Hamilton to be honored with NABC Golden Anniversary Award
Photo by St. Clair Murraine
By Chuck Walsh
Seminoles.com
Florida State Head coach Leonard Hamilton will be presented with the NABC Golden Anniversary Award on at the NCAA Final Four in Phoenix.
The Golden Anniversary Award is presented annually to a NABC member who has devoted at least 50 years of outstanding service to the game of basketball. This year’s honor will be presented on April 7.
Hamilton will be presented with the award at the NABC Convention Champions Brunch in Phoenix the day before the Division I National Championship game. He will be presented with the award as the NABC also honors each of the regular season conference champions across all levels of college basketball.
“This honor is significant for me because it is given by the NABC which is made up of the coaches who I have worked alongside throughout my entire career,” said Hamilton. “I am humbled to be included on a list of honorees that includes the great John Wooden, Frank McGuire and John Chaney, among others. For me to be included among this incredible group is truly incredible.”
Hamilton is the 45th coach to be presented with this award he and joins an impressive list of the greatest names in college basketball to have received this award.
Past winner of the Golden Anniversary Award include Wooden (1984, Indiana State and UCLA), Hank Iba (1988, Missouri State, Colorado, Oklahoma State), Frank McGuire (1989, St. John’s, North Carolina, South Carolina), Ray Meyer (1992, DePaul), Lefty Driesell (2003, Davidson, Maryland, James Madison, Georgia State), Chaney (2007, Temple), Dale Brown (2009, LSU), Denny Crum (2013, Louisville), and Lute Olsen (2017, Long Beach State, Iowa, Arizona).
Hamilton is just the third Golden Anniversary honoree who has coached in the ACC – he is joined by McGuire (North Carolina) and Driesell (Maryland).
Hamilton’s college basketball journey began in 1966 when he started his playing career at Gaston College where he set the school record for points scored in a game with 54. His coaching career began in 1971 at Austin-Peay as a graduate assistant and quickly-rising full-time assistant coach at age 23. Hamilton was the Associate Head Coach at Kentucky when the Wildcats won the National Championship in 1978.
His head coaching career includes successful stints at Oklahoma State, Miami, and currently Florida State.
Hamilton is the winningest coach in Florida State history and the fifth winningest coach in ACC history with 619 victories. He has led the Seminoles to ACC Championships in 2012 and 2020, and has been named the ACC Coach of the Year three times – 2009, 2012, and 2020.
