Biography
Lon Kruger was born and raised in Silver Lake, Kansas. As a player, Kruger led Kansas State University to back-to-back Big Eight championships in 1972 and 1973 under coach Jack Hartman. Kruger was named the Big Eight Player of the Year in 1973 and 1974, after being named the Big Eight Sophomore of the Year in 1972. He was also a shortstop on the Kansas State baseball team. As basketball coach of the Wildcats, he led K-State to the NCAA Tournament in each of his four seasons as head coach and the Elite 8 in 1988 before losing to the arch-rival Kansas Jayhawks, the eventual national champion.
Prior to accepting the head coaching position at UNLV in 2004, Kruger was the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA. It was as head coach of the Hawks that Kruger guaranteed season-ticket holders that the Hawks would make the playoffs or get a $125 refund. The Hawks failed to make the playoffs and Kruger was fired midway through the season. Kruger also held head coaching positions in collegiate basketball at the University of Texas-Pan American (1982–1986), Kansas State University (1986–1990), the University of Florida (1990–1996), and the University of Illinois (1996–2000). While at Illinois, he became the only Big Ten coach to successfully sign three consecutive Illinois Mr. Basketball winners, after inking Sergio McClain, Frankie Williams, and Brian Cook between 1997 and 1999. Kruger is one of five coaches to take four different teams to the men's NCAA basketball tournament. In the process, he led the University of Florida to its first-ever Final Four appearance in 1994.
Kruger was an assistant coach under Rudy Tomjanovich for the US national team in the 1998 FIBA World Championship, winning the bronze medal.
His son, Kevin, took advantage of a new NCAA rule, called Proposal 2005-54, before the 2006–2007 season to transfer from Arizona State and immediately play for his father at UNLV without sitting out one year. The controversial rule has been repealed for the next season due to the "unintended consequences" of allowing players with undergraduate diplomas to immediately begin playing for another school without sitting out for any time.
On February 9, 2008, the UNLV Runnin' Rebels beat Colorado State 68–51 at home, for his 400th career win.
On April 1, 2011, sources confirmed that Kruger had accepted the head coaching position with the Oklahoma Sooners, replacing the fired Jeff Capel. Kruger's new Oklahoma Sooners compensation package purportedly exceeds $2.2 million annually. Despite his success, he has not been immune to criticism. Fans of opposing teams point out that Kruger has won just one regular season conference championship in his 25 years of college coaching (Illinois tied for the Big 10 title in 1997-98). Plus the 13 times that his teams have made the NCAA tournament, they have lost in the 1st or 2nd round 10 times. Also, some critics mention his failed venture in the NBA. However, Kruger generally enjoys a positive reputation overall.
Read more about this topic: Lon Kruger
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)