Bud Millikan, the former Terrapin men’s basketball coach whose players included Terp coach Gary Williams, died of a heart attack Thursday at his Georgia home. He was 89.
Millikan led the Terps from 1950 to 1967, compiling a 243-182 record during his tenure. The Terps reached the NCAA Elite Eight and won the ACC title in the 1957-1958 season en route to finishing No. 6 in the final national rankings.
Millikan, who played under Hall of Fame Oklahoma State coach Henry Iba, was known as a strict disciplinarian who stressed fundamentals, a characteristic Williams said helped many of Millikan’s players enter the coaching profession.
“There’s been a lot of people who played for him who went into coaching because to play for Bud Millikan, you had to know the game if you were a guard,” Williams said. “You weren’t going to be on the court, no matter how talented you were, unless you could grasp what he was trying to teach.”
Williams played point guard for Millikan from 1964 to 1967. Other former Millikan players who went into coaching include Gene Shue, who coached in the NBA, and current Terp assistant Joe Harrington.
Some of Millikan’s coaching strategies, including the flex offense and an adherence to man-to-man defense, are still a part of the modern game, though Williams pointed out coaching is different today.
“Back then — that era of coach and Eddie Sutton, Bud Millikan, Hank Iba, [Bobby] Knight when he was young — you were gonna play a certain way,” said Williams, who added players would address Millikan as “Sir” in practice. “Coaches back then, they were like ministers almost. They were looked on with that reverence. That’s how society’s changed. I’m sure Bud could have changed with society.”
Millikan was an important figure in the integration of the ACC. He recruited Billy Jones, who became the conference’s first black basketball player in 1965.
“That took a lot of guts back then because we were a Southern league,” Williams said. “It wasn’t a real popular move at the time, to do that, but it also gave the license to the other schools to go recruit African American players. Once Maryland did it, it was OK.”
A memorial service is scheduled for today in Georgia.
akraut@umdbk.com
