Glenn Wilkes obit

Glenn Wilkes, Stetson coaching legend and 'Godfather of Florida Basketball,' dies at 91

 

He was not on the age.

Glenn Wilkes, a Hall of Fame basketball coach whose reputation spread far beyond DeLand and Stetson University, died Saturday night, a week shy of his 92nd birthday.

"It's a sad day for the Hatter family," Stetson athletics director Jeff Altier said Sunday upon the school's official announcement of Wilkes' death.

Wilkes coached the Stetson Hatters for 36 seasons — 1957-93 — and his teams won 552 games. He remained in DeLand, with his wife Jan, after retiring from coaching.

In 2014 Wilkes was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Beyond the success at Stetson, he was nationally recognized by his peers as a mastermind of basketball strategy, whose knowledge of the game was surpassed only by his passion for promoting it.

Along with Jan, Wilkes is survived by six children: Glenn Jr., Scott, Tom, Rob, Tarra, and Angel. No cause of death was announced and funeral arrangements are pending.

Before his coaching career, Wilkes played basketball at Mercer University in his home state of Georgia and in 1971 was inducted into that school's athletic hall of fame. During his coaching career, he earned a doctorate from Vanderbilt University and, after retiring as coach, he remained at the school as a professor of Sports and Exercise Science.

"Dr. Wilkes was a larger than life personality," Altier said. "His success as a basketball coach was recognized by induction into many sports halls of fame. As an educator he not only published several books, but finished his time at Stetson teaching in the classroom. I held Glenn in high esteem as did thousands of others. He will be missed."

In the early-'70s, Wilkes worked tirelessly to get an on-campus basketball facility at Stetson. When the Edmunds Center opened in late 1974, it was considered the best on-campus arena in the state. Today, the Hatters play on “Glenn Wilkes Court” inside the Edmunds Center.

After graduating from Mercer in 1950, Wilkes served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Upon returning home, he coached five seasons at Brewton-Parker Junior College in Vidalia, Georgia, before getting the Stetson job.

Sometime during his long tenure at Stetson, Wilkes’ tireless devotion to basketball in a football-crazy state earned him the nickname “Godfather of Florida Basketball.” Along with his coaching record, he authored books on basketball strategy and, each summer, operated the Glenn Wilkes Basketball Camp at Stetson — a forerunner of the modern basketball camp and, at various times, a gathering spot for many of the game’s coaching gods.

We had John Wooden at our house,” Glenn Wilkes Jr. said two years ago on the eve of his father’s 90th birthday. “Adolph Rupp, Red Auerbach, Hank Iba, Bobby Knight. They all came to the camp.”

Cy McClairen was a coaching legend closer to home. His long career at Bethune-Cookman largely overlapped with Wilkes' Stetson tenure, and their two teams matched up often in both DeLand and Daytona Beach.

"We had some classic battles between the Wildcats and Hatters, but what I will miss most will be the moments we shared as friends and colleagues," McClairen said Sunday. "Glenn was a great coach and even better friend."

And there was this from Lynn Thompson, B-CU's vice president for intercollegiate athletics: "As an iconic coach and administrator at Stetson, Glenn Wilkes represented an era of leadership that we may never experience again. When you heard his name you immediately thought of Stetson. Such a priceless asset for  that university and community to have for decades."

Wilkes Jr. played for his father at Stetson and later became a longtime coaching fixture himself — he’s entering his 35th year as head coach of the Rollins College women’s team in Winter Park. He marveled at his father’s energy level, which lasted well beyond his 90th birthday, as well as his father’s basketball mind

“He’s a walking encyclopedia of basketball,” Wilkes Jr. said. “He can tell you where defenses were invented, where offenses were started. He knows all of that.

“Great example ... I remember one time, about 20 years ago, I tell him, ‘Dad, I’m trying to attack this particular defense.’ He said, ‘Well, I invented that defense, so I probably can help you.’ ”

After leaving the bench, Wilkes taught such classes as Sports Feature Writing and Sports Journalism — he had some first-hand knowledge of both topics, since through much of his Stetson career he served as his own sports information director.

Wilkes also remained hands-on with basketball, and in a big way. After retiring from the Hatters bench, he was hired by fellow coaching legend George Raveling to serve as Raveling’s assistant director at the Michael Jordan Basketball Camp for kids and the Michael Jordan Fantasy Camp in Las Vegas.

Wilkes' post-Stetson basketball duties also included a 1994-98 stint as a scout for the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. Even into his 90s, he was assisting one of his six children — daughter Angel — with a business called World Class Basketball, which facilitates overseas basketball trips for American colleges.

The seed for his daughter’s basketball interest was planted decades earlier, when Angel was a freshman at the University of Florida. She took a Physical Education class on basketball, she said, “to get a better understanding of what my dad did.”

On her first day in class, she opened the syllabus and saw the name of the textbook the class would be using: “Basketball — by Glenn Wilkes.”