Updated at 10:36 a.m., Monday, June 11, 2007
2 long-time college hoop coaches die
Associated Press
Two long-time college basketball coaches died.
Mears had been in declining health for some time, university spokesman John Painter said.
Killingsworth died of complications from a stroke last month at his home in Owasso, Okla., the university said.
Mears made Vols a power
In the mid-1970s, Mears coached future NBA players Ernie Grunfeld and Bernard King. Mears' teams went 278-112 at Tennessee between 1962 and 1978.
Under Mears, the Vols won or shared Southeastern Conference titles in 1967, 1972 and 1977. The 1967 championship was the school's first in 24 years.
Three of his teams made the NCAA tournament before it expanded. Only the SEC champion made the tourney when he coached.
In 2003, Mears had a series of health problems, including a stroke. While coaching, he suffered from clinical depression for years.
"If there had been a 64-team, seeded field back then, we would have made it a lot of those years," Mears recalled in a 2003 interview with The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
After leaving coaching, Mears was athletic director at the University of Tennessee at Martin from 1980-89.
Mears played college basketball at Miami, Ohio. He was born in Dover, Ohio.
King of the 'Killer Frogs'
When Killingsworth arrived in 1979, TCU had won just three of its previous 48 Southwest Conference games. His teams steadily improved and in 1986 qualified for the NIT, where the Horned Frogs fell in the second round to Florida. In 1987, Killingsworth's winningest team made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament but lost to Notre Dame.
Killingsworth retired after that season, with a 130-106 record in eight seasons.
TCU teams under Killingsworth became known as the "Killer Frogs," a nickname given to them by local newspapers during the 1981 SWC tournament.
