It was a tough week for the basketball
community with not just the stoppage of the NBA playoffs to close out the week
in the wake of the shooting of Kenosha, WI native Jacob Blake that left him
paralyzed from the waist down, but the passing of a key member of the Portland
Trail Blazers in the 1990s and one of the greatest collegiate basketball head
coaches ever.
Early Saturday morning, Clifford Robinson,
who first stared at the University of Connecticut and then 18 seasons with the
Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors
and the then New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets to the NBA Finals died as confirmed
by the UConn Huskies and the Trail Blazers. The cause of death was later
revealed to be from lymphoma.
Robinson was 53 years old and is survived
by his wife Heather Lufkins and his son Isaiah.
He is the fourth member of Trail Blazers
squad that reached the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992, falling in five and six
games respectably first to the Hall of Fame led Isiah Thomas Detroit Pistons and then to the Hall of Fame
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and head coach Phil Jackson led Chicago Bulls.
Starters from those teams in center Kevin Duckworth and small forward Jerome
Kersey, and fellow reserve Drazen Petrovic are also no longer with us.
Robinson’s former coach at UConn in Hall
of Famer Jim Calhoun said that the No. 36 overall pick in the 1989 NBA Draft
had a stroke in March 2017 that paralyzed the left side of his body but did
recover much of his arm and leg movements. In March 2018, Robinson had a tumor
removed from his jaw. In March 2019, he underwent surgery for cancer. was in a
coma last week.
“It’s really sad to hear of this because
he was one of my kids, my players, ad guy I watched grow into a man,” Coach
Calhoun told “The Associated Press.” “It’s not an easy thing.”
On Thursday, the basketball world lost Hall
of Fame basketball head coach Robert Luther “Lute” Olsen, who built the
University of Arizona Wildcats basketball team into a national power house and
guided the school to their only NCAA title in 1997 at the age of 85, which was
confirmed by Olsen’s family to the media outlets of Arizona.
Coach Olson, who was inducted into the
College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and 2019 was hospitalized last year
after suffering a stroke and recently was moved to hospice care. He is survived
by his wife of a decade in the former Kelly Fischer, his five from his first
marriage to the former Roberta “Bobbi” Russell in Jodi, Greg, Steve, Vicki, and
Christi, and 14 grandchildren, which include assistant coach of the WNBA’s
Phoenix Mercury Julie Hairgrove and Matt Brase, an assistant with the NBA’s
Houston Rockets.
Before the national anthem of each of the six playoff games over the weekend, a moment of silence was held to honor the loss of Robinson, Coach Olsen, and actor Chadwick Boseman.
Nicknamed “Uncle Cliffy” and being well
known for his trademark headband, which he change colors from one half of a
basketball game to the next depending on his mood of whether he would play
defense or not won the 1993 Kia Sixth Man of the Year when he averaged 19.1
points, 6.6 rebounds and a career-high 2.2 blocks off the bench on 47.3 percent
from the field for the Trail Blazers. He earned his only All-Star selection in
1994 and was a two-time NBA All-Defensive Second Team selection first in 2000
with the Suns and in 2002 with the Pistons.
Olson retired from coaching in 2008 with a
781-281 career mark, with 589 of those wins as the head coach of the Wildcats,
the winningest coach in the basketball history of the school, an honor he also
in his first stop at the University of Iowa winning 192 games in the mid-1980s,
when he surprised many by leaving the thriving Hawkeyes program after leading
them to the Sweet 16 in 1983. Those 781 career wins by Olson are No. 14 on the
all-time list of Men’s Division I basketball coaches.
The silver-haired basketball savant guided
the Wildcats to seven Elite Eight four Final Four appearances (1988, 1994,
1997, and 2001), winning the school’s only NCAA National title in 1997. In
total, Olsen guided U of A to 23 straight NCAA Basketball Tournament
appearances, an NCAA coach-and-school record that was recently broken by
another great head man on the collegiate basketball sidelines in Hall of Famer
Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University.
