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Milwaukee Bucks: Larry Costello helped set the standard for success

By Jordan Treske

NEW YORK, NY -NOVEMBER 17, 1973: Larry Costello, coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, speaks to his players on the bench during an NBA basketball game in Madison Square Garden on November 17, 1973 in New York. The New York Knicks defeated the Milwaukee Bucks by the score of 100 to 93. Costello was the first coach of the Bucks when they were an expansion team in the NBA during the 1968 season. After graduating Niagara University, Larry Costello was selected in the 2nd round of the 1954 NBA draft by the Philadelphia Warriors. (Photo by Ross Lewis/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY -NOVEMBER 17, 1973: Larry Costello, coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, speaks to his players on the bench during an NBA basketball game in Madison Square Garden on November 17, 1973 in New York. The New York Knicks defeated the Milwaukee Bucks by the score of 100 to 93. Costello was the first coach of the Bucks when they were an expansion team in the NBA during the 1968 season. After graduating Niagara University, Larry Costello was selected in the 2nd round of the 1954 NBA draft by the Philadelphia Warriors. (Photo by Ross Lewis/Getty Images) /
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The first head coach in the history of the Milwaukee Bucks, Larry Costello’s stint coincided with the team’s most decorated era to this point.

Whenever the Milwaukee Bucks’ golden period gets mentioned by observers of the NBA, the name of Larry Costello largely goes unmentioned in the discussion.

Having singular talents such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, along with dependable and critical contributors like Bob Dandridge and Jon McGlocklin, Costello’s stewardship often gets lost in the shuffle or doesn’t get the credit it deserves.

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Even at the heights of the Bucks’ run to their lone championship in team history, two trips to the NBA Finals and three straight 60-win seasons, Costello didn’t garner the respect from his peers one would think he would with those feats.

Take this excerpt from a Sports Illustrated piece written right after the Bucks swept the Baltimore Bullets in the 1971 NBA Finals:

"“Costello would probably now be uniformly hailed as one of the two or three best coaches in the NBA, which he is, if he had not had the good fortune to get Alcindor. Instead, there are people all around the league who derive considerable pleasure from debunking his role in the Bucks’ success. “Anyone could be a winner with the players he’s got” is their motto. They ridicule Costello for the yellow legal pad that is always at his side during games and practices and upon which he constantly improvises new tactics for his team. They deplore his lack of color and ostentation, just the opposite of the criticism leveled against Red Auerbach when Boston was champion.”"

In many ways, Costello was viewed the same as many coaches overseeing the superstars of today in the player empowerment era, especially in light of the landmark coin flip to land Abdul-Jabbar after his first season as Bucks coach. But that shouldn’t diminish the accomplishments he, his players, and the organization as a whole achieved during his eight-year reign in Milwaukee.

Over that time, Costello amassed a 410-264 record and a 60.8 winning percentage during the regular season and a 37-23 postseason record. In fact, his 61.7 winning percentage in the playoffs ranks as the tenth-highest mark in league history, per Basketball-Reference.com.

Regardless of Kareem and The Big O’s presence, the Bucks did plenty of winning under Costello’s watch.

It’s true that Costello coached his teams just like how he played: tough, determined and no-nonsense. All in the name of perfection as Abdul-Jabbar remarked in that aforementioned Sports Illustrated article:

"“Larry, Oscar and I have the same ways about us,” says Alcindor. “We agree that being as efficient as possible cuts down our chances for errors. Larry has a very professional attitude. There’s no nonsense, because he’s a man dedicated wholly to basketball. He simply wants to get the job done, which makes it a lot easier for me. I know what he demands and I have no worry about working around any idiosyncrasies he might have.”"

Bucks practices under Costello ran interminably long and his direct attitude and coaching added to his militaristic-style as McGlocklin spoke about to the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith following Costello’s death in 2001:

"“There were no holds barred with Larry,” said Jon McGlocklin, who played for Costello on the Milwaukee Bucks and is now a Bucks broadcaster. “He was straightforward and direct. No airs about him. It was the way he played and the way he coached. He never was calculating or conniving. He was just a hard-working guy who loved basketball.”"

But it was Costello’s preparedness and thorough nature that helped set up some of things that have become commonplace across coaching staffs in the NBA. The New York native was one of the first coaches to have a full-time assistant coach on staff and poured over film after each and every game.

His coaching tree sprouted a number of successful coaches and figures in both the ABA and the NBA between Wisconsin native Tom Nissalke, Hubie Brown, Jack McKinney. But the biggest, by far, was Don Nelson, the league’s all-time leader in coaching wins, who overtook Costello’s position as Bucks head coach after Costello abruptly resigned 18 games into the 1976-77 season.

It was Costello’s perfectionism that led to him constantly creating new plays and adding to the Bucks’ vast playbook under his guidance.

Eventually, that wore on Bucks players, especially after Robertson retired and Abdul-Jabbar broke his hand at the start of the 1974-75 season. This exchange between Dandridge and Costello from Sports Illustrated’s Pat Putnam in December of 1974 summarized in the icy tension that started to eat away at Costello’s later seasons as Bucks coach:

"“It’s not complex,” says Costello.“It’s complex all right,” says Dandridge.Like Abdul-Jabbar, Dandridge has been with the Bucks since 1969. “What seems easy to Costello is very difficult to a lot of players,” he says. “If we lose, he switches us up—calls it simplifying the offense. In my five years the basic offense has never changed. It’s just that there are so many options. A guy just coming in, seeing a new offense every third day, he gets confused.”"

Dandridge later referred to Costello as not “my favorite coach” to Gary Pomerantz of the Washington Post in July of 1981 and given how Costello ran his Bucks teams over his eight-plus seasons in charge, it may be fair to assume he wasn’t alone in that opinion.

But that was no matter to Costello as it was second nature to who he was as the late Dr. Jack Ramsay wrote about in a remembrance to Costello for ESPN following his passing:

"“Costello expected his players to be as consumed with the game as he was. He drove them hard, was often caustic, and criticized them freely. His coach-player relationships were not always harmonious. He couldn’t care less.”"

That’s certainly an attitude of a different time, but Costello’s unrelenting style certainly produced results, both as a player and coach as he won titles at the high school, collegiate, and NBA levels.

The passing of time has certainly muddled Costello’s place in history and with it being nearly 20 years after his death, there will be no overdue celebration for him to personally experience, should he ever be inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Next. 3 biggest ‘what ifs’ during the Bucks’ 1970s run. dark

But Larry Costello won and he did so in his own way, whether you liked it or not.

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