Orr attended Taylorville High School under coach Dolph Stanley and in his senior year (1944) led the Tornadoes to a state championship and a 45–0 record, the first team to ever finish a season undefeated in the Illinois High School Association's history.

Orr attained his first collegiate head coaching position in 1963 at UMass, where he guided the team to 15–9 record in 1963–64.

His 1973–74 team made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament and Orr was named Big Ten Coach of the Year.

In 1976, Michigan was the NCAA tournament runner-up (to the undefeated Indiana Hoosiers) and Orr was named National Coach of the Year.

Orr left Michigan to become the head coach of the Iowa State Cyclones in 1980, a program that had only one postseason appearance of any sort in school history, when it went to the Final Four in 1944.

The following season, Orr's Cyclones reached the Sweet Sixteen of the 1986 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament with a second round victory over the number five ranked team in the nation, Michigan.

A statue of Johnny Orr sits at the entrance along with cases full of memorabilia from his tenure at Iowa State.

Orr died on December 30, 2013, at the age of 86 at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines.