Wake Forest

Dave Odom Position: Head Basketball Coach -- 12th Year

Dave Odom Photo Gallery

Left Wake Forest to become head coach of South Carolina.

Dave Odom, one of the winningest coaches in Atlantic Coast Conference history, recently completed his 12th season at Wake Forest University and his 15th season overall as a Division I head coach.

Odom (Guilford, 1965) owns a record of 240-132 at Wake Forest, 278-174 overall.

In 2000-01, Odom led Wake Forest to its 11th consecutive postseason appearance - the second-longest current streak in the ACC behind North Carolina. The Deacons appeared in seven straight NCAA Tournaments from 1991-97, won the NIT crown in 2000 and returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2001.

In 1995 and 1996, Odom's teams captured back-to-back ACC Tournament championships.

Upon his arrival in Winston-Salem, Odom inherited a program that had suffered four straight losing seasons. However, he has made school history by winning more games during his 12 years at Wake Forest than any coach over a similar period of time. Odom's 102 wins in ACC play are the most ever by a Deacon coach. His overall winning percentage (.645) is the best at the school in nearly a century, and owns a 10-8 record in NCAA Tournament play.

Three times he has been chosen district coach of the year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and twice he has been a National Association of Basketball Coaches award-winner on the district level as well. The Touchdown Club of Columbus (Ohio) also named him its 1995 national coach-of-the-year after conducting a poll of head coaches across the country.

Odom was named ACC Coach of the Year in 1991, 1994 and 1995, becoming the first individual to receive that honor in consecutive seasons since Virginia's Terry Holland in 1981 and 1982.

This past year he passed Carl Tacy as the second-winningest coach in Wake Forest history and moved into ninth place on the all-time ACC victory list.

Since his only losing record at Wake Forest in 1990, Odom's teams have won more than two-thirds of their games, recording 228 victories (20.7 per year) the last 11 campaigns. In addition to the back-to-back ACC titles in 1995 and 1996, Wake spent 10 weeks as the nation's No. 2-ranked team in 1997 -- the school's highest ranking ever.

Last season, Odom watched his Deacons roll off 12 consecutive victories to begin the season and earn a national ranking as high as No. 4. Along the way, the Deacs beat No. 3-ranked Kansas by 31 points and No. 8-ranked Virginia by 23 points. Wake also beat Georgia, Michigan, Temple and Richmond during the win streak.

In 2000, Wake won eight of its last nine games. The Deacs concluded the season by winning five straight NIT games, including a 71-61 win over Notre Dame in the championship game at New York's Madison Square Garden, to claim the title.

In 1995, 1996 and 1997, Wake Forest finished as one of the top 10 teams in the country, claiming the No.3 spot in 1995, and the No. 9 position in both the 1996 and 1997 final polls. The 26-6 records of '95 and '96 were the best in school history as well.

Odom has also coached three players who have earned All-America honors, including 1997 consensus national player of the year Tim Duncan (1996, 1997), guard Randolph Childress (1996), and forward Rodney Rogers (1993). Last summer, one of Odom's current players -- junior forward Darius Songaila -- earned a bronze medal at the Sydney Olympic Games, representing his native Lithuania.

Duncan was also a two-time ACC Player of the Year, an award also won by Rogers while in a Wake uniform. Rogers and current Deacon Robert O'Kelley both earned ACC Rookie of the Year honors, too (Rogers in 1993; O'Kelley in 1998).

He achieved his 200th overall career win on February 12, 1997, in a 55-49 Wake Forest victory over Clemson.

Odom spent the summer of 1999 as an assistant coach on the 1999 USA Basketball Junior World Championship team. That team competed in Portugal in July and captured the silver medal at the FIBA Men's Junior World Championships.

"Dave Odom is one of the great coaches in the collegiate ranks," ACC journalist and U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame member Bill Brill has written. "He is a coach's coach and a giving, caring individual who deals well with the pressures of his job."

Odom deflects the praise and honors that he has received, however, to his staff and players.

"Any honor that an individual may receive is a direct result of the efforts not only from that individual, but also the efforts of those around him," Odom says.

"The greatest fulfillment that I have received from these awards is pride in knowing that I have been able to make the right decisions about the people who are working with me on a daily basis -- my coaches, who have worked so diligently to build our program the right way, and our players, who by their willingness to accept our instruction, have proved that we could get the job done."

Odom became the 18th head basketball coach in Wake Forest history on April 8th, 1989. He hasn't stopped coaching, recruiting, promoting, and working to make Demon Deacon Basketball the best it can possibly be since.

On the practice floor during a preseason scrimmage, or while pacing the sidelines as his team plays before a national television audience, he exudes constant energy and motivation. He supports his players with encouragement and instruction. He spends hours in patient, individual tutoring, but his ultimate objective is team achievement.

"We constantly remind our players to keep three things uppermost in their minds," he states. "Trust of each other. How much do they care. And how strong is their commitment."

No one cares more than Odom, either.

As Winston-Salem Journal writer Dan Collins, who has covered the Deacs throughout the Odom era, points out, "(Odom) coaches every practice and every game as though it is the signature event of his life, and he trains a laser-like intensity on every problem or misunderstanding the team might be experiencing until they disappear into nothingness."

Away from the sound of bouncing basketballs, whistles and screaming spectators, Odom is just as honed in on his objectives as director of the Wake Forest Basketball program. He spreads news of his university and its academic and athletic accomplishments wherever he travels throughout the state and across the country -- and even at times world-wide as a recruiter and clinician.

