Winfrey Sanderson
Encyclopedia
Winfrey "Wimp" Sanderson (born August 8, 1937) is a retired American college basketball
coach. He coached at the University of Alabama
from 1981 to 1992 and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock
from 1994 to 1999.
Sanderson was born in Florence, Alabama
. He prepped at Coffee High School
and graduated from the University of North Alabama
in 1959. In 1960 he became a graduate assistant under Hayden Riley at Alabama, and in 1961 he was made a full time assistant. He served in this capacity for 20 years under both Riley and C. M. Newton
, eventually becoming Newton's top assistant. When Newton resigned to become assistant commissioner of the Southeastern Conference
, Sanderson was named his successor. In 11 years as head coach his teams averaged 21.8 wins a year, with a 267-119 record, and they won 4 SEC
tournaments. They played in one NIT
and eight NCAA
tournaments making the "Sweet 16" five times. He is only coach in Alabama history to win 200 or more games in his first 10 years. He was the Southeastern Conference
Coach of the Year in 1987, 1989 and 1990, and was the National Coach of the Year in 1987.
Sanderson was famous for wearing plaid
sport jackets on the sidelines. During his glory years at Alabama, the Coleman Coliseum
was known as the "Plaid Palace" (with its midcourt logo painted crimson-and-white plaid), the Million Dollar Band
was known as the "Plaid Players", and many fans came to games wearing plaid in Sanderson's honor.
game.
His father, who worked for an auto parts company, died when he was 6, and Sanderson, an only child, shared an apartment with his mother, Christine, a secretary for the Veterans Administration
. Wimp was more of an athlete than a student, more Mr. Popular than either. His senior year in high school, he beat the would-be valedictorian
to become class president.
In 1955, Sanderson went to Abilene Christian College
to play basketball. He planned to go into radio and television, but flunking Spanish
soured his plans. He transferred home to Florence State (now the University of North Alabama
) and continued his hoops career while graduating in physical education
. He took a high school head coaching job in Carbon Hill, Alabama and one year later, in 1959-60, he went to Alabama as a graduate assistant under Hayden Riley for $75 a month. Sanderson figured it was a stepping stone for a better high school job.
"When he was hired, Wimp felt a tremendous amount of pressure", said his wife, Annette. "He had his doubters. People wondered,`Why did they ever hire Wimp?'"
before transferring back to Florence State. In three seasons with the Lions, from 1957–1959, he scored 1,076 points and averaged 14.9 points over his 72 game career. He was named team captain as both a junior and a senior and led the Lions in scoring in 1958 with 403 points. His best single-game performance came against Jacksonville State University
in 1958 when he scored 31 points. Sanderson graduated in 1959.
stood at the schoolhouse door, Sanderson, an assistant coach without political convictions, watched from a window in a building across the street, unaware he was privy to history. Six years later, as Alabama Coach C.M. Newton, now the athletic director at Kentucky, became the first Southeastern Conference coach to heavily recruit African-Americans (Vanderbilt
's Perry Wallace
was the first African-American to play in the conference, in 1967-68), Sanderson was pounding the recruiting trail, helping to lure players like future All-American Wendell Hudson to Tuscaloosa.
"I have a lot of respect for C.M.
and Wimp," says Hudson, the first African-American athlete at Alabama and now the assistant AD at Alabama. "I would talk to a lot of guys who came in the league at the same time as I did, who didn't have as easy of a time as I did. There were no special rules. Everyone was treated equally."
Sanderson's skills as a recruiter were legend. Enticing Robert Horry
, Derrick McKey
and Latrell Sprewell
to football-mad Tuscaloosa
was unprecedented. In addition to Sprewell, Horry and McKey, eight other players recruited when Sanderson was head coach made it to the NBA, including James Robinson
and David Benoit
.
