Gary Williams to Keynote MAAC Honor Roll Dinner
MAAC Sports
EDISON, NJ – The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has announced Gary Williams as the keynote speaker for the 2015 MAAC Honor Roll dinner on Saturday, October 17.
“Gary Williams is a Hall of Fame coach who has earned respect from his peers not only for winning the Final Four and ACC titles, but because of his commitment to the student-athletes in his program,” said MAAC Commissioner, Richard Ensor. “I think the MAAC honorees will enjoy his welcome to them to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and personal view on what enshrinement means to former players and coaches.”
Williams was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in August 2014. He was the starting point guard for the University of Maryland basketball team and he graduated in 1968. Williams began his coaching career as a graduate assistant in the fall of 1968, a year removed from his playing days at the University of Maryland. He spent only that one year in the Terrapin program before he landed his first head job at Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, New Jersey near his hometown.
Williams moved up the coaching ranks taking positions at American University (1978-82), Boston College (1982-86), and Ohio State (1986-89), before resurfacing at his alma mater Maryland. In the spring of 2002, he led Maryland to the top of the college basketball mountain when his Terrapins captured the program’s first ever NCAA national championship in basketball. Williams won more than 600 games in his career at four different universities, and along with his national championship he has two Final Four appearances, an ACC Tournament Championship, three ACC Regular Season Championships, was named ACC Coach of the Year twice, won a Big East Regular Season Championship (Boston College), and an ECC Regular Season Championship (American University).