The greatest coach in Arizona basketball history has died. Lute Olson, the man who coached the University of Arizona after an unlikely 1997 NCAA Tournament championship, died Thursday at the age of 85, according to the university. Olson, who suffered a mild stroke in 2019, had declined in health in recent months.
A 2002 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, Olson retired in October 2008 with a career record of 781-281. His 589 victories with U or A made him the winning coach in school history, an honor he also had in his mid-eighties with Iowa basketball when he surprised many by leaving his thriving Hawkeyes for a downtrodden Wildcats program. But that decision turned Olson into a legend of college basketball.
The silver-haired savant took Arizona to four Final Fours (1988, 1994, 1997, 2001) and seven Elite Eights. He coached the Wildcats to 23 consecutive NCAA tournaments, an NCAA coach-and-school record that was only recently broken by arguably the greatest coach in the history of college basketball, Duke Mike Krzyzewski.
His 781 victories are 14th on the all-time list for men’s Division I basketball. Olson transformed the Wildcats into a force, transforming his program into one of the 10 greatest and most successful in the sport for most of his tenure. One of the enduring images associated with the 1997 title is CBS capturing one of Olson’s players, Bennett Davison, and losing his hair while disrupting No. 1 Kentucky for the team’s to give first and only national championship. Arizona made history that year by becoming the first – and still only today – team to defeat three No. 1 seeders in one NCAA tournament.
That ’97 title was all the more memorable and surprising because of Arizona’s reputation in the NCAA Tournament prior to that year. Olson had teams often seeded number 1, 2 or 3, but often found themselves the victim of an uprising of the first or second round. In a year when Arizona was perceived as just reasonably good, but nothing special, Miles Simon, Mike Bibby and Jason Terry Olson and the Wild Cats helped immortality of college basketball. Arizona beat blue blood Kansas (probably the best team in the sport that season), North Carolina and reigning champion Kentucky en route to winning it all. It also needed overtime to defeat Providence in the Elite Eight.
Arizona defeated Kentucky 84-79 in overtime, that without scoring a field goal in the bonus session, the only time that has ever happened in the history of Final Four. That win in Arizona, 23 years ago, is the last national championship for a team in the Pac-12.
Olson won 46 games in 28 NCAA Tournament shows. He is one of only 14 male coaches taking two different schools to the Final Four. Olson coached Arizona for the last 24 seasons of his career. He won 11 Pac-10 Conference Championships, and in his last 20 seasons, according to the University of Arizona, Olson had the third-best winning percentage of any coach in men’s college basketball.
Olson won 327 games in what was then known as the Pac-10; his victory total still stands as the most in conference history. The only coach in league history with a better winning percentage than Olson was a man named John Wooden.
Robert Luther Olson was born on a farm on September 22, 1934, in Mayville, North Dakota. Olson lost his father to a stroke when he was 5 years old, a disorder that would force the end of his coaching career more than 65 years later. As a teenager, Olson was a great athlete. He won a state basketball title for his North Dakota High School, and then became a standout in football, basketball and baseball at Minneapolis’ Augsburg College in the mid-1950s.
Olson coached high school basketball for 11 years in his 20s and 30s before advancing to junior college and eventually to the DI rankings. According to the University of Arizona, Olson was on the bench for 1,063 wins in his career as head coach, dating from his first concert with Mahnomen High School in Minnesota in 1956 and including his time coaching junior college before working the sideline for his first year of DI duty at Long Beach State in 1973.
Arizona sued Olson in 1983 after the then 49-year-old Iowa created a nationally relevant program by taking the Hawkeyes to five straight NCAA tournaments, including the 1980 Final Four, at a time when the tournament consisted of far fewer schools. then the 64/68 team format that made it the March Madness monolith that it is known today. Olson inherited an Arizona team that came in a 4-24 season. Two years later it would win 21 games, and five years later Olson had the Wildcats in the Final Four for the first time in school history, led by players Sean Elliott, Steve Kerr, Tom Tolbert, Anthony Cook and Jud Buechler – all of whom would continue to play in the NBA.
Olson coached eight consensus All-Americans and produced 34 NBA picks in 24 seasons in Arizona. There’s another player in the NBA who was recruited and coached by Olson: Andre Iguodala of the Miami Heat.