Watts said that on that day, two days before Alabama was to play Stanford
in the NCAA Tournament, Sanderson punched her in the face, giving her a black eye, during an argument. Sanderson said Watts had become hysterical and that, in an effort to defend himself, he stuck out his hand. She collided with it, giving her a black eye. More than a year later. Watts' lawsuit against Sanderson, the university and then-athletic director Hootie Ingram
, was settled out of court, days before it was scheduled to go to trial. Alabama and Sanderson's homeowner's insurance policy paid Watts $275,000. Sanderson's 32-year relationship with Alabama, in which he had been a graduate assistant, assistant coach or head coach for more than half of the basketball games the school had ever played, was over.
"It was a situation where if you're accused of anything, you're guilty, and that's not right. I know what happened," Sanderson says, almost whispering. "I gave the university 32 years, all I could give them. Tried to do everything the right way. It was a sad day in my life. I loved the school, but it's behind me. It's over."
David Hobbs
, a former assistant was promoted as head coach when Sanderson resigned. Mark Gottfried
, a former player under Sanderson, followed Hobbs and coached for 10-1/2 seasons before he was fired on January 26, 2009.
, where he would lead the Trojans to a National Invitation Tournament
appearance in 1996.
Sanderson currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama
.
College basketball
College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....
coach. He coached at the University of Alabama
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
from 1981 to 1992 and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
University of Arkansas at Little Rock , is a public research university located in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, and the second largest university by enrollment in the state of Arkansas....
from 1994 to 1999.
Sanderson was born in Florence, Alabama
Florence, Alabama
Florence is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the northwestern corner of the state.According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,721....
. He prepped at Coffee High School
Coffee High School
Coffee High School is a public high school located in Douglas, Georgia. The school mascot is the Trojan.- Activities and clubs :*Anchor Club,*Art Club,*4-H,*FCCLA,*Marching Band,*Debate Team,*Drama Club,*Epiphany,*Fellowship of Christian Athletes,...
and graduated from the University of North Alabama
University of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the state's oldest four-year public university....
in 1959. In 1960 he became a graduate assistant under Hayden Riley at Alabama, and in 1961 he was made a full time assistant. He served in this capacity for 20 years under both Riley and C. M. Newton
C. M. Newton
Charles Martin "C. M." Newton is a retired American basketball player, coach and administrator. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a Contributor on October 13, 2000....
, eventually becoming Newton's top assistant. When Newton resigned to become assistant commissioner of the Southeastern Conference
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
, Sanderson was named his successor. In 11 years as head coach his teams averaged 21.8 wins a year, with a 267-119 record, and they won 4 SEC
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
tournaments. They played in one NIT
National Invitation Tournament
The National Invitation Tournament is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. There are two NIT events each season. The first, played in November and known as the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off , was founded in 1985...
and eight NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
tournaments making the "Sweet 16" five times. He is only coach in Alabama history to win 200 or more games in his first 10 years. He was the Southeastern Conference
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
Coach of the Year in 1987, 1989 and 1990, and was the National Coach of the Year in 1987.
Sanderson was famous for wearing plaid
Plaid
Plaid may refer to:Material* A plaid or full plaid is a pleated cloth worn with the modern kilt, made from the same tartan and worn cast over the shoulder and fastened at the front* The belted plaid or "great kilt", earlier form of the kilt...
sport jackets on the sidelines. During his glory years at Alabama, the Coleman Coliseum
Coleman Coliseum
Coleman Coliseum is a 15,316-seat multi-purpose arena in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and is home to the University of Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball and gymnastics teams. It has also been home to the Alabama women's basketball and women's volleyball programs in the past.Before 1988, the building...
was known as the "Plaid Palace" (with its midcourt logo painted crimson-and-white plaid), the Million Dollar Band
Million Dollar Band
Million Dollar Band can refer to:*Million Dollar Band , the marching band of the University of Alabama*Million Dollar Band , the Hee Haw television variety show supergroup comprising Chet Atkins and other famous American country music musicians...
was known as the "Plaid Players", and many fans came to games wearing plaid in Sanderson's honor.
Early life
Winfrey Sanderson was named for his uncle, Hayes Winfrey, who died from kidney problems in his twenties after he blocked a punt in his stomach during a high school footballAmerican football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
game.