In their run to their lone title in 1997,
the Wildcats knocked off NCAA blue bloods of the Kansas Jayhawks, the North
Carolina Tar Heels and the reigning champion Kentucky Wildcats (84-79 in
overtime). They also needed overtime to defeat the University of Providence in
the Elite Eight that year.
Arizona’s victory over the Kentucky 23
years ago is the most recent national title for a team from the now Pac-12
Conference.
In addition to his stellar mark during the
season, Olson is just one of 14 colleges coaches to take two different schools
to the Final Four. In his 24 seasons with the Wildcats, he led them to then 11
Pac-10 conferences titles and in his final 20 seasons had the third best
winning percentage of any men’s college basketball coach according to the
university. His 327 wins still stands as the most in the history of the Pac-12,
and the only coach in the conference to have a better winning percentage is the
legendary late John Wooden.
Those wins and legacy of Olson are were
also the result of having incredibly talented and hardworking players, where 34
of them were drafted into he NBA, including Mike Bibby and Jason Terry, who
each played in “The Association” for a decade-plus and won titles. Current head
coach of the three-time NBA champion Golden State Warriors Steve Kerr, who also
won five titles as a player with the Bulls and San Antonio Spurs. Andre
Igoudala, the 2015 Finals MVP with the Warriors, who now plays for the Miami
Heat is the only player recruited and coached by Olson that is still playing.
“It’s hard to put into words how much Lute
Olson meant to me,” Coach Kerr said on his Twitter page @SteveKerr on Friday.
“He was an amazing coach & wonderful man. Being part of the U of A
basketball family changed my life forever. I will never forge Coach O, those
awesome nights at McKale and all my teammates. Thank you Coach-I love you!”
Robinson was one of the original front
court players in the league who at 6-foot-10 had the size of a center but was a
skilled outside shooter, becoming a predecessor of today’s NBA big man who can
shoot and guard multiple positions.
Robinson, who connected on 1,253
three-pointers in his career was one of three NBA players 6-foot-10 or taller
with more than 1,200 made triples in his career.
During the Saturday afternoon’s TNT
pregame show “NBA Tip-Off,” Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal said that Robinson
and former Net, Philadelphia 76er and Charlotte Hornets All-Star Derrick
Coleman were the “toughest” guys he had to play against because they were
centers who played power forward on offense who can play on the perimeter.
“So, I can remember Cliff saying, ‘Shaq, I
know you’re going to score on me but you got to bring your big ass to the
three-point line,” O’Neal said about when he and Robinson played against each
other during their playing days in the West when the Trail Blazers played the
Lakers in the regular season and postseason in the late 1990s.
Along with that, Robinson was a player who
early on in his career never missed games compiling a streak of playing in 461
consecutive games, which remains today a Trail Blazers franchise record. He
ranks all-time No. 2 in block shots, No. 5 in points and games played, No. 6 in
steals, No. 7 in three-pointers made and No. 10 in rebounds. He averaged 14.2
points and 4.6 rebounds in those aforementioned 18 seasons in the NBA, playing
in 1,380 games—the 13th most in NBA history.
In a statement on Twitter by the Portland
Trail Blazers, who played in the nightcap of the NBA playoff schedule in Game 5
of their opening-round series against the Lakers said @trailblazers, “The Trail
Blazers organization is deeply saddened by the passing of Trail Blazers great Cliff
Robinson…His personality and energy were unmatched, and his contributions on
the court were unmistakable, helping the Trail Blazers into the playoffs each
of his eight seasons with the team… We extend our heartfelt condolences to
Cliff’s family & loved ones. Uncle Cliffy will be greatly missed by the
Trail Blazers & all of ‘Rip City.’”
“Clifford was the consummate professional
who loved the game and played with an incredible sense of both joy and
intensity during his outstanding 18-year career,” the four-time NBA champion
Warriors, who Robinson played for from 2003-05 said in a statement.
