Lute Olson

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In summer, 1969 Olson became Head Coach at Long Beach City College. Olson took the position after desiring to coach in college and seizing the opportunity when Coach Rex Hughes left LBCC for the University of Nebraska. Olson was 35 years old with 5 children when making the career change from high school to college. As a high school teacher, Olson mentioned he had tired of mundane items such as hall monitoring and checking restrooms for smokers. Olson had also been working side jobs working for Wright Driving School and driving a gas truck for Texaco.

Olson later said to the media of his move to LBCC, "I wanted a college job and at 35 I felt I couldn't wait much longer." Olson proved to be an immediate success at the college level, leading his Long Beach City College teams to a 103–22 record over four seasons and capturing the 1971 JC Championship.

Of his tenure at Long Beach City College, Olson said, "I was perfectly content there, and had no plans to go anyplace, I loved it there. Del Walker, a great guy, was the athletic director, and I recall his telling me when he hired me that he wanted me to recruit players strictly from the Long Beach area, which I did."

His success was noticed in Long Beach, leading to an opportunity to enter the NCAA coaching ranks in 1973.

In Olson's one season at Long Beach State, he led the team to an undefeated conference record, a Big West championship and a 24–2 record. The only two losses were two-point losses at Colorado and at #6 Marquette University.

Olson had been content to stay at LBCC, but was pursued by LBSU. "I wasn't that interested because there were rumors that Long Beach was about to go on NCAA probation," Olson said. "I told them I'd need about 10 days to think about it. They told me during that time that Long Beach wasn't going to go on probation. I believed them, but they didn't tell me the truth."

Olson followed Jerry Tarkanian as coach, and Tarkanian had built the program into a National power, before leaving for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Under Olson, the 49ers were ranked as high as #3 behind Coach John Wooden and player Bill Walton's UCLA squad and eventual NCAA Tournament Champion North Carolina State. However, with a #10 regular season ranking, the team was banned from appearing in the NCAA tournament after being put on a 3-year probation mid-season, due to recruiting violations from the Tarkanian era.

Five players 49ers players from that season were drafted into the NBA. Drafted were: Cliff Poindexter (Chicago), his brother Roscoe Poindexter (Boston), All-American Glenn McDonald (1st Round, Boston), Leonard Grey (Seattle) and a year later, Bobby Gross (Portland). The 24–2 mark still stands as the school's best season winning percentage.

After one season at Long Beach State, Olson accepted the head coaching position at the University of Iowa.

Olson left Long Beach for the University of Iowa and later remarked, "People didn't go from Long Beach to Iowa, they went from Iowa to Long Beach," Olson said. "I thought, 'well, I'm just going to break that trend.' I saw an opportunity.""I also liked it at Long Beach State, but I felt I had been lied to and decided to leave even though Iowa wasn't exactly a basketball hotbed," he said.

Olson coached Iowa for nine seasons, from 1974 to 1983, with an overall record of 167–91 (.647), leaving as the schools all-time wins leader.

Olson inherited an Iowa team that had gone 8-16 under Dick Schultz, finishing 10th in the Big Ten and suffered four consecutive losing seasons. Olson turned the Iowa Basketball program around, going 19–10 in just his second season. Iowa then won the Big Ten Conference Title in 1978–79, earning the first of five consecutive NCAA Tournament berths.

In 1979–1980, Olson led the Hawkeyes to a Final Four appearance in the 1980 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. The team made the now 48-team NCAA tournament with an 18–8 record (10-8, 4th in the Big Ten), despite playing a good portion of the season without injured (knee) All-American guard Ronnie Lester. With Lester out, Guard Kenny Arnold had stayed in the line-up and played the entire season with a broken right thumb, leading the team in total points and assists with the injury. Freshman Bobby Hansen played after breaking a bone in his left hand and fellow freshman Mark Gannon was lost for the season with a knee injury. Iowa was also without Assistant Coach Tony McAndrews, who had been in a plane crash mid-season after a recruiting trip. He survived, but was badly injured and did not return to coaching that season.