His father, who worked for an auto parts company, died when he was 6, and Sanderson, an only child, shared an apartment with his mother, Christine, a secretary for the Veterans Administration
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
. Wimp was more of an athlete than a student, more Mr. Popular than either. His senior year in high school, he beat the would-be valedictorian
Valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...
to become class president.
In 1955, Sanderson went to Abilene Christian College
Abilene Christian University
Abilene Christian University is a private university located in Abilene, Texas, affiliated with Churches of Christ. ACU was founded in 1906, as Childers Classical Institute...
to play basketball. He planned to go into radio and television, but flunking Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
soured his plans. He transferred home to Florence State (now the University of North Alabama
University of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the state's oldest four-year public university....
) and continued his hoops career while graduating in physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
. He took a high school head coaching job in Carbon Hill, Alabama and one year later, in 1959-60, he went to Alabama as a graduate assistant under Hayden Riley for $75 a month. Sanderson figured it was a stepping stone for a better high school job.
"When he was hired, Wimp felt a tremendous amount of pressure", said his wife, Annette. "He had his doubters. People wondered,`Why did they ever hire Wimp?'"
College career
Sanderson played his freshman season of collegiate basketball at Abilene Christian UniversityAbilene Christian University
Abilene Christian University is a private university located in Abilene, Texas, affiliated with Churches of Christ. ACU was founded in 1906, as Childers Classical Institute...
before transferring back to Florence State. In three seasons with the Lions, from 1957–1959, he scored 1,076 points and averaged 14.9 points over his 72 game career. He was named team captain as both a junior and a senior and led the Lions in scoring in 1958 with 403 points. His best single-game performance came against Jacksonville State University
Jacksonville State University
Jacksonville State University is a regional public coeducational university located in Jacksonville, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in four academic units leading to Bachelor's, Master's, and Education Specialist degrees, in addition to continuing and...
in 1958 when he scored 31 points. Sanderson graduated in 1959.
University of Alabama
Before he resigned in 1992, Sanderson had been at Alabama for a year as a graduate assistant, 20 as an assistant coach and 11 as head coach. He led the Crimson Tide to 10 NCAA Tournaments and six trips to the Sweet 16. He lived 32 of his 58 years in Tuscaloosa, watching three decades of history pass from one season to another. In 1963, as Governor George WallaceGeorge Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
stood at the schoolhouse door, Sanderson, an assistant coach without political convictions, watched from a window in a building across the street, unaware he was privy to history. Six years later, as Alabama Coach C.M. Newton, now the athletic director at Kentucky, became the first Southeastern Conference coach to heavily recruit African-Americans (Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
's Perry Wallace
Perry Wallace
Perry Wallace is a professor of law at Washington College of Law. He was the first African American varsity athlete in the Southeastern Conference, playing basketball for Vanderbilt University.-Education:...
was the first African-American to play in the conference, in 1967-68), Sanderson was pounding the recruiting trail, helping to lure players like future All-American Wendell Hudson to Tuscaloosa.
"I have a lot of respect for C.M.
C. M. Newton
Charles Martin "C. M." Newton is a retired American basketball player, coach and administrator. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a Contributor on October 13, 2000....
and Wimp," says Hudson, the first African-American athlete at Alabama and now the assistant AD at Alabama. "I would talk to a lot of guys who came in the league at the same time as I did, who didn't have as easy of a time as I did. There were no special rules. Everyone was treated equally."
Sanderson's skills as a recruiter were legend. Enticing Robert Horry
Robert Horry
Robert Keith Horry Jr. is a retired American basketball player and current sports commentator. He played 16 seasons in the National Basketball Association , winning seven championships, the most of any player not to have played on the 1960s Boston Celtics...
