Former Davidson basketball participant, coach and athletic director and former Virginia coach Terry Holland is pictured throughout a ceremony to retire his jersey in January 2022 in Davidson, N.C.

Brian Westerholt/AP

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Brian Westerholt/AP

Former Davidson basketball participant, coach and athletic director and former Virginia coach Terry Holland is pictured throughout a ceremony to retire his jersey in January 2022 in Davidson, N.C.

Brian Westerholt/AP

Terry Holland, who elevated Virginia basketball to nationwide prominence throughout 16 seasons as coach and later had a distinguished profession as an athletic administrator, has died, the college introduced Monday. He was 80.

Holland died Sunday evening, in response to the college, which confirmed the dying together with his household. His well being had declined since he was identified with Alzheimer’s illness in 2019 and he stopped taking his outstanding courtside seat at Virginia residence video games.

Holland took over a flailing program in 1974. The Cavaliers had had simply three successful seasons in 21 years and Holland created a tradition that proved a components for fulfillment: His Cavaliers performed rugged protection.

Two of his first three groups completed with dropping information however just one extra did as Holland compiled a 326-173 report, led Virginia to 9 NCAA Tournaments, two Final Fours and the 1980 NIT title. He additionally guided the Cavaliers to their first Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament title in 1976 regardless of a modest 15-11 regular-season report.

Including a five-year stint at Davidson, Holland’s report is 418-216.

His greatest victory, nonetheless, possible was luring the nation’s most coveted recruit, 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson of Harrisonburg, to hitch the Cavaliers for the 1979-80 season, and it was then that the turnaround took off.

“Terry Holland,” Sampson advised The Associated Press in an interview earlier this month when requested what made him select upstart Virginia over extra established suitors. “He was mainly the deciding factor. Good school, good teammates, good education, ACC. I mean, you had Dean Smith and all those people around, but he understood my demeanor and fit what I wanted in a coach. He was the perfect fit for me.”

The Cavaliers gained the NIT in Sampson’s freshman season and went to the NCAA Tournament for his final three years, reaching the Final Four in 1981 earlier than dropping to North Carolina within the nationwide semifinals.

Sampson, a future Hall of Famer, earned nationwide participant of the yr honors in every of his final three seasons, and the profile his presence offered certainly aided Holland in constructing his program. Virginia went again to the Final Four in its first season with out Sampson, dropping in additional time to Houston within the nationwide semifinals, and appeared within the NCAA Tournament in 4 of Holland’s remaining six seasons as coach.

Holland additionally constructed an in depth teaching tree, with many assistants shifting on to turn into profitable head coaches themselves. Among them: Rick Carlisle of the Indiana Pacers, Jim Larrañaga at Miami, Jeff Jones at Old Dominion and former longtime school coaches Dave Odom and Seth Greenberg.

With two daughters of his personal, Holland additionally had an appreciation for the ladies’s recreation, former Cavaliers coach Debbie Ryan mentioned.

“He knew that we had to go to Clemson and Georgia Tech, so he helped us to get the league to schedule both of us on the same days to play doubleheaders,” she mentioned. “We would fly down to Clemson, bus to Georgia Tech and then fly back, the men’s and the women’s team together, so that it would save us all that wear and tear.”

He additionally was all the time involved about throughout the proper factor, she mentioned.

“He wasn’t impressed with himself at all,” she mentioned, describing him as a Southern gentleman. “He was just there to make sure these boys became men and they became good men.”

When he stepped down as coach at age 48, it was to return to his alma mater, Davidson, as athletic director, starting an administrative tenure that might convey him again to Virginia 5 years later in the identical place. In 2001, he moved to particular assistant to the president of the college, and in 2004, he started an eight-year stint as athletic director at East Carolina earlier than retiring in 2012.