BREAKING: Leonard Hamilton to step down from Florida State at season’s end
Florida State has announced long-time head basketball coach Leonard Hamilton will be stepping down at the end of the season after a tenure that started in 2002. Just the programās 7th-ever head coach, he leaves the program in much better shape than he found it as FSUās all-time wins leader with 456. Heās also 5th in ACC history in wins behind just Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Roy Williams, and Gary Williams. Hamilton is in the last year of his contract, which is partially why the move was announced now.Ā
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FSU men’s basketball head coach Leonard Hamilton coaches as Florida State takes on Syracuse University at the Donald Tucker Civic Center Saturday, Jan. 4, 2024. / Mishalynn Brown/Tallahassee Democrat / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Itās a sad day for people like myself who worked in the program and had the pleasure of getting to know Coach Hamilton as genuinely one of the best ambassadors in the sport. He was one of the most revered coaches in the sport as someone who broke barriers, becoming the first African-American basketball coach at Kentucky and had a trend of turning around programs dead to rights in Oklahoma State, Miami, and Florida State. Talk to any coach in the ACC and theyāll tell you how much Coach Hamilton means to them and the sport.Ā
At the same time, it was time to make the move. Florida State is 56-62 since they last made the tournament in 2021, a run that ended in the Sweet 16. Only one of these last four seasons has finished with a losing record, the 9-23 collapse in the 2022-23 season. Injuries killed the team a few years ago, but the transfer portal and NIL landscape have changed everything.
Hamiltonās accomplishments stretch off the court as well, as more than 95% of four-year players earned their degrees at Florida State. The accomplishments on the court are pretty solid too: 3 ACC Coach of the Year awards, 8 NCAA Tournament appearances (44% of all of FSUās Tournament appearances), four Sweet 16s, an Elite 8, an ACC Tournament Championship in 2012, and an ACC regular season championship in 2020. That 2019-20 team will go down as one of the greatest āwhat-ifsā in Florida State athletics history, as a team that went 26-5 wasnāt able to compete in the postseason due to COVID and it was arguably the best team in program history. Hamilton also had 22 different players play a game in the NBA, featuring 9 first-round picks and 5 inside the lottery.Ā
The ACC has seen a few legendary coaches retire recently. Roy Williams stepped down from UNC following the 2021 season, Coach K stepped down from Duke following the 2022 season, Tony Bennett shockingly retired from Virginia before the season, and Jim Larranaga stepped down from Miami during the winter break.
Letting Hamilton step down after the season is the right move. He’s one of the last remaining legendary coaches in college basketball and deserves to go out respectably. Nothing changes if you remove him right now. Even if they are in the middle of a four-game losing streak, losing most recently in embarrassing fashion to Boston College on Saturday, he deserves to get the rest of the season.
Florida State’s final home game is against SMU on March 8th. There will almost certainly be some kind of celebration at that game, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see former players return for that game.
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