Rick Byrd
| Sport(s) | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Current position | |
| Title | Head coach |
| Team | Belmont |
| Conference | OVC |
| Biographical details | |
| Born |
April 30, 1953 Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1976–1978 | Maryville (asst.) |
| 1978–1980 | Maryville |
| 1980–1983 | Tennessee Tech (asst.) |
| 1983–1986 | Lincoln Memorial |
| 1986–present | Belmont |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 3× TCAC Tournament championship (1988, 1994, 1995) A-Sun North Division championship (2003) 4× A-Sun regular season championship (2006, 2008, 2010, 2011) 5× A-Sun Tournament championship (2006–2008, 2011, 2012) 5× OVC East Division championship (2013–2017) 2× OVC Tournament championship (2013, 2015) |
|
| Awards | |
|
NAIA National Coach of the Year (1995) Hugh Durham National Coach of the Year (2011) 2× A-Sun Coach of the Year (2008, 2011) 2× OVC Coach of the Year (2013, 2017) Belmont Athletic Hall of Fame (1996) NAIA Hall of Fame (2004) Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame (2013) Dr. James Naismith National Sportsmanship Award (1994) NCAA Bob Frederick Sportsmanship Award (2012) |
|
Richard F. "Rick" Byrd (born April 30, 1953) is an American college basketball coach and the current head coach of the Belmont Bruins men's basketball team. On February 16, 2017, with the Bruins win over Eastern Kentucky, Byrd marked his 750th career win, 658 with Belmont.
Byrd grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee where he would sit alongside his father, Ben Byrd, and watch him write articles on the Tennessee men's basketball games as a kid. He then went to play basketball at Florida junior college for a year, but decided to come back home to Knoxville and attend the University of Tennessee , where he was asked to join the junior varsity team for the Volunteers his senior year. The next year, in order to start his coaching career, he became the student assistant to the varsity squad. The very next year Byrd also attempted to become a graduate assistant for the Vols.
Byrd then went to nearby Division II school Maryville as an assistant coach. After Maryville, Byrd moved to Tennessee Tech as an assistant for a few seasons, before becoming head coach at Division II Lincoln Memorial where he stayed for three seasons and finished with a 69–28 overall record).
In 1986, Byrd was hired by Belmont as head coach.
Byrd is currently one of five active NCAA coaches to have 500 wins at one school. Byrd is also one of 11 active coaches to have more than 600 career wins. Byrd won his 700th game as a head coach on January 17, 2015, when Belmont defeated Austin Peay 89–83. Byrd is first among all active NCAA Division I men’s basketball head coaches (min. 10 years at school) when ranked by percentage of schools’ all-time wins; having accounted for over 59 percent of the total victories in Belmont history. Only three head coaches in the nation have been at their respective institutions longer than Byrd's 30 years of service at Belmont.
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