It’s difficult to compute, but Tommy Lloyd and Lute Olson were almost the same age when they became coach of USA National basketball teams. Lloyd seems to be a young head coach. Olson seemed to be middle-age when he arrived at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in 1983.
ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ coach Tommy Lloyd talks to USA Basketball’s U19 players in training camp at Colorado Springs.
But get this: Lloyd, who turns 51 in December, is a year older than Olson was when he coached the equivalent of Lloyd’s USA U19 team in the 1984 Jones Cup in Taiwan, a team that included future NBA stars Karl Malone and Danny Manning. Olson was 52 when he coached Team USA to the World Championships in Spain in 1986, beating heavily-favored Russia for the gold medal with David Robinson as the star player.
Of course, the difference between Lloyd and Olson is that Olson became a head college coach, at Long Beach State, when he was 39. Lloyd didn’t become a college head coach, at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, until he was 47. Olson was 223-120 in his head coaching career when he became coach of Team USA in the World Championships. Lloyd is 122-33 at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.
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