773-259 (.749) in 32 seasons at UGA 855-280 (.753) in 36 seasons overall
To understand the impact Andy Landers has had on University of Georgia Athletics over the past three-plus decades one needs to look no further than the current organizational chart of the UGA Athletic Association.
At the top of that graphic sits Director of Athletics Greg McGarity. One level below McGarity's name you will find Executive Associate AD and Senior Woman Administrator Dr. Carla Green Williams.
Both McGarity and Williams know Andy Landers as well as anyone. They also understand his recipe for amazing, consistent success. In fact, they both played roles in Lady Bulldog Basketball's formative years.
Thirty-two summers ago, when Landers became Georgia's first full-time women's basketball head coach, McGarity served as the program's sports information director.
Just five years into his tenure, Landers signed Green, a promising point guard from a powerhouse LaGrange High School program, to play for the Lady Bulldogs.
"I remember it very well. When Andy arrived in Athens, you could tell on Day One that there was no doubt in his mind that Georgia could be a powerhouse in women's basketball," McGarity said. "You could see it in his eyes. He had a confidence - and it wasn't cocky - an overwhelming confidence that Georgia could be successful at a very high level. I have to believe that Coach Dooley had a sense of that confidence."
Green went on to become an All-SEC performer who helped Georgia secure 101 victories from 1985-89. She then served as a graduate assistant and assistant coach on the Lady Bulldogs' staff from 1990-96 before moving into athletic administration.
"When I left UGA (in 1997), I wrote Coach Landers a note thanking him for all the things he'd done for me," Williams said. "I thanked him for things like recruiting me even though I wasn't the best player in the state, to hiring me when we were painting his barn one day. Most importantly, I thanked him for caring about his players even more after they left Athens."
Green found her way back to Athens in 2007 as the envy of every current and former Lady Bulldog...as Landers' boss.
"If I knew she was going to end up where she is today...I would've gotten her a lot more shots," Landers has quipped on more than one occasion.
Lasting relationships are the benchmark of Andy Landers' career in Athens.
"We had a lot of fun," McGarity said. "You work hard. There's no acceptance of anything less than hard work. But Andy recognizes and appreciates hard work. He makes sure you know he appreciates hard work and what you do...and that goes for everyone from players to managers to staff to anyone associated with the program."
Landers' influence also was apparent this fall when Teresa Edwards became the first Lady Bulldog enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Edwards, the most decorated women's basketball player the world has ever known, both opened and closed her induction speech speaking directly to Landers, who was beaming from the fourth row of the Springfield Symphony Hall.
"OK, Coach Landers....I'm nervous now," Edwards joked as she took the stage. "I never knew I could be here. I think I'm beginning to really feel the prestige of the moment."
She then closed her eloquent remarks with: "After tonight, I'm forever changed because you recognized my name with my game. For Coach...the University of Georgia...for everyone from Cairo, Georgia...we're in the Hall of Fame, baby."
All of the aforementioned helps explain why and how Landers has become a truly iconic figure in the state of Georgia and the basketball universe. From his trademark, slicked-back "doo" to the often gnawed but never lit cigar, folks that know Georgia and know hoops know Andy Landers.
"We're all proud of you, coach" It's an early-August morning and Andy Landers is making the 90-minute drive from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta back to Athens. It's a trek he's made probably 500 times or more during his days as head coach at Georgia, numerous occasions under these exact same circumstances.
Landers has caught a red-eye home on the final day of the July recruiting period and finally has some time for a multi-topic discussion of media-related items.
Mid-conversation, Landers pulls over at "The Store" on Highway 78, a local hotspot in rural Oconee County.
"Hold on a second," Landers says through the phone. "I'll have a sausage biscuit to go," he tells the person who now has his attention.
"Sure enough, coach," a second-hand voice says loud enough to come through the line. "You look beat. Been on the road?"
"Just out trying to find some players," Landers responds. "How's business?"
"Good, but could be better," the attendant offers. "That's always the case. Congratulations on the Hall of Fame. We're all proud for you, coach."
And with that, Landers is back out the door, into his vehicle, and again en route. The conversation returns to business, as much as it can while a sausage biscuit is being consumed.
"Getting that a lot?" Landers is asked.
"Quite a bit," he replies. "It's amazing how many folks say something, not to mention the notes and cards."
Landers appreciates the well wishes but is rather uncomfortable talking about "individual" achievements. Of late, those kind words - and milestones - have come on a more than regular basis.
