Leonard Hamilton leaving Florida State, college basketball with sense of purpose

As Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton enters the final stretch of a coaching career that spans six decades, he recalls how that lengthy career almost never happened.

Hamilton remembered the start of his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Austin Peay in 1971, quickly transitioning into an assistant coach’s spot in a matter of months. He convinced a Brooklyn sharpshooter to attend Austin Peay and that player, Fly Williams, led the school to consecutive NCAA tournament berths — the first in school history.

“I felt I contributed to the success of the program,” Hamilton said. “At 26, I thought I was ready.”

So, when the Austin Peay head coach, Lake Kelly, began getting feelers from SEC programs, Hamilton requested a meeting with the school president to let him know he would be prepared to step up if that happened.

“I didn’t even think about looking around to see how many Black head coaches there were in the country,” Hamilton said. “I had a good relationship with the school president; he said that he didn’t know if he was strong enough to push that through.”

The response left Hamilton who, despite growing up drinking from colored water fountains in Gastonia, North Carolina, dazed.

“He didn’t say I couldn’t get the job because I was Black, but I read between the lines,” Hamilton said. “That happened on a Wednesday. 

“I resigned on Thursday.”

At that time, Hamilton could not have foreseen a coaching career that would include 33 years as a collegiate head coach and 15 years as an assistant. It’s a lengthy coaching journey that enters its final stretch as Hamilton, 76, leads Florida State into this week’s ACC tournament for the final time. Hamilton will retire after this season and current Sacramento Kings assistant coach Luke Loucks — who played for Hamilton at FSU — will take over as head coach in the 2025-26 season.

“What’s going through my mind? To be honest, I’m a one-day-at-a-time kind of guy,” Hamilton said when asked about this final stretch as a coach. “People keep asking me these nostalgia type questions about what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about preparing for [Tuesday’s] game.”

While Hamilton tries to cast aside the nostalgia heading into Florida State’s ACC tournament opener against Syracuse on Tuesday, he couldn’t avoid it on Saturday as players from all of his basketball stops — former players of his at Florida State and his former college teammates from UT-Martin — traveled to Tallahassee to honor him at the Seminoles final regular-season game.

They came to tip their hat to a coach who, over the course of his long career, earned a reputation as a dormant program savior. He had a tremendous impact at:

• Oklahoma State, his first head coaching gig, as he took a floundering Cowboys program to back-to-back NIT appearances (1989, 1990). It marked the first time Oklahoma State made consecutive postseason appearances in 32 years.

• Miami, where in 10 years, Hamilton took a program from little basketball success to three straight NCAA appearances — including the school’s first trip to the NCAA tournament after the basketball program was revived in 1985.

• And Florida State which, in 23 years under Hamilton, earned eight NCAA tournament berths and the highest ranking in school history (fourth in 2020). Hamilton leaves Florida State as the winningest basketball coach in program history and the fifth-winningest coach in ACC history.

“At Miami, he was able to get kids to come play at a place that really didn’t have a lot of basketball tradition,” said Dayton coach Anthony Grant, who had Dayton ranked third in the Final AP poll in 2020 — one spot ahead of Florida State. “To see what he was able to do at Florida State, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for him.”

Hamilton’s key to navigating through six decades in a high-pressure profession that can see a coach like Kevin Keatts at NC State reach a Final Four one year and be fired the next?

“I’ve always been behind the 8-ball because I always had programs I had to build and revitalize,” Hamilton said. “So, I always take it one day at a time. For my Thursday to be meaningful, I had to make sure I have a great Wednesday.”

It also speaks volumes that Hamilton, when asked about his biggest accomplishments as a coach, doesn’t mention Florida State’s 15 postseason appearances, the school’s first-ever ACC regular-season championship (2020) or the 19 players that were drafted by the NBA.

“In my 23 years here, I’ve only had one kid who was with me for four years not graduate,” Hamilton said. “That’s what I’m most proud of because in today’s climate we don’t talk about academics anymore.”

Coaching in today’s climate means dealing with a number of factors including NIL deals and players lacking patience while seeking immediate gratification. That’s likely to have played a role in a growing list of legendary coaches — Roy Williams, Jay Wright and Mike Krzyzewski, to name a few — who have walked away from the sport in recent years.

“Now you’re talking in one ear and there are other people talking in the other,” Hamilton said. “Most of the time, back then, a lot of parents hadn’t gone to college so they trusted you with their most precious gift.

“Nowadays, with the portal and NIL, other people are part of that equation, and it makes it very difficult for you and the player to have those kinds of relationships. You’re telling them one thing and there are some people who are making money off the kids and telling them something else. So, it’s a little more challenging to develop those relationships.”

When asked to name one person who helped put him in the position he’s in today, Hamilton named two.

“John Thompson and George Raveling, I had those guys on speed dial and I’m very fortunate they made themselves available to me,” Hamilton said. “As a young head coach, I thought I had all the answers and I thought I knew everything I was supposed to do. But whenever I got in situations that I was unfamiliar with, I was on the phone with either John or George, making sure that I was looking at things the right way.”

Raveling has long admired Hamilton’s success and has lamented the fact that the soon-to-be retired coach has never been celebrated enough for all he’s accomplished.

“Leonard’s always been one of those guys who has led from behind,” Raveling told Andscape. “As a result, I think people see him, but don’t see him, and he’s just continued to go about achieving success on every level. [At] Every single program.”

That success includes his time as the first Black assistant coach at Kentucky, the school that hired Hamilton a week after he left his job at Austin Peay. There was a stop in between: Hamilton moved back to North Carolina after quitting the coaching job at Austin Peay and took a job at Dow Chemicals in Charlotte.

He was still in the midst of new employee training when Joe B. Hall, the College Basketball Hall of Fame coach, called and offered him a job as Kentucky’s first Black assistant.

“I go from not having the opportunity I thought I should have to going to the one of the winningest programs in college basketball history,” Hamilton said. “So, it just felt like there was a purpose for what I have been put on earth for.”

Has Hamilton ever thought about his life’s trajectory had he not received that call from Hall?

“Of course,” Hamilton said. “I planned on being the No. 1 chemical salesman in the country.”