Ok, so the inevitable has happened in Tucson. The Silver Fox, The God of Tucson, The immovable hair, whatever you want to call him but Lute Olson has retired from coaching the Arizona Wildcats.
The track record is there, he is in fact one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game of Basketball. He finished with a record of 781-280...19 games short of reaching the pennicle of 800 wins.
One national championship, four NCAA Final Four appearances, 11 Pac-10 Championships, and has had a ton of players play at the next level in the NBA.
Some of the players include...
Mike Bibby
Steve Kerr
Damon Stoudamire
Salim Stoudamire
Gilbert "Agent Zero" Arenas
Jason Terry
Richard Jefferson
Luke Walton
Miles Simon
Jerryd Bayless
Those are indeed some of the great names. But a point of question came to my mind when thinking about all of the great players who have graced the Arizona name on the front of a basketball jersey under Lute Olson.
How many players has Olson had of a Latino decent? In doing my background checks and research I only found two, and one of them was a walk-on.
Jesus Verdejo was a freshman playing for Olson in 2004 when he elected to transfer to the University of South Florida to get more playing time. Verdejo was Puerto Rican and even prides himself on being a Gold Gloves winner in his native country.
The other player, walk-on Phil Torres (who I even played Intramural basketball with, the guy can shoot). Phil was a nice guy but rarely saw the floor in his walk on capacity.
Could that really be it? But then again how many Latino players have graced the hardwood in America. Brook and Robin Lopez were standouts with Stanford last year and should see some success in the NBA and I have already talked about players such as Eduardo Najera in one of my blogs.
At the end of the day, did Lute Olson fail to make his team diverse or did he fall into the trap of trying to win no matter what? If he did, it worked. Here's a tribute to Lute Olson's career.
The track record is there, he is in fact one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game of Basketball. He finished with a record of 781-280...19 games short of reaching the pennicle of 800 wins.
One national championship, four NCAA Final Four appearances, 11 Pac-10 Championships, and has had a ton of players play at the next level in the NBA.
Some of the players include...
Mike Bibby
Steve Kerr
Damon Stoudamire
Salim Stoudamire
Gilbert "Agent Zero" Arenas
Jason Terry
Richard Jefferson
Luke Walton
Miles Simon
Jerryd Bayless
Those are indeed some of the great names. But a point of question came to my mind when thinking about all of the great players who have graced the Arizona name on the front of a basketball jersey under Lute Olson.
How many players has Olson had of a Latino decent? In doing my background checks and research I only found two, and one of them was a walk-on.
Jesus Verdejo was a freshman playing for Olson in 2004 when he elected to transfer to the University of South Florida to get more playing time. Verdejo was Puerto Rican and even prides himself on being a Gold Gloves winner in his native country.
The other player, walk-on Phil Torres (who I even played Intramural basketball with, the guy can shoot). Phil was a nice guy but rarely saw the floor in his walk on capacity.
Could that really be it? But then again how many Latino players have graced the hardwood in America. Brook and Robin Lopez were standouts with Stanford last year and should see some success in the NBA and I have already talked about players such as Eduardo Najera in one of my blogs.
At the end of the day, did Lute Olson fail to make his team diverse or did he fall into the trap of trying to win no matter what? If he did, it worked. Here's a tribute to Lute Olson's career.
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