Saturday, January 30, 2010
Millikan Left His Mark on Maryland, ACC
Roughly 97.3 percent of what I know about Bud Millikan, the former Maryland basketball coach who died Thursday at age 89, I learned from Ron Morris’ ACC Basketball: An Illustrated History that was published in 1988 and sorely needs to updated 22 years later. It’s where I learned pretty much everything else I know about the history of ACC basktball before I showed up on the scene in the early 1970s. Anyone lucky enough to have a copy of the book know how invaluable it is.
The rest of what I know of Millikan I learned while researching my own book, Tales From the Wake Forest Hardwood. An All-American for Hank Iba at Oklahoma A&M, he was enough of a disciple to install Iba’s tenacious man-to-man defense and deliberate walk-it-up-the-floor offense when he became, at the tender age of 29, Maryland’s head basketball coach in 1950. As the story goes, Jim Tatum, Maryland’s AD, made two phone calls while looking for a coach. The first was to Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp, whose line was busy. The second was to Iba, who went to bat for Millikan.
And Millikan was the head coach at Maryland for what must have seemed like forever, not stepping down until after the 1966-67 season, when a fiery 6-0 senior from Collingswood, N.J. named Gary Williams was the Terps’ point guard. Millikan had a great early run, winning 146 against 82 losses over his first nine years at a school where basketball, up to that point, was the second winter sport to boxing. In 1958, he moved heaven and earth to win the ACC championship. In doing so he was the first coach from outside North Carolina’s Big Four to win the conference title, and the last until Frank McGuire’s South Carolina Gamecocks battled their way to the championship in 1971. But his system proved hard to recruit to, and he tailed off to win 97 and lose 100 games over his final eight seasons (for an overall record of 243-182). His last good season was 1965, when Williams and the team’s star, Jay McMillen, were sophomores. McMillen, the older brother of future Maryland great Tom McMillen, averaged 19.7 points and the Terps posted an 18-8 record and 10-4 finish in the ACC.
Millkan’s greatest achievement, though, might have been to graduate every player who completed his eligibility at Maryland.
But the one lasting image I had from Millikan’s time at Maryland was a photograph on page 53 of Ron’s book. Timeout has been called and Millikan’s players are lying on their stomachs on the sidelines, listening to their coach’s instructions. Millikan picked up the practice from Iba at Oklahoma A&M and imported it to the ACC. The reasoning was that in the din of a cacophonous visiting arena, his players could hear better.
As a tribute to the man, the Maryland team should drop to the floor for Williams’ instructions in their game tomorrow at Clemson. What a sight that would be.