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Nolan Richardson

Nolan Richardson was born December 27, 1941, in El Paso, Texas.

Richardson attended Bowie High School in El Paso after desegregation. From 1961 to 1964, he played basketball for Texas Western College under legendary coach Don Haskins.

After college, Richardson coached basketball at Bowie High School until 1977, when he began coaching at Western Texas Junior College. Over three seasons there, Richardson led the team to a 101–13 record and a National Junior College Championship in 1980. Richardson became head coach at the University of Tulsa in 1980, where he became the first Black coach to win the NIT championship in 1981.

In 1985, Richardson was hired as the first Black head coach at the University of Arkansas. Under Richardson, the Razorbacks had an unmatched 389–189 record, went to the NCAA tournament thirteen times and the Final Four three times, and won the National Championship in 1994. Richardson was fired by athletic director Frank Broyles in 2002 under controversial circumstances, but has since reconciled with the University, which awarded him the Silas Hunt Legacy Award in 2011.

Richardson went on to coach both the Panamanian and Mexican national basketball teams, and from 2009 to 2011 he coached the Tulsa Shock in the WNBA. Richardson has been inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and the National Junior College Athletic Association Foundation Hall of Fame. Richardson has had a street, a high school, and a basketball court named for him. In 2026, Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek announced that the university would honor Coach Richardson with a statue outside Bud Walton Arena.