1 seed Syracuse. In the East Regional Final, Iowa was down by as many in 14 in the second half, before rallying to defeat Georgetown on a last second basket and free-throw by Steve Waite to advance to the Final Four.
In the NCAA Semi-Final, Lester injured his knee early in the game, after scoring 10 of Iowa's first 12 points. He did not return and Iowa fell to eventual NCAA champion Louisville 80–72. When Olson was asked years later about Iowa's chances to win the NCAA Tournament had Lester not been injured, "My feeling was yes, I feel we could have won," Olson said. "That was a fun team to coach." Overall, Iowa was 15–1 with Lester fully in the lineup and 8–9 in his absence.
After leading the Hawkeyes to the Final Four, Olson's Iowa teams made the next three NCAA Tournaments, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen in 1983, his final season at Iowa. Nicknamed "The House That Lute Built", Carver-Hawkeye Arena, a facility Olson had envisioned for the future of the university, opened on January 5, 1983, against Michigan State. Iowa had played in the antiquated Iowa Fieldhouse. After the season, Olson left Iowa for the University of Arizona.
University of Arizona (1983–2007)
Olson surprised many by leaving Iowa for an Arizona program that had just suffered the worst season in school history, having won only four games all season and one game in Pac-10 play. He said he left Iowa because life there had become a "fishbowl" and he needed a change.Under Olson, Arizona quickly rose to national prominence. In only his second year, the Wildcats notched their first winning season in six years and made the first of what would be 23 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under his watch. A year later, Arizona won its first Pac-10 title. Two years later, the Wildcats spent much of the season ranked #1 and made their first Final Four. Olson's subsequent Arizona teams would be fixtures in the Top 25 for most of the time until the mid-2000s.
Olson was voted Pac-10 Coach of the Year seven times, made 5 Final Four appearances and won the 1997 NCAA championship with Arizona, where his team accomplished the feat of defeating three #1 seeds in the same tournament.
In 2002, Olson was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
He also coached the US national team in the 1986 FIBA World Championship, the last all-collegiate US basketball team to win in international competition. His team defeated the USSR 87–85 in the gold medal game, the first time the US had won the world championship in 32 years.