Gary Cunningham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gary Cunningham is a college men's basketball coach. He was the head coach of the University of California, Los Angeles from 1977 to 1979, guiding them to a 50-8 record. As of 2007, he is the winningest coach at UCLA by percentage of wins to losses at .862. This puts him ahead of Gene Bartow (.852), Fred W. Cozens and John Wooden (.808).

Gary played basketball at UCLA on the varsity team from 1960 to 1962. He played in the first Final Four appearance for the Bruins in the 1962 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on March 19, 1962.^[1]

Gary was the coach of the UCLA freshmen in 1965, when high school All Americans Lew Alcindor and Lucius Allen were on the team. The frosh defeated the UCLA varsity, 75 to 60, in the first game ever played in Pauley Pavilion, when the varsity was rated number-one in the nation. He was later an assistant coach under John Wooden and became the head coach at UCLA in 1977. He coached two seasons, winning the Pacific 8 and Pacific 10 conference championships and leading UCLA to a #2 ranking in the final polls both seasons.

He is currently the Director of athletics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.