Rick Reilly Writes Column on Coach Wooden at 98

Rick Reilly has a nice column on John Wooden, coinciding with the latter's 98th birthday earlier this month.

Elvin Hayes Interview on GOTC

Over at the UH athletics website, I found this online video of Elvin Hayes being interviewed about the Game of the Century. I don't know exactly when the interview was conducted, but it seemed fairly recent.

E-Mail from Tom Gribben

Probably the most interesting and enjoyable aspect of operating this website is when someone who played in the Game of the Century, or was associated with it in some other manner, contacts me.

Former UH player Vern Lewis e-mailed me in February 2007, whereas the school's longtime Sports Information Director Ted Nance did the same roughly a year earlier.

Yesterday, I heard from Tom Gribben, a sophomore 6-2 guard-forward swingman for the Cougars in 1968 (click here for GOTC box score and here for the Cougars' 1967-68 overall statistics). Tom shared some recollections on the classic game and how its legacy has endured. He added, on a humorous note, that:

I tell people all the time I scored the winning two points, they just happened to be in the first half.

Alcindor (Abdul-Jabbar) and Hayes in ESPN's Top 25 All-Time College Hoops Players

In recent weeks, ESPN had been unveiling its list of the 25 greatest college basketball players of all time, revealing one player each night, starting from No. 25. Each of the two towering figures (literally and figuratively) in the UCLA-Houston Game of the Century made the list. The Bruins' Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was named the No. 1 college basketball player of all time, whereas the Cougars' Elvin Hayes came in at No. 14. A brief video synopsis of each player's college career is available at the above-linked website. Hayes's video is comprised entirely of footage from the GOTC; a clip from the same game appears in Alcindor's.

40th Anniversary of Game of the Century

The day is here! Today, January 20, 2008, is the 40th anniversary of the Game of the Century. As I've expressed in previous postings, I'm very upset that no anniversary game between UCLA and Houston will be taking place today.

The best substitute activity that I can recommend to mark the occasion, for those of you who own a copy of Eddie Einhorn's book, How March Became Madness, is to watch the DVD of the 1968 Bruin-Cougar Astrodome classic that comes with the book (the DVD includes the last few minutes of the first half and the entire second half). That's what I'm going to do.

I'll be interested to see how much media coverage the 40th anniversary gets. As I find online articles, I'll add links to them, below...

J.R. Gonzales, who writes a "Bayou City History" blog for the Houston Chronicle, has an extensive retrospective on the game, including some amazing photos (including one of the extra-long bed a Houston hotel commissioned for UCLA's 7-foot-2 Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

The San Antonio Express-News also has a retrospective on the game (identified by "AustinCougr" on a Houston Cougars discussion board).

There's also an article in the Los Angeles Times.

Coach Lewis Injured in Fall

The Houston Chronicle reports that former UH Coach Guy V. Lewis was injured in a fall prior to last Saturday's Houston-Arizona game at which he was honored (see entry below). In fact, Lewis will need to undergo surgery to repair a broken hip.

The 85-year-old Lewis certainly was a real trooper last Saturday, going through with the festivities despite his injuries. I'm sure all basketball fans wish Coach Lewis the best in this situation.

This coming Sunday, January 20, is the 40th anniversary of the Houston-UCLA Game of the Century and it's sad that the winning coach in that game (or anyone associated with it, for that matter) is in a serious medical situation around the time of the anniversary.

Coach Lewis Honored at Recent UH Game

Following up on my posting of a couple days ago, ceremonies were indeed held Saturday at the Arizona-Houston game to honor former Cougar Coach Guy V. Lewis. I found two online photo galleries of the events, one from the Houston Chronicle and the other from UH Athletics/College Sports Television (CSTV). Most of the shots in both sets feature action from the Arizona game, but each gallery has a photo of Lewis (the Chronicle's is devoted to college basketball generally, so it also includes photos from other Saturday games in the region). Links are provided below. Only the Chronicle's photos have captions, so it's probably best to look at them first, to learn who everyone is.

Houston Chronicle college basketball gallery

UH/CSTV photo gallery

Enjoy!

Former UH Players to Honor Coach Lewis as 40th Anniversary of GOTC Approaches

With the 40th anniversary of the GOTC just nine days away, what appears to be the closest thing to a commemoration of the historic event will be occurring tomorrow at UH. According to this article in the Houston Chronicle:

[Coach Tom] Penders will bring an 11-2 UH team to the Guy V. Lewis Court at Hofheinz Pavilion on Saturday afternoon for a game against the Arizona Wildcats. Lewis will give up his usual spot in an upper-level box to sit courtside during the first half. He is 85, and he suffered a severe stroke nearly six years ago, so he doesn't get around so easily anymore.

A courtside seat is a must for Lewis to participate in the halftime ceremony planned in his honor. Former UH greats Elvin Hayes, Don Chaney and Otis Birdsong will be among those present to pay tribute to Lewis, who this past fall got inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Lewis won 592 games in 30 seasons at his alma mater, leading 14 teams to the NCAA Tournament and five to the Final Four.

Hayes and Chaney, of course, played in the 1968 classic against UCLA (with Hayes scoring 39 points), and Lewis was the Cougar coach at the time. Birdsong played for UH in the mid-1970s.

Basketball Times Article on GOTC 40th Anniversary

Welcome to any visitors who may have discovered this site via the mention in the Basketball Times article on the 40th anniversary of the Game of the Century (upcoming two weeks from today), in the January 2008 issue of the publication.

