The Atlanta campus of Georgia State is the scene of the latest crime as CigarBoy drops in for a visit with one of the all-time winningest college basketball coaches.

When I found that I had to be in Atlanta for a few days it didn’t take me long to remember that Lefty Driesell was now at Georgia State continuing his winning ways in the Atlantic Sun Conference. Lefty is a true coaching legend. He also has one of the longest bios I have ever seen.

Charles G. “Lefty” Driesell is in his 6th year at Georgia State and 41st of NCAA Division I coaching. He is looking to be the first-ever coach in NCAA history to win 100 wins at four different schools. In case you are wondering that is 176 at Davidson, 348 at Maryland and 99 at Georgia State.

Lefty’s 782 career wins trail only Dean Smith (879), Adolph Rupp (876) and Bobby Knight (787). In 2001-02, he produced the first-ever back-to-back 20 win seasons in Georgia State history. That team won the regular season in the Atlanta Sun Conference. They lost in the conference championship game by one point. After getting overlooked by the NCAA Selection Committee (begin booing now) they made their first-ever NIT appearance. They also beat two top 25 teams in Georgia and St. Joseph’s.

Lefty’s 20-win season last year was 22nd of his career, moving him into an 8th place tie all-time for the most 20-win seasons. The postseason bid was his 21st(13 NCAA, 8 NIT). The amazing thing is early in his career it was much harder to go to the NCAA because only the conference winner would go, not half the conference like today in the big conferences.

Left also had a 97-15 coaching record in high school before moving to the college ranks. That means he actually has 879 career coaching wins! He has winning records in his first five years at Georgia State and now owns a 99-53 (65%) mark. Another thing that is amazing is that he turns 71 on Christmas 2002 and will celebrate his 51st year of marriage that same month.

Lefty’s massive influence on college basketball is evident by the number of assistant coaches who have gone on to be head coaches. More than 15 of those have compiled more than 2300 Division I wins, another NCAA record. That group includes Gale Catlett, Terry Holland, George Raveling, Joe Harrington, Oliver Purnell, Sherman Dillard and even his own son Chuck who is now at Marymount University in Virginia.

To be honest, I could go on and on but I am worn out, so let’s get to the interview.

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CigarBoy: The first question I want to ask you involves your coaching for over 40 years. How many wins do you have? Do you know how many you have?

Driesell: Not really, I’m not into that. Although I know a lot of people are.

CigarBoy: It’s a lot of wins. I think it is 782 wins. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who counts wins.

Driesell: Nah, all I know is that we lost the last game we played. That bothers me!

CigarBoy: What do you have coming in this year? How does the team look this year?

Driesell: That’s hard to say because, you know, right now we can only go 4 on 4 and do a little conditioning and weight lifting. I’ve been impressed with them. I have a rule that as soon as they come back the first day, which is August 19th, that they run the mile. They have to run the mile in under 6 minutes and the mile and a half in under 10. Everybody made it the first time except for two players but they made it the next time. Except one player he hasn’t made it yet but the rest of them have. So I think we came back in pretty good shape. 4 on 4 we look pretty good. The most I’ve seen them play is 2 on 2 but I think we are going to be pretty good. I think we’ve got good depth and we’ve got bigger players than we’ve ever had. Nate Williams is about 6’10” and Reo Logan, this kid we signed is about 7’. So we’ve got pretty good size and some outstanding guards I think and in the front court, the small forwards are pretty good. I think it’ll be pretty good but I hate to brag on things before the season starts because I’ve never seen them play and we have a lot of new players. We have 3 maybe 4 starters coming back from last year. They are guys that started at one time or another. But the rest of them, well you’ve go 4 new players who don’t know our system at all. I’m optimistic. I think they are good. We’ve got a chance I think. Whether are good or not, we’ll have to wait and see.

CigarBoy: Where do you see yourself sitting in terms of the conference?

Driesell: Oh I don’t know. My only goal whenever I coach is to win the conference. We’ve got to win the conference and the conference tournament. The conference’s regular season doesn’t count in our league really, except for seeding in the tournament. So you’ve got to win the tournament probably to get in the NCAA. Although we are playing Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Auburn, South Alabama, and some other pretty good teams outside the league. We have to hold them off probably and win the regular season to get an at-large bid. But we’re probably going to have to win the tournament.

