Cliff Ellis

Who is Cliff Ellis?

Cliff Ellis is an American college basketball coach, currently the head coach at Coastal Carolina University. Going into the 2011–2012 season, Coach Ellis's 614 victories rank him 50th on the list of all-time career coaching victories in Division 1 basketball. He was national coach of the year in 1999 at Auburn, when his Tigers won 29 games and captured the school’s first SEC championship in 40 years. In 1990 he coached Clemson to its only ACC regular-season first-place finish. His South Alabama teams won Sun Belt Conference regular-season championships in 1979, 1980 and 1981. At both Clemson and South Alabama he holds school records for coaching victories and he is the second-winningest coach in Auburn history.

Ellis was born in Marianna, Florida. He is a musician, an author and a gourmet cook. He has even been an ostrich farmer. He and his music group, the Villagers, were one of the Southeast's hottest acts in the mid-1960s. Before he'd ever coached a college game, he had published a book on the 1–3–1 zone press.

Entering the 2013-14 season, Ellis' 647 victories ranks him 27th on the list of all-time career coaching victories in the history of Division I basketball.