Kevin Mackey, the first Division I men’s basketball coach to win an NCAA tournament game with the so-called “Cinderella” team, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack, his son Brian told ESPN. Mackey was 80 years old.
On March 14, 1986, McKay coached the Cleveland State Vikings to a first-round game against the No. 3 seed Indiana Hoosiers, coached by Hall of Famer Bob Knight and led on the floor by All-American Steve Alford.
But the poor No. 14 seed Vikings from a conference few were familiar with (Association of Mid-Continent Universities) and playing a head-to-head style of ball known as the “Run ‘n’ Stun” defeated the heavily favored Hoosiers, 83–79, a year before Knight, Alford, Keith Smart and Indiana returned to win the 1987 NCAA Tournament.
Led on the court by guard Ken “Mouse” McFadden and forwards Clinton Smith and Clinton Rainey, Mackey’s Vikings advanced to the second round of the 1986 NCAA Tournament before defeating Saint Joseph’s. The Vikings were within seconds of advancing to the Elite Eight, but David Robinson’s last-second basket reversed CSU’s run with a 71–70 loss to Navy. The silver-tongued Mackey always referred to the Vikings’ 1985–86 season as a “magic carpet ride.”
In the summer of 1990, McKay signed a two-year, $350,000 per year contract to remain the coach at Cleveland State. Across town, he earned the nickname “King of Cleveland” two decades before LeBron James received the same nickname as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But by then, McKay had developed an addiction to cocaine and drinking, he later told ESPN and other media outlets. On July 13, 1990, he was in a crack house for nine hours when someone called Cleveland police and a local television station. Mackey walked out of the house wearing his forest-green Cleveland State basketball polo shirt, high on cocaine and alcohol. He tried to run away but was pulled over and arrested. It was all on tape and played on a loop on local news, ending his college basketball coaching career.
In jail after his arrest, McKay once told ESPN, other inmates wouldn’t even let him sleep in the same bed. “I’m not the King of Cleveland anymore,” he thought to himself, sitting on the cold, concrete floor. He received substance abuse treatment with former NBA player John Lucas and coached minor league basketball before Larry Bird, then president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers, hired him as a scout.
Before coming to Cleveland, he was an assistant under Tom Davis at Boston College, where he recruited future NBA players John Bagley and Jay Murphy, both of whom were overlooked by other coaches.
Brian McKay said, “He had a keen eye for talent”.
Kevin Mackey had been sober for 35 years at the time of his death. He leaves behind three children – Brian, Cheryl and Christy – and is most proud of his seven grandchildren. He was living in Walpole, Massachusetts.
Dwayne Bray is Vice President of Production at Endscape.