CigarBoy: This is your fourth Division I school. What’s different about Georgia State from everywhere you’ve coached?

Driesell: I don’t know. Davidson, when I took over there, they were probably the loosingest program in America but we only had 900 boys that went to school there. Then when I went to Maryland, they were way down at the bottom of the ACC but it was in a big city, it was a big university, about 30,000 students. Then I went to JMU where the program was really down but I think we had only about 12,000 students there. And then there’s Georgia State. After being in Harrisonburg,WV, a little town up in the mountains, the thing about Georgia State that makes it interesting is that it’s right in downtown Atlanta, which is a great city. We’ve had the Olympics here, the Superbowl, and the NBA All-Star game is coming here this year. All the major tournaments that were held in American have been held right here in Atlanta - World Series, Baseball All-Star Game. So I think it’s a great city to recruit for and at Georgia State, we have about 30,000 students go through here. A lot of people don’t know that. We are right in the middle of downtown Atlanta so we have a great location. It’s a very good academic school. They are all different. You know, every university is different.

CigarBoy: Some coaches come in and take over for successful programs, Thad Matta takes over Butler and has a good year, then goes to Xavier has an incredible year. Todd Lickliter takes over at Butler and then is ranked in the top twenty. You’ve taken over 4 programs that were not in that great of shape and you’ve turned them around. After 2 turn-arounds did you gain a reputation as a guy that could start with nothing and build? How’d that happen?

Driesell: My first job I think I was 31, no 29 years old. Whatever it was, I just wanted to get a college coaching job. That happened to be Davidson. I think I could turn around any program or keep a program going and take the next step. I mean if you are a good coach, you can take programs that are down and build them or you can take programs that are successful and make them a little better. I think I could win wherever I coach. I won when I coached high school for 5 years, starting when I was 26 years old. So, I can coach anywhere.

CigarBoy: Can you kind of outline for me a coaching philosophy? What is your coaching philosophy?

Driesell: I don’t really have a philosophy. I want to win I guess (chuckle). I want to do whatever it takes to win as long as it’s within the rules. I wouldn’t get the most satisfaction out of cheating to win. My team plays pretty good defense. We’re very aggressive. We’re tough and physical. Our offense really likes to run fastbreak. I believe you win by getting the ball inside to the big men and I believe now you’ve got to win by shooting some 3’s, with all the 3-point shooting teams the last couple of year. So I don’t have any great philosophy that you want to expand on. JUST WIN, my philosophy is if you don’t win, you’re not going to coach too long. Luckily, I’m still doing it.

CigarBoy: Do you have a recruiting philosophy that you can describe as what I look for and how I do it?

Driesell: My philosophy on recruiting is . . . when I coached high school I sold World Book Encyclopedias. They had a philosophy that the more people you see, the more books you’re going to sell. I know a lot of coaches like that or some of these guys that have taken over programs that have won national championships and they just pick out 8 or 10 guys that they want to recruit. I’ve never recruited like that because I’ve never been in a situation like that. So I always recruit in mass, I mean, I hope. Bill Jackson said the first letter he got was from me. I still write a lot of people. I think if you write enough people, and you are contacting those people, somebody’s going to say, ‘”hey, I’ve got an uncle that lives in Atlanta.” A lot of my players I recruited at Maryland had relatives that lived in DC. So I think my philosophy is contact a lot of people because I don’t want to pick 10 guys and just badger them and say please come play for Georgia State or me. I’d rather just find people that say, “hey, Georgia State is what I’m looking for.” Or maybe “Maryland is just what I’m looking for,” or “Davidson is just what I’m looking for.” When I sold I didn’t have 8 or 10 customers that I kept going back to. If they told me they weren’t interested, then fine, they weren’t interested. So that’s the way I’ve recruited. If you recruit a lot of people, somebody’s going to play. We had two kids in here last weekend. One of them lives close to here which is one reason he likes us. The other one is from a long ways away from here, but he’s got relatives here. We’ve written, oh, thousands of people probably. Not thousands -- if could, I would. With all these lists that come out, there’s Garfinkle and tons of other camps. I would like to write to just about all of them and see who I hear back from. If they’re not interested, then fine.

