Lee Rose

Lee Rose began his coaching career starting at the high school level and then moving on to assistant coaching jobs at the college level before landing the head coaching and athletic director position at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.

In 1975, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte hired Rose as head coach and athletic director, and UNCC was soon rewarded for the move. Rose compiled a 72-18 (.800) record in three seasons at the school, and he was named the Sporting News National Coach of the Year in 1977 after leading UNC Charlotte to the NIT finals in 1976 and the NCAA Final Four in 1977.

Rose left UNCC in 1978 for Purdue University, where he took his first team to the NIT finals and the next year’s squad to the 1980 Final Four, compiling a 50-18 record as the Boilermakers’ coach. He then accepted the position of head coach at the University of South Florida, a school with a basketball program only 10 years old at the time.

As a college head coach, Rose compiled a .705 winning percentage (388-162). Equally impressive, he was named Coach of the Year in every conference in which he coached: Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Sun Belt, and Big Ten. He was inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001.