Florida Gators’ Billy Donovan honored with John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award

By Adam Silverstein
April 10, 2010

University of Florida men’s basketball head coach Billy Donovan was honored with the John R. Wooden “Legends of Coaching Award” on Friday at a banquet and ceremony at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. This award, which recognizes successful coaches who exemplify Wooden’s high standards of integrity on the court, is presented to recipients who are selected based on character, success, student-athlete graduation rate and coaching philosophy.

Donovan is one of only four active coaches who have both guided teams to multiple NCAA National Championship titles (2006, 2007) and received this honor. The others are the Duke Blue Devils’ Mike Krzyzweski (4), North Carolina Tar Heels’ Roy Williams (2) and Connecticut Huskies’ Jim Calhoun (2). Donovan is 331-139 (.704) in 14 seasons as coach of the Florida Gators with 12 consecutive 20-win seasons, 10 NCAA Tournament appearances and three Southeastern Conference Championships.

“This is a great honor and I was very taken back when I learned I was going to be here tonight,” Donovan said. “To me, coaching is about how your players talk about you when they’re out of your program five or six years down the road. The true sign of a great coach is how your players speak about you and I am certainly proud of some of the comments my players said about me tonight. You want to have a shared vision at your university and we have a great athletic director and administration at the University of Florida. I love the basketball practices, getting the chance to be on court and provide individual instruction to our student-athletes. Florida is a terrific place. I have been very blessed that my family has been in one place for 14 years. For my wife and our four children, it’s been a great ride to be at one place and to build something like we have.”

Photo Credit: H. Darr Beiser/USA TODAY

3 Comments

  1. Joe says:

    Billy definitely deserves this accolade.

  2. joshuaregister says:

    For sure, we all need to be more appreciative for what Billy has done I think!

  3. brlgator says:

    go billy

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