CigarBoy: Do you have a base, maybe Georgia and you go out from there?

Driesell: No, actually, a lot of kids in Atlanta want to get out of Atlanta. There are a lot of kids that want to stay here. If they want to stay, we’re interested. If they aren’t, let them go somewhere else. That’s my philosophy, if that’s a philosophy.

CigarBoy: You started college coaching in what 1960?

Driesell: Is that what is was?

CigarBoy: I think I got my year right.

Driesell: It’s probably right, about 1960.

CigarBoy: It was an important year because I was just about ready to be born at that point. You coached in the 60’s, the 70’s, the 80’s, and the 90’s. Can you tell me how college basketball has changed over the decades? Are there any important trends?

Driesell: Are you talking about the game, on the court?

CigarBoy: Yeah

Driesell: I don’t think it has changed that much. I mean the court is still the same size, the baskets are the same height and well the lane might be different. Did we have a smaller…I don’t know (chuckle) I know when I played we had a 6’ lane and I don’t know when I started coaching if it was big or not but the lane may have changed a little bit. I’ve always coached man-to-man defense and I’ve always like to run and fastbreak because that’s the way I like to play when I played at Duke. I don’t think it’s really changed that much. Right now, the 30 second clock or the 24 second clock or the 35 second changes, whether they all it in college or the NBA, it may have changed the game some. But I’m not sure it’s better. We use to score more points when there was no clock. You look at the score back before when there was no clocks and people score more points than they do now with the clock. I think now, basketball is over coached. I think coaches set all these double picks. I do the same thing. We run a lot of set plays. I think coaches that do that so say “that’s my play. We would have never scored if we hadn’t have run this play.” But I think you need to cut guys loose. My kids play better in the summertime when they aren’t running anything than they do when they are kind of structured. But it really hasn’t changed that much you’ve still got to rebound and handle the ball, break defense, shoot well, and have good footing to shoot well.

CigarBoy: How has it changed off the court? How have the kids changed over 40 years?

Driesell: I don’t think they’ve changed that much. I think probably what’s changed the kids more is professional basketball, the money they make now. When I got out of Duke you had to be like a first team All-American even to get a look. Now they are paying guys millions and millions of dollars to come play right out of high school. That changed people I think. Players, when I first started coaching, I think wanted to play pro, at Davidson, but they weren’t going to make that much money so I think they were more interested in the team and playing on a winning team. Sometime you’ve got to watch kids nowadays. They are playing for themselves. They want to make an impression on the pros. I think that’s changed it a little bit. You’ve got to try and overcome that and handle that. But other than that, I don’t think the kids have changed that much. I think there are better athletes now because they are better conditioned. They’ve got better nutrition now and better training programs. When I first started coaching we didn’t lift that many weights. In fact when I was in college, weightlifting was kind of frowned on. In that case, people are more physical now and better disciplined.

CigarBoy: I know if I asked you for just one of your coaching highlights you’d go nuts trying to find one. Give me two or three of what you think are highlights of your coaching career.

Driesell: I would probably say winning the state championship when I was a high school coach. Then when I was at Davidson, I guess the first big game we won that kind of put us in the top ten, was when we beat Duke in the Charlotte Coliseum. And probably at Maryland, the first big game that we won was Rhode Island. Back when they were ranked about second in the country. That was my first year there so we weren’t very good. Then I don’t know, I think it’s building programs where I’ve been and winning. ) The thing that I’m probably proudest of is I’ve coach 10, 11, 12, I forget what it is, teams that were ranked in the final about ten, not many coaches can say that. I’ve had other teams that were ranked in the top ten during the off-season but that doesn’t count because it’s the finals that win. Another one is when we beat North Carolina the first defeat they had in the Dean Dome. That was a big win of course. Here we’ve beaten Georgia the last two years in a row. When I was at JMU, we beat Purdue the year they won the Big Ten Championship. I don’t know, when you’ve coached as many games as I have, there’s probably a lot I’ve forgot. You know we beat South Carolina in a slow down game. We were ahead 4 to 2 at the half, at Maryland. They were like, “did I play that?” There was no clock so we held the ball and beat them 33 to 31 at the end and we were down 5 points with 12 seconds left and came back and beat them. We had a big fight the first game so they had to call the game off because of the fight. That was a really exciting year for us. I don’t know, that’s some of them.

