Nolan Richardson

Richardson was born in El Segundo Barrio in El Paso, Texas, United States to Nolan Richardson Sr. and Clareast Richardson. Clareast died from a mysterious disease in 1944, leaving behind three children: Shirley, age 5, Nolan Jr., three, and Helen, six months. Eventually they moved in with the children's grandmother, Rose Richardson or Ol' Mama. Ol' Mama had a profound impact on Nolan by helping instill the drive and determination to succeed. Nolan's father would visit, but often did not live with the family, battling alcoholism for much of his adult life.[3]

Nolan Richardson played college basketball at Eastern Arizona Junior College during the 1959-1960 season. He then returned home to play for Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso), playing his junior and senior years under Hall of Fame coach Don Haskins for the Miners.

In 1985, Richardson became the head coach at the University of Arkansas after Eddie Sutton left for Kentucky. Richardson became the first African-American coach at a major university in the South, and the first African-American head coach of a men's program in the Southwest Conference. He inherited a team and program that was used to Sutton's halfcourt-oriented, walk-it-up-the-court style. Richardson's frenetic, up-tempo system was something new to Arkansas fans, and people questioned it after finishing 12-16 his first season. However, by year two he had Arkansas back in the post season with an NIT berth. By year three he had Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament. The Hogs would stay there for 13 of the next 15 seasons. In all, Arkansas under Richardson enjoyed 15 post season appearances during the 17 seasons of his tenure.

He led Arkansas to three Final Fours—losing to Duke in the semifinals in 1990, winning the National Championship in 1994 against Duke, and losing in the Championship game to UCLA in 1995. He was named the National Coach of the Year in 1994. Richardson's Arkansas teams averaged 27 wins per season during the decade of the 1990s, they were the winningest team of the decade until 1997, and their 270 wins from 1990 to 1999 were more than all but four programs in the NCAA. Nolan's Arkansas teams recorded a 20 win season twelve times as well as four 30 win seasons during his 17 years.

His teams typically played an up tempo game with intense pressure defense - a style that was known as "40 Minutes of Hell." In 2012 his coaching philosophy was featured in the documentary "40 Minutes of Hell" on ESPN as part of the network's SEC Storied series. He is the winningest Basketball coach in Arkansas history, compiling a 389-169 (.697) record in 17 seasons. He is the only head coach to win a Junior College National Championship, the NIT Championship, and the NCAA Championship. Nolan Richardson is also among an elite group including Roy Williams, Denny Crum, Jim Boeheim, and Tubby Smith as the only head coaches to win 365 games in 15 seasons or less.

While Richardson was coaching at Arkansas, analyst Bill Raftery once called him Nolan Ryan.

From 2005 to 2007, Richardson, (who speaks fluent Spanish) served as the head coach of the Panama national team. In March 2007, Richardson was named as the head coach of the Mexico national basketball team.

In the middle of 2009, Richardson was named as head coach and general manager of a prospective WNBA expansion team in Tulsa. While it seemed unusual to hire a coach before securing an actual berth in the league, the investors behind the expansion effort claimed this proved they were serious about wanting a team. On October 20, 2009, the Tulsa group bought the Detroit Shock and moved it to Tulsa as the Tulsa Shock. It was Richardson's first time as a professional head coach, as well as his first time coaching women.

Richardson's tenure with the Shock was far from successful. His first season ended before it began when key players who had led the Shock to three WNBA titles opted, for various reasons, not to make the move to Tulsa. This forced Richardson to try to build the team around disgraced Olympic track star Marion Jones, who hadn't played a meaningful basketball game since her college days 13 years earlier. The players also found it difficult to adjust to Richardson's frantic style. A lack of continuity plagued the team as well; all of the players who had come from Detroit had left the team by the middle of the season, and Richardson seemingly juggled the roster on a game-by-game basis. The final result was a dreadful 6-28 record, dead last in the league. Richardson tried to rebuild the team by coaxing Sheryl Swoopes out of retirement, but after a 1-10 start, Richardson resigned on July 8, 2011.[10]

• List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach

• Arkansas Razorbacks bio