By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Ernie Nestor, who coached the Elon men’s basketball team for six seasons in the early 2000s, died Sunday at age 78.
Nestor’s Elon teams played in the Southern Conference, going 67-117 overall and 39-61 in league play.
His best season with the Phoenix came in 2005-06 with a 15-14 record and North Division title, though Elon reached the 2008 Southern Conference Tournament final and lost to Davidson and future NBA star Stephen Curry.
His best season with the Phoenix came in 2005-06, when Elon reached the Southern Conference Tournament final and lost to Davidson and future NBA star Stephen Curry.
Nestor was dismissed from Elon following an 11-20 season in 2008-09.
He also had been a head coach at George Mason, but he was mostly associated with Wake Forest.
Nestor was involved in Division I coaching for more than 40 years. He was part of the staff for powerhouse teams at Wake Forest when Randolph Childress and Tim Duncan were standouts under head coach Dave Odom.
“When you try to summarize everything, the most important part is that Ernie loved his family, he loved his friends, and he loved ball,” Odom said in a statement Sunday.
He had two stints with Wake Forest as an assistant coach. Later, after retiring as a Navy assistant coach in March 2017, he became a special assistant for then-Wake Forest coach Danny Manning.
Nestor also served as an assistant coach at Missouri for the 2011-12 season under Elon alum and Western Alamance graduate Frank Haith. His other staff positions were with James Madison, California, South Carolina, and Penn State. After his departure from Elon, he was a scout for the New Jersey Nets before returning to college benches.
While Elon’s coach, Nestor gave Wes Miller his first job as an assistant coach. Miller, now Cincinnati’s head coach, had a successful tenure as UNC Greensboro’s head coach.
In 2014, Ernie Nestor was awarded a “Guardians of the Game” award for education by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
