Terry Holland, the legendary former Virginia males’s basketball coach and athletic director, has died at age 80. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Holland had been identified with Alzheimer’s in 2019 and died at an Alzheimer’s care facility in Charlottesville, Virginia, the place he’d been residing together with his spouse.
Holland is understood for placing Virginia on the map in males’s school basketball and touchdown one of many faculty’s most essential stars: the seven-foot-four Ralph Sampson, who was named nationwide participant of the 12 months for 3 straight years from 1981-83. Holland led the Cavaliers to eight NCAA event appearances, two journeys to the Last 4 and their first-ever ACC Championship in 1976 in his 16-year teaching profession at Virginia. He additionally has a big and profitable teaching tree, with at least 12 of his former assistants happening to turn out to be head coaches themselves.
One factor Holland could not handle to do at Virginia was win the college’s first nationwide championship in males’s basketball. When the Cavaliers lastly did it in 2019, Holland was within the constructing, cheering on the crew and head coach Tony Bennett.
“I feel he was simply as proud as if he had coached the crew himself,” Holland’s former participant Bobby Stokes mentioned via the Times-Dispatch. “He was simply genuinely joyful for Virginia basketball. There’s one thing particular between them (Terry and Tony).”
Turning Virginia right into a powerhouse is only one of his many accomplishments as a coach. He additionally spent a big period of time working at his alma mater, Davidson, the place he’d been a university basketball star. That is additionally the place he minimize his enamel as a coach, first working as an assistant and then getting the promotion to move coach in 1969.
Holland would return to Davidson in 1990 as athletic director, leaving teaching behind for good. He made his manner again to Virginia in 1994 the place he turned the college into an athletics powerhouse, serving as athletic director till 2003 when he left for a similar place at Japanese Carolina. He retired in 2012 and was named the emeritus athletic director.
Holland remembered for positivity, dedication
Holland is survived by Ann, his highschool sweetheart and spouse of 56 years, in addition to two daughters and three grandchildren. His loss was mourned by the school basketball neighborhood on and off social media, who remembered him as form, optimistic, and devoted.
“He was a visionary, a optimistic coach,” Bobby Stokes, Holland’s doctor and a captain of his 1978-79 Virginia crew, advised the Richmond Occasions-Dispatch. “He made it his mission to make it like a household. He cared about you off the basketball court docket and helped you develop alongside the way in which.”
“I keep in mind strolling into his home, and inside two minutes I felt utterly at dwelling,” Holland’s former participant Jeff Lamp advised the Richmond Occasions-Dispatch. “I feel I had seen a number of the worst of the recruiting course of and in him I simply discovered somebody who was trustworthy, easy and somebody I instantly associated to. […] I liked him as a coach, however actually, what I consider first is who he’s as an individual and a person, his character, his integrity, his dignity, simply an unimaginable buddy.”
