Mike Woodson

Michael Dean Woodson (born March 24, 1958) is an American basketball coach and former professional player who is the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team.

Woodson was born in 1958 in Indianapolis as the second youngest of 12 children.

Growing up his family struggled financially and his parents suffered from fragile health.

The family moved several times, living in two- and three-bedroom homes for the 14-member family.

Woodson's father, Chester, worked two or three jobs at a time—delivering pianos, managing laundromats, and mowing lawns.

Chester died of a heart attack when Woodson was 13, with Woodson later remarking that his father "worked himself to death."

After the death of Woodson's father, the family lived in separate homes to lessen the burden on Woodson's mother, Odessa, a nurse.

Woodson lived for a year with his oldest sister before eventually moving back in with his mom to help support her, giving her half of each pay check.

Growing up in Indiana, Woodson felt the Hoosier Hysteria that permeated the state, which helped prepare him for a career in basketball.

He said, "Every yard had courts, little basketball hoops in the yard. If you didn't have it, you had neighbors two doors down that had it. You had parks in every area of town where you could go get a pickup game. Had rec centers where you could go play. It was a place to go learn your craft."

He was also able to practice with a large number of talented basketball players in the Indianapolis area, including professionals such as George McGinnis, Roger Brown, and Rick Mount.

According to Woodson, playing in Indiana meant "you had to be able to pass, and shoot, and dribble, and play without the basketball, you know, the motion offense. That was Indiana basketball. And Bob Knight is the one who really instilled a lot of the fundamentals and how high school coaches taught their teams."

Woodson elected to play college basketball for Bob Knight and the Indiana University Hoosiers.

During one recruiting visit by Knight where Woodson's high school coach, his mother, and his pastor were all present, Knight got into a heated exchange because Woodson's high school coach was not convinced Woodson would fit into Indiana's system.

However, according to Woodson, "I wanted to go somewhere where I could play, and where I knew I could get a great education, and my family didn't have to travel far to see me. So it was perfect. And I thought I was playing for the best coach in the country at that time."

With coach Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers, Woodson played collegiately from 1976 to 1980.

In Woodson's freshman year, the 1976–77 season, the Hoosiers were coming off a 32–0 undefeated season.

Reflecting on that year, Woodson remarked, "My freshman year I only weighed a buck-85 playing small forward, and I could never keep anybody off the boards, and Coach told me early on, I kept missing block outs, and Coach was like 'Dammit, you miss one more block out and you're gonna run them stairs until I get tired.' And sure enough I missed a block out. And there I go, I ran all the way to the top, and walk all the way down. And this was going on for about an hour and I was like 'did I come to IU for this?' So he (Knight) hollers up and says 'Well, I guess I've got to put up with your ass for another three years. Get on down here.'" In Woodson's sophomore year, the 1977–78 season, the Hoosiers finished the regular season with an overall record of 21–8 and a conference record of 12–6, finishing 2nd in the Big Ten Conference and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen in the 1978 NCAA Tournament.

In Woodson's junior year, the 1978–79 season, he served as captain of the Hoosier team.

During the final game that season, against Illinois, word leaked out that Big Ten coaches had left Woodson off their all-conference first team, despite averaging 21 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 50 percent from the field.

Woodson proceeded to lead Indiana to victory and score a career high 48 points (including 29 at the half).

At the post-game press conference, Coach Knight criticized the media voters.

"He just erupted," Woodson recalled.

"He was like 'how the hell can this guy not be on first team All-Big Ten,' and then the next day they put me on first team All-Big Ten."

As a junior team captain, his Hoosiers won the 1979 NIT Tournament and he was named to first team All-Big Ten.

That summer Woodson won a gold medal as captain of the United States basketball team at the 1979 Pan American Games.

His senior year, Woodson and Isiah Thomas led the 1979–80 Hoosiers to a conference title and a berth in the NCAA Tournament's Sweet Sixteen.

The Hoosiers went on to win the 1979 NIT Tournament.

Following that season Woodson was selected to play for the United States in the 1979 Pan American Games on the basketball team coached by Indiana's Bob Knight.

Behind Woodson's leadership as captain, the U.S. team compiled a 9–0 record and won the gold medal, while averaging 100.8 points a game—the first time that a United States team averaged more than 100 points-per-game in the Pan American Games.

Woodson was named the 1980 Big Ten Player of the Year, an NABC All-American, and awarded the Chicago Tribune Silver Basketball.

Among Hoosier basketball players, Woodson ranks fifth all-time in total points and his 19.8 points per game average is tied (with Calbert Cheaney) for the second highest by a Hoosier who played four seasons in college.

Woodson played 11 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) after getting drafted by the New York Knicks as the 12th pick of the 1980 NBA draft.

He also played for the New Jersey Nets, Kansas City/Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets, and Cleveland Cavaliers.

He appeared in 13 NBA playoff games over five post-seasons.

Woodson later coached for seven different NBA franchises.

He worked as an assistant for the Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Larry Brown's Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers, and New York Knicks.

Woodson and Brown, who had previously worked together as player and coach, won an NBA Championship with the Pistons during the 2003–04 season.

Woodson went on to serve six years as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, where he made the playoffs his last three seasons and his 206 career wins rank fourth-best in Hawks franchise history.

He subsequently spent three seasons as head coach of the New York Knicks, where he reached the playoffs twice and secured the Atlantic Division title.