UNC Asheville Community Mourns the Loss of Former Men's Basketball Coach Randy Wiel

Sad news reached us yesterday as former UNC Asheville men's basketball coach Randy Wiel passed away in Murfreesboro, Tenn., after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Randy coached the Bulldogs from 1993-96 and was an important figure in Asheville's basketball success over the past 30 years.

Tom Hunnicutt had just become Asheville's Athletic Director in March of 1993 and he inherited a very tough job. The previous men's basketball coach had just resigned after a 4-23 campaign and last-place finish in the Big South Conference. There were 300 schools in Division I that year and we were ranked 299 out of 300.

His first task was to hire a new hoops coach and he hit a home run in Randy Wiel. Randy came to us from UNC-Chapel Hill where he both played and served as an assistant coach. When we first talked to Randy, the Tar Heels were in the middle of a postseason run that would see them win the 1993 National Championship. That was the one where the Heels edged Michigan when Chris Webber called his infamous timeout that the Wolverines didn't have in New Orleans' Super Dome.

Randy was ready to be a head coach. He had coached the JV team at Chapel Hill and served as the Dutch National Team head coach. We interviewed him a week before the Final Four and talked to him in New Orleans. Our search committee, led by Mr. Hunnicutt and the late former Southern Conference commissioner Dave Hart, agreed that Randy was our best choice.

Randy came to Asheville and didn't have a great first year as the Bulldogs went 3-24 but he had three good transfers sitting out. Asheville wasn't winning but you could tell the program was getting better.

We did better the following year, going 11-16 and then went 18-10 in the 1995-96 campaign. The Dogs finished in third place in the league, just a game out of first place. Randy was named Big South Coach of the Year, the first ever Bulldog basketball coach to earn the award. We advanced to the semifinals of the Big South Tournament for the first time in six years. The 18-10 record was at the time our best in the Division I era.

And Randy also helped us get the Tar Heels on our schedule. At the time, UNC refused to play in-state non-ACC schools. The last time they played one was in 1957!!! Thanks to Randy, the Heels played us in Chapel Hill during the 1994-95 season and then the next year Dean Smith's club came to play the Bulldogs in the Asheville Civic Center. The game drew more than 7,000 fans, the largest basketball crowd in the history of that building.

Randy was a unique individual. He was a native of Curacao who participated in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Track and Field. Randy could speak six languages and he could also play the guitar and the trumpet. I remember on road trips on the bus Randy would be watching game-tape while playing his guitar. It was something that I would never see again.

Randy left us after three years to go to Middle Tennessee State where he had some early success but then the Blue Raiders changed leagues and that slowed down their progress. He was let go but his coaching career wasn't finished as he coached professionally in Europe for many years.

Randy Wiel wasn't at UNC Asheville for a long time but the program will be forever grateful for him. He got the Bulldogs moving in the right direction and his work lifted the whole department.

Tom Hunnicutt put it best about Randy.

"I can never thank Randy Wiel enough for the job he did when I first got to UNC Asheville," stated Hunnicutt from his farm in Burnsville today. "He gave us instant credibility in the community and around the country. UNC Asheville owes him a big debt of gratitude."

University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics

UNC Asheville Community Mourns the Loss of Former Men's Basketball Coach Randy Wiel

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