In the past five years alone, Landers has: • become the winningest college basketball coach in the state of Georgia's history; • secured his 750th, 800th and 850th victories as a collegiate coach; • been inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame; • notched his 700th and 750th wins at Georgia; • been enshrined in the State of Georgia's Sports Hall of Fame.
That's quite a quintet, indeed.
"Everyone is congratulating me, but this, like everything else in basketball, all of these accomplishments are such team things," Landers said. "I don't know any coaches who are in Halls of Fame or winning `x' number of games who coached bad teams or bad players. The honor is a direct result of how players and teams and assistant coaches and staff have performed at a high level over a long period of time. That's what's humbling about it. It just isn't something that I feel good about for me. It's something that I feel great about for all the people who have participated in it."
Landers purposely deflects attention from himself to the others who have helped him attain every "W" and/or honor on his watch.
You're a Lady Bulldog for life Truth be told, Landers is significantly prouder of the not-so-public achievements of Lady Bulldog Basketball. While most knowledgeable experts in women's basketball circles rank Georgia among the most elite schools in the game, few are privy to what Landers firmly believes sets his program apart from all others.
The Lady Bulldog sorority, if you will, is an entity of values and purpose, expectations and accomplishments. Players from generation to generation understand Landers better than anyone else...even though it may take a while for that light bulb to truly go on.
"The thing about Coach, when you're here playing for him, you know that he's teaching you the things, the basketball skills, you need to be successful," said Christi Thomas, who came to Athens ranked as the nation's No. 57 prospect by one major scouting service and left as the No. 12 overall pick in the first round of the 2004 WNBA Draft. "Everyone who decides to become a Lady Dog knows they're going to get that. What you don't understand while you're at Georgia, is that he's teaching you not only to perfect those on-court abilities, he's showing you how you're responsible for your own destiny after you leave here. He taught me not only the right things to do; he taught me the right way to do those things. Now it's up to me to do them."
Such understanding comes not only from professional players, but from other former Lady Bulldogs who chose different career paths - from teachers to sales reps, insurance adjusters to stay-at-home mothers.
That devotion is not exclusive to their former coach. There's a bond between Lady Bulldogs that is very easy to spot.
"Once you're a Lady Dog, you're always a Lady Dog," Lady Hardmon Grooms professed while serving as emcee for the 2008 post-season banquet. "I remember one of the first times we played Detroit after `Tweety' got in the league. Someone came into our locker room before the game and told me Nolan wanted to talk to me. I thought to myself, `Dang, did I get her with an elbow the last time we played? What could she want to talk to me about?' She told me how Coach told stories about me. She just wanted to see if we could go to dinner after the game. And the best part was she even picked up the check."
"I wanted to say I'm a Georgia grad" Grooms is a perfect example of Landers' influence. She was a standout for Lady Bulldog teams of the late-80s and early-90s and went on to an extremely successful professional career, both in the U.S. and overseas in Hungary, Italy and Turkey. When she retired from the WNBA in 2004, one of Grooms' first calls was to Landers to see what she could do to finish her degree. Following the birth of her daughter, Gabby, Grooms completed degree requirements in 2009.
"Right after Gabby was born, Coach Landers called me and said, `Congratulations. When are you coming back to get your degree?'" Grooms said. "Basketball at Georgia was all about working hard. That was instilled by Coach Landers. We were taught to never quit, to always finish at the end."
Last season, Grooms became the third former Lady Bulldog to move to the WNBA sidelines as a coach. She served as an assistant for the New York Liberty, joining Connecticut assistant Bernadette Mattox and Edwards, the interim head coach at Tulsa.
Kedra Holland-Corn is another successful pro player who made her way back to Athens to complete her degree in 2009. Holland-Corn, a star at Georgia who won two WNBA titles with Detroit.
"I thought very briefly about finishing up overseas or in another place," Holland-Corn admitted. "But there was something about it. I didn't want to get my degree from anywhere else. I wanted to say I'm a Georgia grad; that I was one of the athletes who finished."
This December, Meredith Mitchell will join those Lady Bulldogs "who finished" midway through her senior season when she receives her degree in management from UGA's prestigious Terry College of Business.
With that all, 59 four-year letterwinners under Landers at Georgia will have received their degrees from the University of Georgia.
In fact, two of those players - Tina Taylor and Jaleesa Rhoden - earned multiple diplomas during their eligibility window, upping Landers' current graduation rate to 105 percent (58 four-year letterwinners with 61 degrees from UGA).