"You have to have a coach who has that feel for what Wake Forest is all about," says Odom friend and assistant Ernie Nestor, himself a veteran of 14 years as a Demon Deacon. "Dave understands the academic traditions at Wake Forest. The reason that Wake Forest is right for him is that he has made it right."

He has done so with hard work. Former Raleigh News & Observer journalist Joel Chaney once described Odom with these words: "This is what he (Dave Odom) is all about -- it's not whether you win or lose, but how much effort you put into it."

It's been that way for a while, too. Odom, a native of Goldsboro in eastern North Carolina, began his athletic career as a three-sport standout who served as captain of his football, basketball, and baseball squads as a senior at Goldsboro High.

He took his talents and love of athletics to Guilford College in the early 1960s. There he was football quarterback for three years, as well as playing on the basketball squad for all four years under former Wake Forest cager Jerry Steele.

As a senior, Odom was named the captain of the basketball team, and that same year (1965), was honored as the school's most outstanding athlete. Eighteen years later (1983), Guilford College inducted him into its Hall of Fame.

In 1991, he received similar recognition from his hometown by being accepted into the Goldsboro High School Hall of Fame as well.

Following his graduation from Guilford, Odom began his coaching career at his former school, Goldsboro High, while at the same time working toward a graduate degree in physical education at East Carolina University. He received his master's in 1969, and in the fall of that year accepted the head coaching position at Durham High School.

After a successful tenure there, too (he was five times named his league's Coach of the Year), Odom made his debut on the collegiate coaching scene at Wake Forest, serving as an assistant coach under Carl Tacy for three seasons (1977-1979).

The Deacs were 53-33 during that time, including a 22-8 campaign in 1976-77 when they advanced to the NCAA Midwest Region finals, matching the school's farthest progress in postseason play in the past 35 years.

Odom became head coach at East Carolina in 1979, where his first Pirate squad compiled a 16-11 record, the school's best since 1975. The next two years, however, ECU slipped to below the .500 mark (12-14 in 1981, 10-17 in 1982) while striving to compete in the difficult world of a Division I independent.

In 1982, Odom made the decision to return to the ACC as an assistant coach. He joined Terry Holland at Virginia and helped lead the Cavaliers through their most successful period ever.

"My experience at East Carolina was a very important time in my career," Odom says. "I enjoyed my three years at ECU. There was so much to learn, all of which proved invaluable later on. However, I missed the ACC and when the opportunity came to return to the league, I did so without reservation."

Virginia compiled a 142-83 (63.1 winning percentage) overall record during the seven years that Odom was involved in its program and made postseason appearances every year except 1988. Five of those seasons, the Cavaliers were among the NCAA championship field, including a trip to the Final Four in 1984.

Odom takes a great deal of pride in pointing to all three of his coaches -- Guilford's Steele, Tacy at Wake Forest and Holland at Virginia -- as influencing his career.

"The relationship I had with Coach Steele extended beyond the coach-player relationship," he has said. "He is still just 'Coach' to me.

"Under Coach Tacy I learned you are what you practice. And under Coach Holland I learned that there is no one way to do anything. We all need to know that, but somehow we lose sight of it at times. There is no one way; rather, there is always another way."

Odom left Holland's staff in the spring of 1989 when he returned to Winston-Salem. That move marked only the second time in ACC history that an assistant at one school had become head coach at another. (Vic Bubas had been the first, going from NC State to Duke in 1959.)

Also joining the Deacons for the second time was his wife, Lynn. The Odoms have two coaching sons -- Lane, an assistant basketball coach at Missouri (after working last season at UNC Charlotte); and Ryan, who is a member of the staff at American (after serving last season at UNC Asheville).

Odom's commitment to his family has always been extremely strong, and it's an attitude that he has carried over to the basketball court as well throughout his coaching career.

"I remember the first championship game I coached at Durham High. I remember the sensation of that game. It's very vivid.

"And I remember my first game at Wake in 1976. We beat Duke in the Big Four Tournament. We beat Carolina the next night.

"I didn't get any more excited for the Big Four, though, than I did in that high school game. When you put everything into something, that's all you can do.

"I measure myself, and my program, in the effort that is given and the way in which that effort is made. In that respect, we will not fail because we will give great effort. We will learn from the results, whatever they may be, and we'll go forward and hopefully improve."

Odom is on the NCAA Rules Committee and serves on the National Association of Basketball Coaches board of directors.

The Odom File
FULL NAME: G. David Odom
BIRTHDATE: Oct. 9, 1942
WIFE: Lynn A. Odom
SONS: Lane Odom (assistant coach at Missouri), Ryan Odom (assistant coach at American)
EDUCATION:
Graduate -- East Carolina (M.Ed., 1969)
Undergraduate -- Guilford College (B.A., 1965)
High School -- Goldsboro High School
HIGH SCHOOL COACHING EXPERIENCE:
Goldsboro High School (4 years); head coach, 1965-69
Durham High School (7 years); head coach, 1969-76
COLLEGE COACHING EXPERIENCE:
Wake Forest (3 years); assistant coach, 1976-79
East Carolina (3 years); head coach, 1979-82
Virginia (7 years); assistant coach, 1982-89
Wake Forest (12 years); head coach, 1989-2001
COACHING HONORS:
ACC Coach of the Year -- 1991, 1994, 1995
District Coach of the Year -- 1991, 1993, 1994
National Coach of the Year -- 1995