Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Induction cements Richardson among game’s greats

Former Arkansas head coach Nolan Richardson fires up the crowd during a halftime ceremony in honor of the 1994 NCAA Championship team during a game against Georgia Sunday, March 1, 2009 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.
Former Arkansas head coach Nolan Richardson fires up the crowd during a halftime ceremony in honor of the 1994 NCAA Championship team during a game against Georgia Sunday, March 1, 2009 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Nolan Richardson can't help but think of his grandmother when he is inducted tonight into what the former Arkansas basketball coach calls "the grandfather" of all Halls of Fame.

While Richardson, 72, said he has many people to thank for his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., but his late grandmother, Rose Richardson, tops the list. She raised Richardson from the time he was 3 years old, after his mother died.

At a glance

WHAT Induction ceremonies

WHEN 6:30-9:30 p.m. Central today

WHERE Springfield Symphony Hall, Springfield, Mass.

WHO The induction class includes former Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson, Gary Williams, David Stern, Bob “Slick” Leonard, Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, Sanunas Marciulionis, Guy Rodgers and the 1972-74 Immaculata University women’s teams. Richardson will be presented by Hall of Fame members Nate Archibald and John Thompson.

TELEVISION NBA TV

"My grandmother was my hero," Richardson said. "She was the cornerstone of everything that I hoped to be. She always would say, 'You're very special. You're going to be somebody.'

"I tried to do everything I could to make her proud of me."

Richardson said his grandmother -- "Ol' Granny Rose" as he calls her -- admired Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 became the first black major-league baseball player in the modern era.

Rose Richardson had a sense her grandson also would become a trailblazer, which Richardson did, breaking down racial barriers first as a black basketball and baseball player growing up in El Paso, Texas, and then as a high school and college coach.

"My grandmother told me, 'You going to go through a lot, because it seems like you're the first at everything you do,' " Richardson said. "So I was prepared years and years ago to take a lot of the hits that I did.

"Sometimes I got angry, but what Ol' Granny Rose taught me stuck with me and helped me do what I was able to do."

Richardson is the only coach to win a national junior college championship (Western Texas 1980), NIT title (Tulsa 1981) and NCAA championship (Arkansas 1994), but his legacy is helping open doors for other black coaches.

"Sometimes you take a lot of arrows for those that are going to follow," said Richardson, who had a 389-169 record at Arkansas from 1985-2002 with three Final Four appearances. "Now today those same arrows are not being shot, and that makes me happy."

When Richardson was hired at Arkansas, he became the first black college basketball coach at a major school in the South. Before that, he was the first black high school basketball coach in El Paso.

"Back in those days, let me tell you, it wasn't easy," Richardson said. "But I knew in order for the doors to open for others that I had better be good at what I did. It gave me that mental edge to work twice as hard to make sure I was a success."

Since Arkansas joined the SEC in 1992, 11 of the conference's 14 members have hired black basketball coaches. There are five minority coaches in the SEC going into this season, including Arkansas' Mike Anderson, who played for Richardson at Tulsa and was his assistant with the Razorbacks for 17 seasons.

"We all have assignments in life, and Coach Richardson's assignment was to help change things for the better through basketball," Anderson said. "He was always ahead of his time.

"He was a great coach and he won a lot of games and championships, but what he's done more than anything is impact a lot of lives in a positive way."

Richardson has continued to live in Fayetteville, even after he was fired at Arkansas in 2002 and later sued the university and its administrators for racial discrimination. The lawsuit eventually was dismissed after a trial in Little Rock.

After staying away from the Arkansas campus for several years, Richardson has enjoyed a reconciliation with the university's new administration, Athletic Director Jeff Long and Chancellor G. David Gearhart. Richardson is now a regular at Razorbacks home games. This season he will be honored during a game with a banner at Walton Arena.

Anderson, Long and Gearhart will lead Arkansas' official party that will attend the Naismith Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Springfield Symphony Center.

"I consider Coach Richardson to be a treasure for Arkansas -- our state and our university," Anderson said. "For him to have this honor now of going into the Naismith Hall of Fame, it's the pinnacle of our profession.

