Nolan Richardson

CTL-E-7024 · Person · other · born 1941

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07896 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7024.

Nolan Richardson (born December 27, 1941, in El Paso, Texas) built Arkansas basketball on "40 Minutes of Hell" — a full-court pressing system that made his teams the sport's most exhausting opponent. Richardson is the only coach to win championships in the NJCAA (Western Texas, 1980), the NIT (Tulsa, 1981), and the NCAA tournament (Arkansas, 1994, defeating Duke in the final; the Razorbacks returned to the championship game in 1995). His Arkansas teams reached three Final Fours, and his 1994 squad's title came in a state whose flagship program he had integrated as its first Black head coach in 1985. Richardson was fired by Arkansas in 2002 after public remarks about his treatment; he sued the university alleging racial discrimination, and the suit was dismissed in 2004 — both the allegation and the dismissal are carried here as the documented record states them, without the graph taking a side the sources do not settle. He later coached in the WNBA and internationally. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

The record

• Also known as: Nolan Richardson Jr.

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0366 (kind: coach). Firsts disposition: ASSERTED in sourced form — the only coach with NJCAA, NIT, and NCAA titles (Hall of Fame and Wikipedia); 'first Black head coach' at Arkansas carried as the sources state it. Contested disposition (GOV-004): the 2002 firing and his discrimination suit are stated with the suit's dismissal, both sides attributed to the documented record; no conclusion asserted. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Richardson's system was an argument — that forty minutes of pressure could outlast pedigree — and 1994 is its verdict. Photo: HELD — no photograph of the coach on Commons (see visual asset basis; the hits depict the El Paso school named for him).

Sources

• Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. "Nolan Richardson." Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia. "Nolan Richardson." Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

More person records

• Manu Dibango
• Marc Trestman
• Marcel Grateau
• Marcella Nunez-Smith
• Marcelo Claure
• Marcus Garvey

Browse the full directory: all entity records

Record CTL-E-7024 · Combined Graph record U-07896 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

Cite this record

Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.

From the Archive

The archive in pictures

The people, places, and institutions this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.