In 2009-10, college basketball debuted the Lute Olson Award. It is awarded annually to the best player who has been to his school for at least two full seasons. The two most recent receivers were Murray State’s Ja Morant and Oregon’s Payton Pritchard.
Olson left his post in 2007 due to health concerns before finally stepping down permanently in the fall of 2008. His term ended with some injury and bumpy behavior, as Olson unknowingly suffered a stroke that left his doctor later in public. would lead to depression and irregular behavior. After planning to resume his duties for the 2008-09 season, Olson retired less than a month before the season began.
The less than graceful end of Olson’s time with Arizona does not affect his position in the community or with Arizona fans. He remained loved there, and in Iowa, until the end of his life. Getting the job in Arizona in 1983 eventually meant that Olson would settle in Tucson, Arizona for life; he lived there every 12 years after his retirement. Olson was an occasional show at Arizona games as late as 2018. That same year, the school unveiled a statue of Olson outside the McKale Center.
Fifteen years earlier, in 2003, the school called the court in the McKale Center for Lute and his late wife, Bobbi, who died of ovarian cancer in 2001. Olson met Roberta “Bobbi” Russell in high school and against the time that Olson flourished in Arizona, the two were among the most prominent and beloved couples in college basketball.
Olson is survived by his third wife, Kelly, five children (Vicki, Jody, Christi, Greg and Steve) and 14 grandchildren. His coaching heritage continues with his granddaughter, Julie Hairgrove, who is an assistant at the WNBA Phoenix Mercury, and his grandson, Matt Brase, an assistant at the Houston Rockets.
Lute Olson year-by-year
| Season | School | W | L | Post-competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973-74 | Long Beach State | 24 | 2 | |
| 1974-75 | Iowa | 10 | 16 | |
| 1975-76 | Iowa | 19 | 10 | |
| 1976-77 | Iowa | 20 | 7 | |
| 1977-78 | Iowa | 12 | 15 | |
| 1978-79 | Iowa | 20 | 8 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1979-80 | Iowa | 23 | 10 | NCAA Tournament – Final Four |
| 1980-81 | Iowa | 21 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1981-82 | Iowa | 21 | 8 | NCAA Tournament – Second Round |
| 1982-83 | Iowa | 22 | 9 | NCAA Tournament – Sweet 16 |
| 1983-84 | Arizona | 11 | 17 | |
| 1984-85 | Arizona | 21 | 10 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1985-86 | Arizona | 23 | 9 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1986-87 | Arizona | 18 | 12 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1987-88 | Arizona | 35 | 3 | NCAA Tournament – Final Four |
| 1988-89 | Arizona | 29 | 4 | NCAA Tournament – Sweet 16 |
| 1989-90 | Arizona | 25 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – Second Round |
| 1990-91 | Arizona | 28 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – Sweet 16 |
| 1991-92 | Arizona | 24 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1992-93 | Arizona | 24 | 4 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1993-94 | Arizona | 29 | 6 | NCAA Tournament – Final Four |
| 1994-95 | Arizona | 24 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1995-96 | Arizona | 27 | 6 | NCAA Tournament – Sweet 16 |
| 1996-97 | Arizona | 25 | 9 | NCAA Tournament – Champion |
| 1997-98 | Arizona | 30 | 5 | NCAA Tournament – Elite Eight |
| 1998-99 | Arizona | 22 | 6 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 1999-00 | Arizona | 27 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – Second Round |
| 2000-01 | Arizona | 25 | 6 | NCAA Tournament – Championship game |
| 2001-02 | Arizona | 24 | 10 | NCAA Tournament – Sweet 16 |
| 2002-03 | Arizona | 28 | 4 | NCAA Tournament – Elite Eight |
| 2003-04 | Arizona | 20 | 10 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| 2004-05 | Arizona | 30 | 7 | NCAA Tournament – Elite Eight |
| 2005-06 | Arizona | 20 | 13 | NCAA Tournament – Second Round |
| 2006-07 | Arizona | 20 | 11 | NCAA Tournament – First Round |
| TOTAL | 781 | 279 |