"I salute him, and I congratulate him. His induction is going to be a special event. I know I'm looking forward to it, my wife is, my staff. I hope the whole state of Arkansas is looking forward to it as well. We're so proud of him."

Pat Bradley, a guard for the Razorbacks from 1995-1998 who ranks fifth on Arkansas' all-time scoring list with 1,765 points, said Richardson would have been successful in any profession.

"He understood how to get results," Bradley said. "He was a master psychologist. He just knew how to push people's buttons to get them to do what he wanted."

Richardson said he coached people, not X's and O's. He loved hearing opposing coaches talk about using seven or eight players on defense in practice to simulate Arkansas' traps.

The Razorbacks used a pressing, up-tempo style where players had the freedom to react to game situations Richardson had taught them about over and over again during practices.

"Coach was just so outside the box, and he always encouraged us to think outside the box on the basketball court and in life," said Bradley, a radio talk show host in Little Rock. "I think that's probably what I took from him the most.

"His drive is legendary. I mean, you talk about the fire in someone's belly. I've never met anyone like Coach who came into work every day with the attitude he did. There was no quit in him. Ever. He was ready to fight every single day."

Richardson previously was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of the Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame among several honors.

"What's really great is that he's getting national recognition, and really international recognition when you think about the people from around the world who are in the Naismith Hall of Fame," Bradley said. "Things that people in Arkansas have known for years -- about how unique and special he is -- will now be known everywhere."

Scotty Thurman, the director of student-athlete development for the Arkansas basketball team and a former All-SEC forward at Arkansas from 1992-1995, will be part of the Razorbacks' contingent in Springfield.

"I think Coach has always known he was right there at the top, but now everyone will know," Thurman said. "It's extra validation for him."

Thurman said he's looking forward to Richardson's speech.

"One thing you know for sure about Coach, he's going to say what's on his mind," Thurman said.

Richardson said he never regretted speaking his mind at Arkansas.

"I've always been outspoken when I see things that I believe are wrong," he said. "If I didn't stand up and speak, then who would? I didn't wait on the next person. I had the stage, and I used it."

Richardson said he is proud to join the late Don Haskins, his coach at Texas-El Paso, in the Naismith Hall of Fame. Haskins was inducted in 1997 -- 31 years after he led the Miners to the NCAA championship in 1966 when he used an all-black starting lineup against Kentucky's all-white team.

"I have great admiration for Coach Haskins, and to be in the Hall of Fame with him makes it that much better," Richardson said. "When I start thinking about myself, I think, 'God Almighty, Coach Haskins did a lot more than I ever did from a basketball standpoint, and it took him a long time before he got in.' It was very frustrating to see a man of his magnitude, with what all he had done, have to wait so long.

"I never worried about it for myself. I never dreamed about being inducted into the Hall of Fame, so it's absolutely wonderful that it's happening. But I wasn't going to jump off a cliff if it didn't happen."

Richardson didn't work on the NCAA Division I level until he was 39, when he took the Tulsa job. He spent 10 years at El Paso Bowie before going to Western Texas for three seasons.

Tonight, Richardson will join 10 college coaches in the Naismith Hall of Fame that he beat when he was at Arkansas: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino, Larry Brown, John Thompson, Jim Boeheim, Denny Crum, Lute Olson, Jerry Tarkanian and Guy Lewis.

Thompson is presenting Richardson along with Nate Archibald, a former UTEP and NBA star who is a Naismith Hall of Fame member.

"Coach always said he was behind in the race and had to play catch-up," Anderson said. "With the success he's had, I think he caught up to all those other great college coaches."

Richardson said he's had some people tell him his induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame was delayed because of his firing at Arkansas. Whether that's true, he said, isn't important.

"I don't really care about who was in there before me or how long it took," he said. "I'm just happy that I'm finally being recognized as a Hall of Famer.

"This is the grandfather of them all. It's a tribute to me, my family, my coaches, my players, my friends. It's even a tribute to my enemies, because they also pushed me. Everybody is involved in this award."

No one was more involved than Ol' Granny Rose. Richardson said he knows she'll be looking down from heaven on tonight's festivities.

"She's going to be jumping up and down, going 'I told you, I told you,' " Richardson said. "I can just hear her saying it."

Sports on 08/08/2014

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