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Evansville, Ind. -- Former Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan and Ball State Coach Leonard Drake passed away on Wednesday. He was 56 years old.
He is survived by his wife, Rhonda, a son, Jared, and a daughter, Enjoli.
The four-time letterwinner and former captain had recently taken the athletics director position at Evansville (Ind.) Central High School in June.
Drake spent 33 years in college athletics, most recently as a women's basketball assistant coach at Eastern Michigan University. He served as CMU's head men's basketball coach for four seasons, from the 1993-94 to 1996-97 seasons.
Drake also served five seasons as the head coach of the Lamar University women's basketball program and coached in over 900 collegiate contests.
He was hired at Lamar in 1997 as an associate men's coach. He was named the head women's coach in 2002, a role he filled through the 2006-07 season before joining the EMU staff as an assistant women's basketball coach for three seasons.
Prior to his stint as a head coach at CMU, he served as an associate head men's basketball coach at Ball State University (1985-93), head women's basketball coach at Xavier University of Louisiana (1984-85) an assistant men's basketball coach at Xavier (1979-85) and an assistant men's basketball coach at CMU (1978-79).
Drake ranks eighth in CMU history with 1,338 points scored, and his 87.8 free throw percentage in 1975-76 ranked third in the nation.
He was inducted into the CMU Athletics Hall of Fame as a student-athlete in 2007. The highlight of his career came in 1975, when he made two free throws with no time remaining on the clock in CMU's 77-75 victory over Georgetown in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
In 33 years of coaching he posted eight conference championships, seven conference tournament championships, five NCAA Tournament appearances, four NIT appearances and one WNIT appearance.