Eyeing an opportunity What Landers enjoys today has been three decades in the making. Its origins can be traced to a couple of fateful occurrences, an interview surprise and a rather prophetic piece of correspondence.
When Landers finished his graduate degree he quickly began looking for coaching experience at the collegiate level. One of the jobs he applied for was as an assistant men's coach at Roane State College in Harriman, Tenn. While interviewing for the position with Roane President Cuyler Dunbar, the bomb was dropped that the position also would include serving as the head coach of the women's program.
"I think they looked at that part as a detriment, but it was something that really drew me to Roane," Landers said.
While happy with the opportunity afforded him at Roane, Landers quickly turned his energies into taking control of a major college program...one he'd secretly had his eye on for several years.
The date was March 7, 1979, when Landers fired off a letter to Vince Dooley, the University of Georgia's newly named Athletics Director, to inquire about interviewing to become UGA's head coach.
"For the past couple of years I have been possessed with the idea that the University of Georgia should feature the outstanding women's basketball program in America," Landers' second paragraph stated. "Georgia has the potential necessary to achieve this recognition and my ultimate goal in coaching is to take a major college basketball program and build it from the ground up into an immediate national power."
About six weeks later - April 24, 1979 - a 26-year-old Landers was introduced as the Lady Bulldogs' initial full-time head coach.
Soon after Landers arrived in Athens - and even he admits he wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew as he drove to work on his first day - he hit the ground running at a sprinter's pace. It didn't take him long to accomplish just what he promised Dooley he would do: "build it from the ground up into an immediate national power."
Under Landers' direction, the Lady Bulldogs quickly ascended from a program which may not have been the fifth-best in the state of Georgia to now rank among the top-5 in virtually every national ranking imaginable.
McGarity believes the seeds for such success were readily apparent soon after Landers took the helm in Athens.
"The players he brought with him, you could tell how dedicated they were and how hard they worked," McGarity said. "You could also tell what great people they were. Then he started bringing in players like Wanda Holloway and Janet Harris and they were not only great players but they were great people. That's one of the keys, I think, to his constant success - he recruits great players who are also great people."
A meteoric rise to the nation's elite In Landers first campaign, Georgia posted a respectable 16-12 record. The following year, the Lady Bulldogs won the Georgia AIAW title and then captured the WNIT crown. Two years later, Georgia found itself advancing to the Final Four in only the second edition of the NCAA Tournament. Fast-forward two more springs and the Lady Bulldogs reached the national championship game.
Consistency has become a word synonymous with Georgia teams for more than two decades now, perhaps best witnessed by Lady Bulldog Basketball's NCAA success.
"It's actually pretty plain and simple," Landers states matter of factually. "Hard work is what brought Georgia from 6-19 to 27-10 two years later. Maintaining that level has been a never-ending job. I think I'm proudest of the consistency...the fact that we've been consistent for three decades now. I hope we've been a team that other teams across the country would agree that year-in and year-out we've not only been on the leaderboard, but we've been up there near the top."
I want to win now! Though numerous factors aligned perfectly to play a major role in the emergence of Georgia Basketball, it's hard to imagine very many coaches would have capitalized as much on their surroundings as Landers did.
Landers hasn't slowed down since arriving in Athens. He came to UGA with a definite style of basketball he wanted to play and knew he would have to get the right players to play that way. A self-admitted character flaw led him to what was then thought to be a novel idea to get talent - recruiting the best players no matter where they were from.
"I knew if we relied on the state of Georgia to get all our players, it would take three, four, five years to get all the players and depth we needed with the kind of players we were looking for," Landers said. "I guess I was driven by impatience as much as anything else.
"As far as the early years, we just dared to go out and recruit the best players no matter where they were," Landers added. "There were only a few of us out there doing what we were doing in terms of scouring the country for the best players."
While Landers has become more patient over time, his tireless work ethic is the driving and constant forces behind Georgia Basketball. Landers strives to excel at each and every facet of his life, both on and off the basketball court. That trait becomes contagious to those around him, be it assistant coaches, players, managers, athletic trainers or perhaps even UGA's AD.
"Andy is as excited today as he was when he got here," McGarity said. "He's excited about his current players. He's excited about his staff and the new assistants who joined us over the summer. He's excited about the players we're recruiting. He really is as driven today as he was more than 30 years ago."
