Former Maryland Coach Gary Williams Inducted Into Basketball Hall of Fame

Brother Gary Williams, Maryland ’68, former head coach of the University of Maryland men’s basketball team (1989-2011) was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this past weekend at the 2014 Enshrinement Ceremony in Springfield, MA.

Williams was one of ten in the 2014 class of honorees including Nolan Richardson, Mitch Richmond, Bob Leonard, Guy Rodgers, Nat Clifton, Sarunas Marciulionis, Alonzo Mourning, David Stern and Immaculata University.

Gary’s first job coaching basketball at the college level was as an assistant coach at Lafayette College. The position also required that he serve as head coach of the soccer team, a one year post that he ended up holding for six years. Upon reflection about his team’s performance on the pitch, Gary said, “People ask me how I did as a soccer coach. Let me just say this… the Soccer Hall of Fame hasn’t called yet.”

He went on to be the head basketball coach at American University, Boston College and Ohio State University before returning to his alma mater in 1989 at the University of Maryland where he once played as a starting point guard and was team captain in 1967.

According to the umterps website, during Gary’s coaching career at Maryland, he led the “basketball program from a period of troubled times to an era of national prominence.”

With 14 NCAA Tournament berths in the last 17 seasons, seven Sweet Sixteen appearances, a pair of consecutive Final Four showings, and the 2002 National Championship – the first of its kind in Maryland basketball history – Williams and his staff have literally forged what is now more than a decade of dominance in college basketball’s most storied and competitive conference.

After leading the Terrapins to the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title in 2010, Williams was voted the league’s Coach of the Year by the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association. It was his second such award, as he was also honored in 2002.

Now with 442 victories as Maryland’s head coach, Williams stands as the Terrapins all-time winningest head basketball coach. He passed Charles “Lefty” Driesell, who amassed 348 victories in 18 seasons from 1969 to 1986. The Terrapins have averaged 22.6 wins per year since the 1994-95 season.

With 649 career victories in 32 seasons overall, Williams is the 5th-winningest active head coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball.

Watch the full acceptance speech here:

Today, Williams is a college basketball analyst for the Big Ten Network and can be heard regularly on ESPN 980‘s “The Sports Fix” program.

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