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, who
grew up in the Portland, OR, attended and played basketball at the University
of Portland said he was still processing the news about the passing of Robinson
after the team’s practice in preparation for their Semifinals tilt against the
Bucks saying, “I can’t believe it.”
“It’s shocking to me because I was in
college and just right after college, so I’m not that much younger than the
players on the Portland Trail Blazers team. And if you just look at that team, there’s
four players that are not with us anymore. Starting with Drazen Petrovic,
Kersey, Duckworth, and now Cliff Robinson. I’m shocked, I’m stunned, all you
can do is send your prayers and condolences to the Robinson family.”
Robinson, a native of Buffalo, NY began
his basketball journey as mentioned at the University of Connecticut, where he
became the centerpiece of Coach Calhoun’s early teams from 1985-89, where he
helped them rise from the cellar of the then Big East basement to NIT Champions
in 1988, where he was named to the that year’s all-tournament team.
Though it took a serious conversation
between Calhoun and the player he once called “our first great player.” That
conversation happened after his freshmen year where he averaged just five points
and Coach Calhoun told him that he was either going to “kick him” off the team
if he continued to play below his potential or he was going to see him rise to
the level where he was going to “watch” Robinson play a lot of years in the
NBA.
“He chose the latter, which was good,”
Calhoun said to “The Associated Press” about Robinson becoming the player he
did.
On Feb. 5, 2007, Robinson No. 00 was
retired at Gampel Pavilion during halftime of the Huskies game against the
Syracuse Orangemen as part of the “Huskies of Honor” ceremony where 13 former
players and three coaches received recognition for their personal
accomplishments to the basketball team.
“He was our first great player,” Calhoun
said of Robinson and his contributions to the Huskies. “He gave legitimacy to
the program. As a player coming in, here’s this guy playing on TV for the Trail
Blazers, watching him play, watching UConn being mentioned. You could not pay
for the exposure that he gave us.”
Coach Olson was born on Sept. 22, 1934 in
Mayville, ND. He helped lead North Dakota High to a state title and would go on
to be a standout football, basketball, and baseball player during the 1950s at
Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN in the middle 1950s.
“Growing up, it was fine because I didn’t
know any better,” Olson said about the winters in Minneapolis as a collegian.
“People from North Dakota go south to Minneapolis for the winter.”
After graduating from college in 1956 with
a double major in history and physical education, Coach Olson taught and
coached high school basketball for 13 years, first in Minnesota at Mahnomen and
then Two Harbors. He and his first wife Bobbi then moved to California, where
from 1962-63 where he coached the freshmen basketball squad at Western High
School in Anaheim. In 1963, Coach Olson became the varsity coach at Loara High,
which was also in Anaheim, CA. One year later, he was hired as the varsity head
coach at Marina-Huntington Beach High School.
His first job as a college basketball head
coach was at Long Beach City College, saying to the press about the move at age
35, “I wanted a college job and at 35 I felt I couldn’t wait much longer.”
In his four (1969-73) as the lead man on
LBCC sidelines, Coach Olson compiled a 103-22 record at LBCC and won the 1971
Junior College title. That success got the attention of Long Beach State
University.
“I was perfectly content there, and had no
plans to go anyplace, I loved it there,” Coach Olson said of wanting to stay at
LBCC. “Del Walker, a great guy, was the athletic director, and I recall his
telling me when he hired me that he wanted me to recruit players strictly from
the Long Beach area, which I did.”
Coach Olson did decide to go coach at LBSU
to become a part of the late great Jerry Tarkanian staff, which gave him the
opportunity to finally coach in the NCAA. In his lone season, he led them to an
undefeated conference record at 12-0, going 24-2 overall, which still stands
today as the school’s best winning percentage in a season at .923. Their only
two losses that season were by two points at the University of Colorado and at
No. 6 Marquette University.
Coach Olson though was not interested at
the time of going to at LBSU because of the rumors he heard of the school about
to go on NCAA probation. The school told him that there were not going on
probation.