CigarBoy: What would you say is your biggest success in life?

Driesell: My life? That’s hard man. I married a great lady: my wife. Selling her, recruiting her is probably my greatest success because she’s a wonderful lady and I love her. My children have all gone to college, graduated, and done well. My son is a coach and one of my daughters is a Presbyterian minister. My other two daughters are wonderful ladies and are having success with their families. You know, coaching some outstanding players: Tommy McMillian was a Rhodes Scholar and Led Elmore graduated from Harvard Law School. I’ve had my players to go on to be successful coaches, lucrative coaches in the NBA now. Successful doctors, lawyers and I guess watching your players be successful in life and their professions. I’ve got people that are players, coaches, preachers, doctors, lawyers, everything. I think I’ve coached a little bit of everything. It’s the thing I think makes coaching so rewarding and that’s why I keep on doing it.

CigarBoy: Then let’s go to one of your former coaches. Tell me a little bit about Oliver Purnell.

Driesell: Well, Oliver has done a good job at Dayton. I think he’s an excellent coach. I mean, again, look at his record. That’s the way I judge coaches. That’s the way I want, I mean I think the way people judge me or any coach, is how many games you win as long as you don’t cheat. I’ve never cheated. I couldn’t get any satisfaction out of cheating. I think that there are some coaches that have cheated to win and I don’t think they are a success. I’m not going to name who they are but there are some coaches who have cheated to win where today, I wouldn’t get any satisfaction out of that. But Oliver has run clean programs and won wherever he has coached.

CigarBoy: Let’s talk about the NCAA selection process. It’s been highlighted a lot that they put a lot of emphasis on RPI rank and scheduling. Obviously the Mid-majors schools, like the Butlers of the world that get hurt by that are saying, that’s not right. Have you seen it shift a little bit more towards strength of schedule and RPI and how is that hurting or helping basketball in your opinion, the way they are selecting teams now.

Driesell: Well, most of my career you had to win your tournament to get in the NCAA. I’ve had a lot of teams ranked in the top 5 or 10 in the country that never got in the NCAA because they didn’t win the tournament. Then they started letting the second place teams in the tournaments in, and then the third and now they are letting the seventh and the eighth places in. I think that’s ludicrous. It use to be called the Tournament of Champions. It’s all money now. For example, last year we won our regular season, okay. We lost in the tournament by one point on a last second shot. During the regular season we beat Georgia, we beat St. Joe’s, we won the regular season. I figured we’d beat the other teams that got in. We should have been in because we won the regular season. I think if you win the regular season, regardless of what league you are in, and you don’t win the tournament, then you deserve to be in more than the sixth or the seventh or the fifth place team in some of these other conferences because they aren’t going to win it anyway. Maybe NC State made it but we beat them twice that year. But I’m saying, they don’t have much of a chance of winning it these teams coming in fifth and sixth in their league are getting in the tournament. And let me tell you another thing that is wrong -- they won’t play. Georgia, we beat them the last two years, they won’t play us any more. Georgia Tech won’t play us. Duke won’t play us. North Carolina won’t play us. UCLA won’t play us home at home. They won’t play at home . And all of those buy games, I call them guarantee games, should not count if they are lost there. Like, this year, the only reason I could get my AD to have the tournament here is that we’ve got to play two guarantee games. So I’m going to play Oklahoma at Oklahoma for $40,000 and then I’m going to play Auburn for the same thing. All right, well, those games shouldn’t count in somebody’s schedule as wins because they should beat us. Because they won’t come back and play me at my place. That’s the first time I’ve done that since I’ve been coach. But I just did it this year because he said we can’t afford that tournament unless you do it. I think that’s wrong. When I first started coaching there was no such thing as a guarantee game. I say want to play us on your court, then come play us on my court. They should be outlawed. If they aren’t outlawed they shouldn’t count. Then the football teams do the same thing you know. That shouldn’t count in win/lose record when it comes time to take the polls, in my opinion. Because, you know, it’s just not fair. That’s why I think the regular season champion in this league or the worst league in America should get in over somebody that plays guarantee games. Any of these teams that play guarantee games shouldn’t count or they shouldn’t get in the tournament. If North Carolina plays 6 games, they are guaranteed 6 wins before the season starts. When it comes to the end of the season, they’ve won 20 games and we’re dealing with 14 games. There shouldn’t be anything like that. I’ll play anybody in the country. I’ll play you home and home. If anybody calls me back. I’ve has some people, like Tarkanian is my buddy, he played me here, John Thompson played me here. But if they weren’t my friends they wouldn’t do it. That’s why I think the selection committee is baloney. If you win your regular season and you have teams that won’t play you, then you ought to get in. We’ve got guys in our league that their AD says they’ve got to play guarantee games. Just like my AD. I didn’t fight him because I wanted to get the tournament here. Then we got guys in our league that the AD says you’ve got to play 6 guarantee games. That poor guy’s gonna’ get 6 losses before he starts and I don’t think that’s fair. Then they’ll want to fire him in a couple of years. I think even if coaches would be, ACC schools, and Big East schools and that’s not fair to the coaches they are playing against. Play home at home. Let Kentucky come here and play us home and home or Georgia or North Carolina, whoever. It would be good for our program. It would help basketball overall, rather than someone in our league having to go there and pay them $40,000. I had one school call me, I’d already my schedule and he was going to pay me $70,000 to play at his place