Lester returned for end of the regular season and the tournament. In the NCAA, Iowa received a #5 seed in the East Regional. They beat Virginia Commonwealth (86-72), North Carolina State (77-64) and #1 seed Syracuse (88–77). In the East Regional Final, Iowa was down by as many in 14 in the second half, before rallying to defeat Georgetown (81-80) on a last second basket and free-throw by Steve Waite to advance to the Final Four.

In the NCAA Semi-Final, Lester injured his knee early in the game, after scoring 10 of Iowa's first 12 points. He did not return and Iowa fell to eventual NCAA champion Louisville 80–72. When Olson was asked years later about Iowa's chances to win the NCAA Tournament had Lester not been injured, "My feeling was yes, I feel we could have won," Olson said. "That was a fun team to coach." Overall, Iowa was 15–1 with Lester fully in the lineup and 8–9 in his absence.

After leading the Hawkeyes to the Final Four, Olson's Iowa teams made the next three NCAA Tournaments, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen in 1983, his final season at Iowa. Nicknamed "The House That Lute Built", Carver-Hawkeye Arena, a facility Olson had envisioned for the future of the university, opened on January 5, 1983, against Michigan State. Iowa had played in the antiquated Iowa Fieldhouse. After the season, Olson left Iowa for the University of Arizona.

Olson surprised many by leaving Iowa for an Arizona program that had just suffered the worst season in school history, having won only four games all season and one game in Pac-10 play. He said he left Iowa because life there had become a "fishbowl" and he needed a change.

Under Olson, Arizona quickly rose to national prominence. In only his second year, the Wildcats notched their first winning season in six years and made the first of what would be 23 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under his watch. A year later, Arizona won its first Pac-10 title. Two years later, the Wildcats spent much of the season ranked #1 and made their first (and Olson's second) Final Four. Olson's subsequent Arizona teams would be fixtures in the Top 25 for most of the time until the mid-2000s.

Olson was voted Pac-10 Coach of the Year seven times, made 5 Final Four appearances and won the 1997 NCAA championship with Arizona, where his team accomplished the feat of defeating three #1 seeds in the same tournament.

In 2002, Olson was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

He also coached the US national team in the 1986 FIBA World Championship, the last all-collegiate US basketball team to win in international competition. His team defeated the USSR 87–85 in the gold medal game, the first time the US had won the world championship in 32 years.

Throughout the nineties and 2000s, Arizona under Olson was one of the top producers of NBA talent in terms of number of alumni playing in the league. Many of these players (such as Steve Kerr, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry, and Gilbert Arenas) were not highly regarded on a national level in high school but flourished under Olson's system to eventually become college stars and productive NBA players.

The basketball program at Arizona has been dubbed "Point Guard U" because of the numerous players who have excelled at that position, including Damon Stoudamire, Kerr, Bibby, and Terry. Additionally, point guards Reggie Geary and Matt Othick both played briefly in the NBA and Kenny Lofton went on to become an All-Star center fielder in Major League Baseball. All-American Jason Gardner (graduated in 2003), had been the only starting Arizona point guard to not have played any NBA minutes since before Steve Kerr in 1984, prior to Mustafa Shakur and Chris Rodgers in recent years.

Despite this reputation, Arizona under Olson has also developed many outstanding shooting guards and swingmen: Sean Elliott, Gilbert Arenas, Jud Buechler, Khalid Reeves, Miles Simon, Michael Dickerson, Chris Mills, Richard Jefferson, Luke Walton, Andre Iguodala, Salim Stoudamire, Michael Wright, Ray Owes and Hassan Adams all excelled with the Wildcats, and many went on to stardom in the NBA.

Fewer Arizona big men have made such a big impact in the NBA, but Olson has coached several notables: forward Tom Tolbert and centers Brian Williams (later renamed Bison Dele), Sean Rooks, Loren Woods, and Channing Frye have also made careers in the NBA.

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