When Coach Tarkanian, who had built LBSU
into a National power left to coach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas left
and Coach Olson took over, the team was ranked as high as No. 3 behind Coach
Wooden’s UCLA Bruins and eventual NCAA champion North Carolina State. Because
LBSU finished No. 10 in the regular season rankings, they were banned from
appearing in that year’s tournament after they were put on a three-year
probation mid-season because of the many recruiting violations that occurred
under Coach Tarkanian.
That team though had five players get drafted into the NBA: Cliff Poindexter (Bulls) and his brother Roscoe (Boston Celtics); All-American Glenn McDonald (Celtics in First-Round), Leonard Grey (Seattle Supersonics); and a year later, Bobby Gross (Trail Blazers).
Coach Olsen left Long Beach State for the
University of Iowa, where he would coach for nine years, compiling a 167-91
mark and then later for the University of Arizona and the rest his college
basketball history. A history that led to college basketball in 2009-10
introducing the Lute Olson Award, which has been given to the best player who
has been at their school for at least two full seasons. The most recent recipients
of this award were now Memphis Grizzlies starting lead guard Ja Morant of
Murray State University and Payton Pritchard of the University of Oregon.
While Coach Olsen had a less than graceful
exit as he retired from coaching less than a month before the 2008-09 season
began because of some schisms and bumpy behavior after he suffered an unknowing
stroke that his doctor later stated to the public led to depression and
irregular behavior.
That did not affect Coach Olsen’s
excellent standing in the Arizona community or with fans there and in Iowa.
Coach Olson following his retirement had
spent the last 12 years living in Arizona and occasionally was seen at games
Wildcats games as late as 2018, and in that same year had a statue of himself
unveiled outside the McKale Center.
In 2003, the school named the basketball
court at the McKale Center Lute and Bobbi Olson Court for Coach Olson
and his previously mentioned late wife of 47 years “Bobbi,” who died of ovarian
cancer on Jan. 1, 2001. She was 65 years old.
To put into context how much of a part
Coach Olson and his first wife “Bobbi,” who he first met in high school in
North Dakota were a part of the Tucson, AZ community, when the Wildcats were
becoming a serious player in college basketball, the two were amongst the most
prominent and beloved married couples in the collegiate sport.
“Since I arrived in Tucson almost 12 years
ago, I have been asked hundreds of time, “What made Coach Olsen so successful’”
current Wildcats head coach Sean Miller said in a statement. “Having asked his
former players, coaches and people in our community the same question, I came to
a final conclusion: He had no weaknesses as a coach. He was a tremendous
teacher of the game. He was a relentless recruiter. He was an astute evaluator
of talent. He was a fierce and confident leader. He was more than a coach to
all of his players. To this day, there is a connection and closeness between
generations of Arizona players that will last forever.”
The basketball world lost two prominent
people over the weekend. First on Friday with the passing of Hall of Fame head
coach Lute Olson and then former Portland Trail Blazers’ All-Star forward
Clifford Robinson. One was a coaching legend in Coach Olson. The other, was a
player in Robinson, who first was a reserve on a championship caliber team in
and then became a starter where he displayed an ability to consistently be
available for every game as well as a versatility to score both inside and out,
and guard nearly all five positions.
Both Robinson and Olson made a lasting
impression and impact on the NBA and college basketball respectably and gave us
a lot of memories that will be cherished for a long time.
Information, statistics, and quotations
are courtesy of 8/28/2020 https://www.cbssports.com
story, “Legendary Former Arizona Coach Lute Olson, Who Built The Wildcats Into
A National Power, Dies at 85,” by Matt Norlander; 8/29/2020 6 p.m. TNT “NBA
Tip-Off,” presented by Autotrader with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles
Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal; 8/29/2020 3 p.m. “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN,
presented by Mountain Dew with Rachel Nichols, Matt Barnes, and Paul Pierce;
8/30/2020 www.espn.com
story and “The Associated Press” “Former Portland Trail Blazers Star Clifford
Robinson Dies at 53;” https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/robincl02.html;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Robinson_(basektball,_born_1966);
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lute_Olson.
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