CigarBoy: Did he want you to buy him out?

Driesell: Probably. I personally think there are too many teams in the NCAA. Go back the way it use to be, the conference champion wins. That was it. If they want to let other people in, let leagues like ours, that nobody will play a home at home, the conference champion should get it. Whether he wins tournament or not.

CigarBoy: This year they are playing something called the Bracket Buster. Teams like the Ball State the Detroit’s of the world are playing in the Bracket Buster and now you can get two mid-major teams together to play and give them some exposure. Is that good or does that help anyone you think?

Driesell: Nah, I think it’s baloney. The worst part is taking 6 or 7 teams from one league. I did a lot of research. There were a lot of teams that got in last year that should not have gotten in before us. Because we played a good schedule, played the toughest schedule but we couldn’t get anyone to play us over there.

CigarBoy: Every single coach I talk to says the same thing, at least I hear it from the mid-majors, about what you are talking about. Several coaches resent the mid-major thing too….

Driesell: We’re no mid-major. I’ve got the same number of scholarships that Duke’s got, all right? My players supposedly, and I think they do, get a free scholarship, room and board free, books free, just like they do. I got 13 scholarships. What makes a mid-major a mid-major? I wear just as good of shoes as they do. I’ve got just as good uniforms as Duke. So we’re not a mid-major. Ask Georgia if we are a mid-major. You know they said that when we beat Wisconsin, in the NCAA that year, no mid-major. No such thing as mid-major, in my opinion. We recruit the same guys they do. We don’t GET them probably as often as they do, but we aren’t mid-major, we’re major just like everybody else.

CigarBoy: So there’s not a good term, just basketball teams?

Driesell: Yeah, I mean is Ball State, mid-major? They aren’t mid-major. They beat some big teams last year. If somebody would play Ball State, they’d beat them. That term is ate up. There’s no such thing as mid-major, just Division I, Division II. That’s what those guys in the ACC and Big East like to say to help them in recruiting. There’s no such thing as mid-major. Like I was saying, we’ve got just as good a uniforms and scholarship as they do. We’re called mid-major because we’re not in the ACC. Then why won’t they play us? You know (chuckling), they won’t play us home at home. That’s fallacy, that mid-major’s stuff.

CigarBoy: Coach, when you aren’t coaching basketball or in the office, what are you doing in your spare time?

Driesell: I think I’m a family guy. My wife, my grandchildren and I go to the beach a lot. I have a beach home. I go to the beach with my wife and I have 5 grandchildren that live right here. In fact I’ve got a picture….

