Former players, coaches remember Nolan Richardson's legacy
Former Arkansas players and coaches under Nolan Richardson recount memories and lessons they learned from the legend.
Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and former Arkansas head coach Nolan Richardson is a giant in the world of basketball. He brought the Razorbacks their only national championship in 1994, its patented "40 Minutes of Hell" playing style and to date, he is still the only coach to win a junior college national championship, the NIT championship and the NCAA Tournament national championship.
As his reputation easily speaks for itself, the legend of Richardson remains among the largest in the sport, despite not actively coaching for years. Between the time Richardson took the head coaching job at Arkansas in 1985 to now, many stories have made their way across the state about the kind of coach and person Richardson is — hard-nosed, aggressive, full of tough love — but ultimately, he is a winner on and off the court.
In wanting to provide a written record of some of these amazing stories of the most legendary figure in Arkansas basketball history, HawgBeat aimed to compile a list of oral accounts from Richardson's former players and coaches, discussing their favorite memory, most important lessons learned and one thing they would tell Richardson.
Over the course of talking to these former players and coaches, the initial three-question angle expanded. These integral figures in Richardson's life and career made asides, stating that certain facts must be known and certain stories must be told.
As a result, over the course of six months, HawgBeat compiled over 20 hours worth of interviews with former Razorbacks of all different roles.
Leading scorers, role players, walk-ons, assistant coaches — each experience unique, but similar as a whole. There was no shortage of love and respect for Richardson, and no shortage of admiration in how he navigated the endless struggles he did.
Because this piece continued growing, many quotes had to be cut for spacing. Each figure who was interviewed is featured in this piece, but not every answer is given in its entirety. Those might see the light of day in a bigger project down the road.
For now, enjoy a walk down memory lane, read stories that are largely unknown by the public, and hear from some Hog legends and fan favorites — some of which the fanbase might not have heard from in years.
If you are a former manager, assistant, or player under Nolan Richardson and would like to share some of your own personal experiences and memories, please contact Jackson Collier at jacksoncollierauthor.com or on X at @jacksoncollier.
FAVORITE MEMORIES
Mike Anderson - Arkansas assistant coach 1985-2002; Arkansas head coach 2011-19
“Well, probably my first impression is probably one of my favorite ones. I played for Jefferson State Junior College out of Birmingham, Alabama, and we were one of those teams that had kinda got hot in 1980, and Coach Richardson was coaching at Western Texas Junior College. Obviously, his team was one of the top junior college teams in the country, and here we are playing against this great team and this coach comes out — very flashy, open-collar shirt, gold necklace, booming voice, I mean built like an Atlas dude. And here we are playing against them. His demand and how his team played, it impressed me so much.“They beat us in the junior college championship game, and I was so impressed with him being in that position as a head coach. He was one of the first black head coaches at the junior college level in the state of Texas. Then he got the job at the University of Tulsa, and I couldn’t beat him, so I joined him. The rest has been history.
“What people don’t realize is that I’ve been probably a part of all the championships that he’s won. He won the junior college championship game, I’m playing against him. The very next year, we go to Tulsa and he takes four guys off that team — Paul Pressey, David Brown, Greg Stewart and Phil Spradling — and myself off the other junior college team, and we won the NIT championship against Syracuse at the University of Tulsa. That’s two championships. Then, of course, I was on staff as associate head coach at Arkansas when we won the National Championship. The guy is just a winner, man, in all aspects, and obviously he’s had a tremendous impact on my life.”
Scotty Thurman - Arkansas guard 1992-95; Arkansas assistant 2010-19
“I would probably say one of my favorite memories of Coach (Richardson) was the day of the National Championship game. We were preparing for, obviously, one of the biggest games in our lives and of his career. You know, we had a shootaround time, each year, each team gets 45 minutes to shoot around before the game, whether it’s a walk-through, just time to get shots up or what have you.“We played in Charlotte Coliseum, and back then you didn’t have the concourse level being on the second level, it was on the ground floor. Coach would always give us time to hang out in the locker room for a few minutes. We didn’t always start right at the time, he’d kind of let us get loose or hang out in the locker room, laughing or joking a bit. I remember myself, Elmer Martin and Corliss Williamson were in the locker room just hanging out for a few minutes, and then the managers came in and said, ‘Hey, Coach said get ready to go.’ So, we ran out there to the floor, and lo and behold, I didn’t realize the getting 'ready to go' was getting ready to pack up, because they had messed our times up, and so we only had like three minutes left on the clock by the time myself, Corliss and Elmer Martin hit the floor.
“Guys were taking some crazy shots. I look up at the clock and think, ‘Dang, we only got three minutes left,’ and at this time I’m looking for Coach (Richardson), Coach Anderson is on the floor, coach Brad Dunn is on the floor, coach Wayne Stehlik is off to the side of the floor just kind of looking a little bit confused, and I could just hear Coach Richardson’s voice. You gotta keep in mind, the president’s coming to the game, so you’ve got the Secret Service doing their sweep of the gym, you’ve got CBS setting up their TV monitors, you’ve got every media outlet that you can think of in there trying to get ready for the game as we were.
“You can just hear Coach Richardson going off on pretty much anybody he came into contact with. A lot of people thought that he was upset, which he was, but I don’t think he was as upset as he led people to believe, because the moment we get on the bus to leave, he just started going back to what our mantra had been all year, which was: ‘Nobody feels like we’re the best team in the country, nobody feels like we should be here, it’s us against the world.’
“That day, people don’t really know, we didn’t get the opportunity to have an actual shootaround and game prep besides what we would do at the hotel. We went out and played that game with that in mind. Nobody felt that we should be there. Nobody thought we were good enough to be there, nobody thought we were the best team in the country, but in our minds, we begged to differ.
“I’ll always remember him having that chip on his shoulder throughout his career, but that particular day I think he used that as fuel for us to give us the confidence to go out and compete at the level we did. And fortunate for us we were able to come out on the top side of it.”
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