Mulligan Era to End at UC Irvine : College basketball: Coach resigns in disappointment, with only eight victories so far this season after 5-23 last year.

Bill Mulligan, his enthusiasm for coaching dimmed after three consecutive losing seasons, announced his resignation as UC Irvine’s basketball coach Wednesday, saying he “just didn’t want to be part of it anymore.”

Mulligan, Irvine’s coach the past 11 seasons and a college coach for 14 more at Riverside City College and Saddleback College, had only one losing season before 1989, when Irvine posted the first of three in a row.

“It’s a great life except when you lose,” Mulligan said. “I got to the point where the losing just ate at me.”

The Anteaters’ 5-23 record last season was the worst in school history, and included a school-record 15-game losing streak. They are 8-17 with five games remaining this season, and have lost eight of their past nine. Mulligan will coach them in their remaining games.

Mulligan, who will be 61 on Feb. 24, resigned with a year remaining on his contract. He and athletic director Tom Ford were emphatic that the resignation was unforced.

“It was his decision,” Ford said. “He asked me to visit. I tried to dissuade him from that decision and consider another option.”

Mulligan added that the school gave him a settlement that would enable him to retire, which he called a “big issue.”

“I didn’t get fired,” Mulligan said. “I know every time you read a guy resigns, you say, ‘Yeah, sure he resigned.’ I did resign. I just didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Mulligan had been thinking about resigning for “the past month or so,” he said. He and Ford met Saturday afternoon, with Mulligan excusing himself from the pregame meal before the Anteaters played New Mexico State. By Tuesday, Ford and Mulligan had worked out the details.

Mulligan’s record at the school is 160-154.

Mulligan called his team together for a noon meeting Wednesday to tell them of his decision.

Later, Mulligan met reporters in an emotional session full of banter and affection for his family, but tinged with the bitterness that has come at the end of 35 years in coaching.

Mulligan coached at Long Beach Poly High School from 1959-64 and won two Southern Section titles before leaving to work as an assistant to USC Coach Forrest Twogood. Mulligan spent nine seasons at Riverside City College, succeeding Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian there in 1966. Mulligan’s Riverside teams were 196-87. In five years at Saddleback College, his teams were 136-31 and won four Mission Conference titles.

“What I’m really doing is retiring from coaching,” Mulligan said. “One, I hate losing. That’s probably the main reason. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life around hotels in places like Las Cruces, even though (New Mexico State Coach Neil McCarthy) says it’s a hell of a place, or Logan, Utah. I’d just as soon not do that.

“I want to be able to spend time with my family. I want to be able to see my grandchild grow up. Because I missed seeing my kids grow up. A lot. The family is very supportive of what I’m doing.”

It was when he spoke of his family that Mulligan was most emotional.

“That’s my grandson there, if you don’t know who his is,” he said, pointing out blond-haired Conor, playing in the back of the room. “That’s my son Shawn Mulligan, captain in the United States Marines. That’s my son Brian, my wife, Dorothy,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’ll be all right.”

The Mulligans have a third son, Billy, who was not at the news conference.

Brian Mulligan, an assistant basketball coach at Capistrano Valley High School, has seen his father enjoy his job less in recent years.

“He felt like he could turn it around, but it got to the point it wasn’t any fun,” Brian Mulligan said. “He got to the point of saying he didn’t have enthusiasm for it.

“I think he realized he’s got a lot more living to do if he gets out now. If he stays a couple more years, it might take five or 10 years off his life. He’s got a grandchild now, and he says (coaching) isn’t his top priority. I don’t have any doubt if he were 50, or 45, this wouldn’t be happening. He loves his grandchild, he loves the thing to death. More than anything else, that has made him look at life, having a little young one around.”

Mulligan came to UC Irvine in 1980, bringing Saddleback star Kevin Magee with him. Mulligan’s best record at Irvine was 23-7 in 1982. He twice took teams to the National Invitation Tournament, in ’82 and ’86.

“The best team we had here, in my opinion, was 1984,” Mulligan said. “That team didn’t go anywhere. We finished second, two games ahead of Utah State. We both had the same record, 19-10.”

Utah State went to the NIT, and Irvine stayed home.

Over the years, Irvine has produced its share of outstanding players, although Mulligan said he fell behind in recruiting in recent years.

“If I’m gonna pick an all-UCI team, and this doesn’t count this year, it’s Kevin Magee, Ben McDonald, Tod Murphy, Scott Brooks, Johnny Rogers,” Mulligan said.

Increasingly, Mulligan said he has seen less of the joy of coaching and more of the heartache.

He said he has been exasperated with the poor attendance at the 5,000-seat Bren Center, where the Anteaters often play in front of fewer than 2,500.

Once a coach who took delight in the media, he said he is now wary.

“I never used to worry about what I said,” he said. “I got to where I was really cautious about what I said. I like to say what I think.”

Known for ribbing opposing coaches, Mulligan said that too has changed, along with his attitude toward the profession.

“I won’t miss it. I really will not miss it,” he said. “Coaches are different than they were. It’s a business.”

One of his distinctions over the years was a remarkably successful record against his old friend Tarkanian, whose UNLV teams Mulligan beat six times during the 1980s, more than any other coach in the country.

Irvine’s latest effort against the Rebels was a 41-point defeat.

“I wasn’t totally surprised he did it,” Tarkanian said of Mulligan’s resignation Wednesday. “I’m really sorry to see him do it now. I think Billy is a big loss to the Big West Conference. I think he’s a great coach, and a great person. He’s a coaches’ guy, not a (bull) guy.

“I think he had beaten us more times than anybody else,” Tarkanian said. “I’m sorry to see him go.”

Mulligan said he was sorry to see it end like this.

“I’d like to be up here saying, ‘Hey, we won, I’m hanging it up,” Mulligan said.

It wasn’t that way, but Mulligan hung it up anyway.

“No,” he said. “I don’t really want to coach.”

THE SEARCH BEGINS: UCI’s athletic director emphasizes a need to hire a “name coach.” C8

PLAYERS’ REACTION: The UCI players regretted, but understood, Mulligan’s decision to resign. C8