By: Josh Hoke

Cliff Ellis had the perfect gig as a television analyst for college basketball games. For three years, he traveled around the country, learning from the best coaches in the game, before returning after each game to Auburn, Ala., where the comfortable life of a retiree awaited.

His life was devoid of basketball practices—unless he chose to attend them. There were no recruiting trips. No media members knocking down his door for interview requests. No boosters pressuring him to win now or else. With no real pressure at all, Ellis and wife Carolyn were truly living the good life.
So why give it all up?

"I missed the game,'' he said. "I missed the kids. I always loved to compete. But I always said that it had to be the right situation, the right opportunity. I asked myself three things: What am I doing? Where am I doing it? And who am I doing it with?"

After researching the men's basketball program at Coastal Carolina—which had been vacated by the departure of Buzz Peterson, who left to take a front office position with the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats—Ellis found the answers he needed to those questions. Coastal pried him away from the retired life and signed him to a five-year contract in July 2007.

Ellis knew Coastal was for him. For starters, the university has a Division I program with a track record for championships and NCAA tournament berths, albeit more than a decade ago. He was familiar with the Grand Strand after vacationing here during his coaching stint at Clemson. The allure of the area, rich with his favorite kinds of music and full of potential growth for the program, made the move more attractive.

"I"m enjoying the moment. I know where we are
headed and I look forward to the future."

The only question he couldn't answer was whether he could work with the people at the university. Longtime friend Danny Ford, Clemson's legendary football coach, suggested Ellis look into the opening. After meeting Athletic Director Moose Koegel, President David DeCenzo and members of the Board of Trustees, Ellis decided Coastal was the perfect place to restart his Hall of Fame career, which ended after he was relieved of coaching duties at Auburn after the 2004 season.

"I cannot think of a better place for Cliff to be coaching again," wife Carolyn Ellis said. "It was hard to leave Auburn. But here Cliff gets to coach again. He just so intensely loves the strategizing and working with young men and teaching and everything that is associated with coaching. Not only does he get to do it, but he gets to do it in a place where he's close to the water. We can walk on the beach. We can watch the clouds. I can't think of anything he'd rather be doing in any other place."

Seeking stability for a program that had been through three head coaches in four years, Coastal and Ellis agreed to a $1.5 million buyout if he leaves for another coaching job before his contract expires, a sign that Ellis is here to stay.

"Cliff has been successful at a lot of places," Koegel said. "He brings all that knowledge and stability. He's about building programs, and he's in it for awhile. It's not going to be an in-and-out kind of thing. He's somebody that wants to help Coastal basketball grow."

To show his commitment to Coastal, at a reception given for him soon after his arrival on campus Ellis and his wife Carolyn presented DeCenzo with a $10,000 donation to the university to be used strictly for academic purposes.

PROVEN WINNER

Ellis autobiography published in 2000

Ellis came to Coastal with a resume listing more success than any coach in school history. The 2007-2008 season at Coastal was his 34th in college coaching. He reentered the coaching ranks as the 47th winningest coach in Division I history and the 12th winningest active coach. He had amassed a career record of 612-349 prior to coaching a game with the Chanticleers.
His college career started in 1973 in Lebanon, Tenn., at Cumberland University, a school best known in athletics for the football team's 222-0 loss to Georgia Tech in 1916, the worst loss in college football history.

"It was a job that nobody really wanted," Ellis said. "I was a high school coach, and I got the job at 26. It was my first college job. The athletic tradition was not there, but we had early success there."

Ellis immediately turned the program around, winning 20 games and finishing second in the conference. Back-to-back conference championships ensued with Ellis leading Cumberland to a 78-12 record in three seasons, helping him draw interest from other programs. South Alabama, a downtrodden Division I program that officials had considered moving to Division II, offered Ellis its head coaching position. Ready to move to the next level, he jumped at the offer and took the helm in 1975.

Ellis righted the ship and won the first of three straight conference championships in 1979, which also marked the first of two NCAA tournament berths South Alabama would make under Ellis' reign. During the 1979 tournament, Louisville, a team that won the NCAA championship the next season, edged Ellis' ball club 69-66 in Dallas.

Ellis turned the program around and established South Alabama, which was once ranked top-10 nationally during his stint, as one of the nation's mid-major powerhouses. His rebuilding job made him a candidate for bigger jobs around the country.

"Clemson knocked," Ellis said. "When that job came open, we were on fire at South Alabama. We really had that thing rolling. So, I turned the job down. The more I investigated, people kept telling me ‘Don't take that job. In basketball it's the bottom of the barrel.' The more they told me that, the more I wanted the challenge. I took the challenge in 1984."

Ford led the Clemson football team to the national championship in 1981, making basketball an afterthought in Tigertown. But Ellis helped change the perceptions of the school's basketball program in his 11 seasons. He won 177 games at Clemson—he is still the all-time wins leader in Tiger history—and won the 1990 Atlantic Coast Conference championship, still the only basketball conference title in school history.

Seeking another challenge, Ellis moved to Auburn in 1995, another struggling program seeking to pull its basketball program in line with its powerhouse football program. Once again Ellis worked his magic and led this set of Tigers to the nation's top-25 rankings.

Auburn won the Southeastern Conference championship in 1999— only the school's second conference championship—and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. The 1999 Tigers were led by athletic forward Chris Porter and played an up-tempo style that made them popular among basketball fans across the country.

Ellis' success didn't earn him a reprieve when the Tigers finished the 2002-2003 season with a losing record, its second in three years, and he was fired. Although he wanted to return to coaching, he moved into the role of television announcer, allowing him the opportunity to explore another area of the sports world.

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