AP Photo/Michael Wyke
Kelvin Sampson earned the 800th win of his 37-year teaching profession with No. 2 Houston’s 75-57 win over Lehigh on Monday night time.
Sampson, who’s in his twelfth season at Houston, turned the 17th NCAA Division I coach to reach 800 wins. He is the fourth energetic coach to reach the milestone, becoming a member of Rick Barnes, John Calipari and Bill Self.
“Putting Dean Smith and Kelvin Sampson in the same sentence doesn’t seem right to me,” Sampson mentioned. “He’s an icon, and I’m just a ball coach. But it’s been fun. When you get to be 70, you know the end is near. Most of my contemporaries are just about all gone, but I still enjoy it.”
Sampson has a profession file of 800-354, together with 300-84 since taking on the Cougars in 2014. He went 73-45 at Montana Tech from 1980-85; 103-103 at Washington State from 1987-93; 281-107 at Oklahoma from 1994-2006; and 43-15 at Indiana from 2006-08.
Following the sport, Houston performed a video package deal with former gamers, together with present NBA gamers who performed beneath Sampson at Houston, Marcus Sasser, Quentin Grimes and Jamal Shead, congratulating the coach on the accolade. Magic Johnson additionally appeared within the video congratulating Sampson, who was a graduate assistant at Michigan State in 1979-80.
Sampson was introduced a commemorative 800th win ball by his spouse Karen and Houston Athletic Director Eddie Nunez.
“When I first started coaching, I think I lived in fear of not being able to hold a job,” Sampson instructed the gang whereas surrounded by his workforce. “You might know this about coaching, but if you didn’t win, you didn’t get to keep your job. So, as Karen and I started growing our family, I said, ‘I think I’m going to keep this job because I love doing it, but I got to work harder and make sure I get good players.'”
The Cougars unveiled their second NCAA Final Four banner within the final 5 years on Monday night time after Houston completed as nationwide runner-up final season. Sampson has taken the Cougars to seven NCAA Tournaments. He has taken 4 completely different faculties to the NCAA Tournament and has 20 NCAA journeys over his profession.
Sampson mentioned he had gratitude and gratefulness. He mentioned he was grateful for his household and having the ability to end his profession at Houston amongst different issues.
“I’m grateful for the players who played for me, I’m grateful for the administrators that helped me along the way,” Sampson mentioned. “I’m grateful for the players, the fans, the friends because you don’t do something like this without crazy help from other people. This has been an amazing journey that we call coaching. It’s such a job where your joy comes from helping guys get better, and we have a lot of guys on this team that need to get better.”
Disclosure: Houston Public Media is licensed to the University of Houston System. The college doesn’t play a job in Houston Public Media’s editorial choices. Read our statement of ethics and standards here.