Mike Young
Head Men's Basketball Coach
Phone: 4117
Email:
youngmk@wofford.edu
In his 20th season with the Wofford program, Mike Young led the Terriers to their best season ever as a NCAA Division I program in 2008-09. Entering his 21st season on the bench, he looks to build on that success as his young team continues to mature.
After 13 seasons as an assistant to Richard Johnson, Young begins his eighth year as head coach of the Terriers. When Johnson was promoted to athletic director on December 3, 2001, it was announced that Young would assume Wofford’s head coaching duties effective at the conclusion of the 2001-02 campaign.
As head coach, Young has posted a 90-117 overall record and has coached eight all-conference selections. More impressive is the fact that every player who has exhausted their eligibility has graduated from Wofford.
Young led his team to a 16-14 record in the 2008-09 season, which included a 12-8 mark in the Southern Conference. It was the first winning record for the Wofford program since moving to NCAA Division I. The conference record included the most wins in school history (12) and also was the first time the Terriers had finished over .500 in Southern Conference play.
The season included key wins on the road at Chattanooga and The Citadel and also a season-sweep of Furman for the first time since 1999. The Terriers took SEC-foe Georgia to overtime before falling by one point.
On the court, Noah Dahlman earned All-Southern Conference first team honors, while Junior Salters also was honored with All-SoCon third team recognition. Brad Loesing was named to the All-Freshman team. Dahlman was third in the conference in scoring (17.8 ppg), while Tim Johnson was second in the SoCon with 8.7 rpg.
In his first season as head coach, Young led the Terriers to their best record in eight seasons on the Division I level and a third-place finish in the Southern Conference South Division after Wofford was predicted to finish sixth. The Terriers also faced a non-conference schedule that was ranked as the most difficult in the nation by the RPI and Sagarin Ratings.
Included in the 2002-03 highlights were a 79-77 win at Virginia Tech, the first-ever season sweep of Chattanooga and a 98-82 rout of Davidson.The 2003-04 victory ledger was highlighted by wins over the the College of Charleston and Davidson.During the ’04-05 campaign, Young’s troops pulled a stunning 85-78 upset at Auburn en route to a 7-2 start to the season. The 2006-07 season was highlighted by a four-game winning streak that included 91-90 win at Cincinnati.
The Terriers again upset a major program with a 69-66 victory at Purdue during the 2007-08 season. Wofford also had a .500 record on the season for only the second time since moving to the NCAA Division I ranks. In the Southern Conference Tournament, the Terriers advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time since the 2003-04 season.
Young has recruited and coached eight All-SoCon selections (Tyler Berg, Ian Chadwick, Mike Lenzly, Lee Nixon, Howard Wilkerson, Drew Gibson, Noah Dahlman and Junior Salters) for the Terriers in addition to a SoCon Freshman of the Year (Chadwick, 1997-98) and four members of the All-SoCon Freshman Team (Chadwick, Justin Stephens, Berg and Brad Loesing).
During Young’s tenure on the coaching staff, the Terriers have moved from NCAA Division II to Division I Independent in 1995-96 and to the Southern Conference in 1997-98.
In recognition of his contribution to Wofford basketball, Young was promoted to associate head coach in August 1998.
Since beginning Division I play, the Terriers increased their win total for four consecutive seasons (1996-2000). Southeast Missouri State was the only other Division I program to accomplish the feat over that period.
Young has been on the Wofford bench for 594 contests over the past 20 seasons. His 300th game with the Terriers was a 65-64 quarterfinal-round victory over Davidson at the 2000 SoCon Tournament. Young also helped guide the Terriers to a berth in the semifinals of the 2000 SoCon Tournament. The semifinal matchup with the College of Charleston drew over 10,000 fans to Greenville’s Bi-Lo Center, the largest single session crowd to ever watch a SoCon Tournament game.
A native of Radford, Va., Young has been instrumental in Wofford’s success on the court. In four of their first eight seasons of SoCon play, the Terriers have finished higher than their preseason forecast by the league coaches and media.
Wofford has also taken the court against the strongest competition. In addition to facing the nation’s most difficult non-conference schedule in 2002-03, the 2001-02 pre-Christmas slate was also rated as the toughest in the nation by the RPI. The 2000-01 non-conference schedule was ranked third by the Sagarin Ratings in terms of difficulty. This season, the Terriers will face Clemson, Dayton, Georgia and South Carolina.
Young has been coordinator of the Terrier basketball camp and instrumental in its growth the last several years. The 2009 sessions attracted over 350 campers.
Young came to Wofford after serving as a graduate assistant for one year under Oliver Purnell at Radford University. A 1986 graduate of Emory & Henry College, he was a four-year letterman in basketball for coach Bob Johnson and the team captain his junior and senior seasons. He credits Johnson for having a major influence on his playing and coaching careers.
Upon his graduation, Young became a full-time assistant coach for two years at Emory & Henry before moving on to Radford. Another mentor in his coaching philosophies is Fletcher Arritt, longtime coach of Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy. Young played one season for him before attending Emory and Henry.
Young and his wife, Margaret, were married on Aug. 13, 1994 in her hometown of Camden, S.C. She is a 1992 Wofford graduate and a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The couple has a daughter, Cooper, 10, and a son, Davis, 7.
Return to Coaching Staff