May 30

William John Donovan, Jr. (born May 30, 1965) is an American college basketball coach and a former college and professional basketball player. Donovan is the head coach of theFlorida Gators men's basketball team of the University of Florida. He is best known for leading the Florida Gators to two consecutive National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) national championships.

Donovan has coached the Gators in three NCAA championship game appearances in2000, 2006 and 2007. The Gators lost to the Michigan State Spartans in the 2000 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball final. The Gators won the national championship in 2006 with a 73–57 win over UCLA and again in 2007 with an 84–75 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes, making Donovan the first coach since Mike Krzyzewski to win two NCAA titles in a row. He is one of only four men (Dean Smith, Joe B. Hall and Bobby Knight being the others) to appear in the NCAA Final Four as a player and win the NCAA national championship as a coach.

After a brief stint as head coach of the Orlando Magic that lasted only five days, Donovan re-signed with the Gators on June 7, 2007. The deal made him the highest-paid head coach in college basketball at $3.5 million per year

Playing career [edit]

Donovan was born and raised in Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York.[4] He is the son of Bill Donovan, Sr., one of the three leading scorers in the history of the Boston College Eagles men's basketball program. Donovan graduated from St. Agnes Cathedral High School—a local powerhouse where he was coached by the legendary Frank Morris—in 1983 before going on to Providence College, where he played guard on the basketball team. His first two seasons with the Friars were unimpressive; he scored an average of two points per game as a freshman and three points as a sophomore. His junior year, however, Donovan flourished in the system of new head coach Rick Pitino. "Billy the Kid," as Providence fans soon nicknamed him (after the 19th century outlaw), averaged 15.1 points as a junior and 20.6 as a senior, when he led the Friars to the Final Four and earned the Southeast Regional Most Valuable Player honors.

Donovan was drafted by the Utah Jazz in the third round (68th overall) of the 1987 NBA Draft. He was waived after the preseason and played briefly for the Wyoming Wildcatters of the Continental Basketball Association. He then signed a one-year contract with the New York Knicks, coached by Pitino. Donovan averaged 2.4 points and 2.0 assists over 44 games with the Knicks.