CigarBoy: Is that their picture, right there? (I pick up a photo on the desk and hand it to him)

Driesell: I don’t know, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are the ones that are right here. That was taken a couple of years ago. Then my son has three children and he coaches at Merimac University in Raliegh. Then my other daughter doesn’t have children. She just got married. But those 5 are right here. So being with my wife, and playing with them, just hanging with them. That’s about it.

CigarBoy: You’ve coached from coast to coast, north to south, east to west. Give me your 5 favorite restaurants and where they are located.

Driesell: Huh..(laughing). I mean I’m a big time eater. When I’m on the road…hmm. One of my all time favorites is Nick’s Seafood Pavillion in Yorktown, VA, because I’ve been eating there since I was a kid. I’ve always said if I was going to the electric chair and they gave me one meal, I’d say take me to Nick’s. Here I like Bones and Chops.

CigarBoy: Those are two different restaurants?

Driesell: Yeah, Bones is one and Chops is the other. I don’t know. When I travel with the team I usually eat with the team and we eat in a cafeteria a lot of times. Some times we eat out. Is that 5? I like BBQ. Down in North Carolina, I like Rodmans BBQ, that’s in Greenville.

CigarBoy: Really? I use to live there. Where is that?

Driesell: It’s right there in town. When you stay at the Hilton, go down the street and take a right. I think it it’s called Rodmans. Rodmans might be the one in Rocky Mount. Do you know another one in Greenville?

CigarBoy: I don’t know that one but I lived there 15 years ago.

Driesell: That’s great BBQ. They serve iced tea in jars and it’s all you can eat BBQ, corn bread sticks, coleslaw, fried chicken. It might not be Rodmans, it might be, shhhh. Now wait a minute, Rodmans is north. Probably if you talked with anyone in Greenville and asked for the BBQ place they’d be able to tell you the name of it just like that. I can’t think of it right here, but I haven’t been in a couple of years.

CigarBoy: I think you are, what 70 years old now, right?

Driesell: 70, yeah

CigarBoy: 71 in December?

Driesell: Yeah, in December.

CigarBoy: Where do you stop? At what point do you say I’ve done it all? I’m going to the beach.

Driesell: I have this year and next year on my contract. If I stay that long, I don’t know I can stay that long. I think I will. But I don’t know. I think we’ve got a pretty good team this year and we’ll have a better team next year so I might get fired up and stay another couple more years. I don’t really know.

CigarBoy: Did you ever think your run would last this long in coaching?

Driesell: No (laughing). When I was at Davidson, I said when I’m 40 I’ll never coach again. I’ll work at a bank or, I can do a lot of things. Then when I got to my 40’s or whatever, I said I’ll never do this when I’m 50. And when I got here at 50 I said I KNOW I’m not going to be here when I’m 60. When I got there I said DEFINITELY I’m not going to be here when I’m 70, and I’m 70 now. I enjoy it. My father, who owned a jewelry store in Norfolk, VA, went to work when he 12 years old. Quit school and worked for his dad until he died. No worked for his dad until he was about 75. He worked until he was 76, or 75, I’ll have to look it up. As soon as he retired it started … he couldn’t sleep, he had asthma and the first thing I know he’s dead. So I don’t want to quit and die like he did. So I don’t know how long I’ll coach. As long as I’m having fun and we’re winning. If we weren’t winning I’d quit. So, I don’t know how long I’ll stay. My wife keeps telling me I should quit and go to the beach and my daughter tells me that, but not my son. My younger daughter’s like, why are you doing this, take it easy? I said well, I’m afraid if I quit that I might die like my dad did. So I don’t know how long. As long as I’m having fun, winning, doing a good time.

CigarBoy: Did anyone ever tell you that you resemble Phil Martelli or he resembles you? Because you look like his brother. You could be Phil Martelli’s older brother.

Driesell: Really?

CigarBoy: Boy I wish I had a photo of you guys side by side.

Driesell: We played him last year. I guess we do wear he same hairstyle

CigarBoy: That’s right. Coach, I appreciate your time. This has been a lot of fun and I look forward to doing an update with you sometime.

Driesell: You’re welcome. All right.