, Derrick McKey
Derrick McKey
Derrick Wayne McKey is a retired American basketball player who played the most part of his NBA career between the small forward and the power forward positions.-Early life and college career:...
and Latrell Sprewell
Latrell Sprewell
Latrell Fontaine Sprewell is a former American professional basketball player. During his time as a professional, Sprewell was named to the NBA All-Star game during four seasons, and played for the Golden State Warriors, the New York Knicks, and the Minnesota Timberwolves...
to football-mad Tuscaloosa
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...
was unprecedented. In addition to Sprewell, Horry and McKey, eight other players recruited when Sanderson was head coach made it to the NBA, including James Robinson
James Robinson (basketball)
James "Hollywood" Robinson is a former American professional basketball player, most notably in the NBA....
and David Benoit
David Benoit (basketball)
David Benoit is a former American professional basketball player, in the small forward position.During his career, he played seven years in the National Basketball Association, six with the Utah Jazz....
.
The Fall
Sanderson resigned from Alabama on May 18, 1992, days after Nancy Watts, his longtime secretary, filed a sexual discrimination lawsuit against him and the university with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission. Both Sanderson and Watts admitted they had had an affair from about 1970 to 1985, but both offered conflicting stories about what happened on March 17, 1992.Watts said that on that day, two days before Alabama was to play Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in the NCAA Tournament, Sanderson punched her in the face, giving her a black eye, during an argument. Sanderson said Watts had become hysterical and that, in an effort to defend himself, he stuck out his hand. She collided with it, giving her a black eye. More than a year later. Watts' lawsuit against Sanderson, the university and then-athletic director Hootie Ingram
Hootie Ingram
Cecil W. "Hootie" Ingram is a former American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator in the United States. He played for the University of Alabama from 1952 to 1954 and was selected as an All-SEC defensive back in 1952...
, was settled out of court, days before it was scheduled to go to trial. Alabama and Sanderson's homeowner's insurance policy paid Watts $275,000. Sanderson's 32-year relationship with Alabama, in which he had been a graduate assistant, assistant coach or head coach for more than half of the basketball games the school had ever played, was over.
"It was a situation where if you're accused of anything, you're guilty, and that's not right. I know what happened," Sanderson says, almost whispering. "I gave the university 32 years, all I could give them. Tried to do everything the right way. It was a sad day in my life. I loved the school, but it's behind me. It's over."
David Hobbs
David Hobbs (basketball coach)
David A. Hobbs is an American basketball coach. He was head men's coach at the University of Alabama from 1992 to 1998 and also was an assistant coach at Alabama, the University of Kentucky and Virginia Commonwealth University....
, a former assistant was promoted as head coach when Sanderson resigned. Mark Gottfried
Mark Gottfried
Mark Frederick Gottfried is an American men's college basketball coach and former player. He was named head coach of NC State on April 5, 2011....
, a former player under Sanderson, followed Hobbs and coached for 10-1/2 seasons before he was fired on January 26, 2009.
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Sanderson resurfaced in 1994 at the University of Arkansas at Little RockUniversity of Arkansas at Little Rock
University of Arkansas at Little Rock , is a public research university located in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, and the second largest university by enrollment in the state of Arkansas....
, where he would lead the Trojans to a National Invitation Tournament
National Invitation Tournament
The National Invitation Tournament is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. There are two NIT events each season. The first, played in November and known as the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off , was founded in 1985...
appearance in 1996.
Sanderson currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
.
Awards
- Named SEC Coach of the Decade for the 1980s by the Lexington Herald-LeaderLexington Herald-LeaderThe Lexington Herald-Leader is a newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company and based in the U.S. city of Lexington, Kentucky. According to the 1999 Editor & Publisher International Yearbook, the Herald-Leaders paid circulation is the second largest in the Commonwealth of Kentucky...
. - 1987, 1989 and 1990 SECSoutheastern ConferenceThe Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
Coach of the Year - 1987 National Coach of the Year
- Inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of FameAlabama Sports Hall of FameThe Alabama Sports Hall of Fame is a state museum located in Birmingham, Alabama, dedicated to communicating the state’s athletic history...
in 1990 - UNAUniversity of North AlabamaThe University of North Alabama is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the state's oldest four-year public university....
Alumnus of the Year in 1990