Hugh Durham - Legacy

Legacy

In 1999, to honor Durham's contributions to Florida State University basketball as a player and head coach, FSU renamed its Most Valuable Player award the "Hugh Durham Most Valuable Player" award.

To honor Durham's achievements building successful basketball programs over five decades, the "Hugh Durham Coach of the Year" award goes to the top NCAA Division I mid-major coach at the conclusion of the each season.

Durham is the only coach in the history of NCAA Division I basketball to lead two different schools to their first and only NCAA Final Four appearance in each school's basketball history. (Florida State - 1972 & Georgia - 1983).

Durham is one of only 11 NCAA Division I coaches to take two different teams to the NCAA Final Four.

Durham's career totals as an NCAA Division I head coach were 633 wins, eight NCAA tournament appearances, two NCAA Final Fours, seven NIT bids, one NIT Final Four, two SEC championships, one Metro Conference Championship, four SEC Coach of the Year awards and one Metro Conference Coach of the Year award.

Durham coached nine All-Americans, four Academic All-Americans, four first-round NBA draft picks and a pair of Olympians. Fifteen of his former players went on to play in the NBA and he had 31 players selected in the NBA draft.

Durham's first recruiting class at Florida State in 1966 contained Dave Cowens. After a prolific career at FSU, Cowens was drafted by the Boston Celtics. He was named NBA co-Rookie of the Year in 1971, 1973 NBA MVP, and led the Celtics to two NBA titles. Cowens is a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and was also voted one of the NBA's 50 all-time greatest players in 1996.

Durham's first recruiting class at Georgia after the 1978-79 season included Dominique Wilkins. Wilkins played three seasons at UGA and went on to be one of the top 10 scorers in NBA history. While playing for the Atlanta Hawks, Wilkins was voted to the NBA All-Star game nine times and won the NBA Slam Dunk contest twice. He is also a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Other career notes as of the time of Durham's retirement in 2005:

• Durham was one of just eight coaches to win 200 games at two Division I schools. The others were Ralph Miller (Oregon State & Wichita State); Norm Sloan (Florida & NC State); Jim Calhoun (Northeastern & UConn); Lou Henson (New Mexico State & Illinois); Neil McCarthy (Weber State & New Mexico State); Johnny Orr (Michigan & Iowa State) and Eddie Sutton (Arkansas & Oklahoma State).

• Durham was one of seven coaches with 100 or more wins at three different Division I schools. (The others were Tom Davis, Cliff Ellis, Mike Jarvis, Frank McGuire, Jerry Tarkanian and Butch van Breda Kolff.)