Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Former Arizona coach Lute Olson hospitalized after stroke

UCLA Bruins v Arizona Wildcats

LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 10: Head coach Lute Olson of the Arizona Wildcats talks to his players during a timeout in the first half of their semifinal game against the UCLA Bruins in the 2006 Pacific Life Pac-10 Men’s Basketball Tournament on March 10, 2006 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Lute Olson, the Hall of Fame coach who won a national title with Arizona in 1997, has been hospitalized after suffering a minor stroke, it was announced Monday.

“Coach Olson is not only an icon of our men’s basketball program and all of college basketball,” Arizona said in a statement released Monday, “but he is also an embodiment of greatness to Arizona athletics, the University of Arizona and the Tucson community.

“Our thoughts are with coach Olson, his family and loved ones during this time.”

Olson, 84, was admitted to the hospital Saturday.

“He is expected to make a full recovery but will likely need some rehabilitation therapy after discharge from the hospital,” David Labiner, MD, chairman of the UA department of neurology, said in a press release, per the Arizona Daily Star.

Olson went 781-280 during a head coaching career that spanned 35 years with stops at Long Beach State, Iowa and with the Wildcats. He retired in 2008.