Written by Editor John Akers, the GOTC retrospective completely fills three of Basketball Times' oversized pages. Most of what's in the article would probably be known to hardcore fans who've read the books written by the principals of the UCLA-Houston game (e.g., Eddie Einhorn, Dick Enberg, and John Wooden).

I did, however, pick up a few tidbits of information that were new to me. For example, I had not known that the University of Houston played a few additional games in the Astrodome in the immediate years after 1968.

No Game Marking GOTC's 40th Anniversary on UH, UCLA Schedules

UCLA and the University of Houston have each released their 2007-08 men's basketball schedules (Bruins, Cougars). Fans who had been hoping for a UCLA-Houston game on (or around) January 20, 2008 to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Game of the Century between the schools -- and I very much count myself in this group -- will be disappointed to find that no such game will take place.

This development is not a surprise, of course. As far back as December 2005, UH coach Tom Penders began to pursue a renewal of competition against UCLA, but Bruin coach Ben Howland did not reciprocate.

In the nearly three years I've operated this blog, it has become clear to me that -- consistent with the Penders-Howland episode -- the Game of the Century has been embraced much more heartily by the UH fan community than by its UCLA counterpart.

Houston has a home game on January 19, 2008, versus the University of Texas, El Paso; this is the closest date on the Cougar schedule to January 20. I'll be interested to see if the UH athletic department schedules some type of GOTC commemoration for this day.

Coach Lewis Elected to COLLEGIATE Basketball Hall of Fame

Former University of Houston coach Guy V. Lewis, whose Cougars defeated UCLA in the Game of the Century, has just been elected to the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Missouri.

It is important to point out that the Collegiate hall is a relatively new creation, and is not the same thing as the long-established Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. The latter covers both college and professional ball.

Lewis's exclusion from the "big" Hall of Fame has outraged many, including legions of UH fans and a number of the game's top college coaches (you can count the present blogger among those who are miffed, too).

***

I got to see the HBO documentary on The UCLA Dynasty (cited in the entry below). There is a brief, though worthwhile, segment on the Game of the Century.

HBO Documentary: "The UCLA Dynasty"

Airing on HBO this week is a documentary entitled The UCLA Dynasty (link for information). I haven't seen the film. Given that Eddie Einhorn and Elvin Hayes are listed among the interviewees, I would think the UCLA at Houston "Game of the Century" would receive some nice coverage, but I can't say so definitively at this point. HBO seems to sell DVD's of many of its sports documentaries, so it would seem likely a UCLA Dynasty DVD will become available.

UCLA Holds 40-Year Reunion of 1966-67 Squad (Includes Many Who Played in GOTC)

UCLA's 1966-67 team held a 40-year reunion yesterday in conjunction with the current Bruin team's final home game of the season, against Stanford. The UCLA-Houston Game of the Century took place the season after the '66-67 campaign (on January 20, 1968, to be exact). However, with the '66-67 Bruins' starting lineup consisting of four sophomores and a junior, it was essentially the same UCLA squad that took on UH in the Astrodome a year later. This page from the UCLA athletics site is devoted to the reunion of the '66-67 team; from it, you can also click for a gallery of still photos and a video of the halftime ceremony. Gathering with their coach John Wooden, now 96 years old, were players such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor), Lucius Allen, Lynn Shackelford, and Mike Warren.

I hope that next year, as close as possible to January 20, 2008, Houston will have a similar type of 40-year reunion for the Cougar team that won the Game of the Century.

***

Also yesterday, Game of the Century TV announcer Dick Enberg and I were under the same roof at Texas Tech's United Spirit Arena, as the Red Raiders hosted Oklahoma State in a game televised by CBS (see February 24 entry on this CBS list of announcer assignments). When UCLA and Houston met in their classic game at the Astrodome, Enberg was an up-and-coming 33-year-old broadcaster. Now 72, Enberg is an elder statesperson of the profession, still very much going strong.

I was hoping that I might be able to go up to Enberg at courtside after the game and perhaps get a picture with him for this website. However, he got away too quickly. Enberg writes in his memoir, appropriately entitled Oh My!, about a career of tight travel deadlines -- having to catch a plane or drive in a rental car to the next gig -- as he sometimes criss-crossed the country to announce three games within roughly 36 hours in the same weekend. He no longer packs that many games into his schedule, but he still knows how to get out of an arena right after the final buzzer!

E-Mail from Vern Lewis

I received an e-mail the other day from Vern Lewis, a member of the University of Houston basketball team during the 1966-67 and 1967-68 seasons. This is the first time anyone who played in the Game of the Century has been in contact with me, and I thank Vern for that.

As shown in the box score at the end of this UH basketball retrospective, Vern played four minutes in the Astrodome showdown against UCLA. I just played the DVD of the game (described in my posting immediately below the present one) over again and saw that Vern was in at the close of the first half, but apparently did not play in the second half.

In his message, Vern mentioned his continued involvement in college basketball via the South Padre Island Hoops organization, which hosts a tournament during the non-conference part of the season. In 2005, tournament officials conducted a canned-food drive at the games for the benefit of those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Vern's name also comes up as part of Item 50 in this NCAA basketball trivia quiz.

39th Anniversary of Game of the Century

Today is the 39th anniversary of the Houston-UCLA Game of the Century.

As detailed in earlier postings on this site, current UH Coach Tom Penders' hope for a 40th anniversary game next year (and a resumption of play between the schools more generally) had cold water tossed on it by UCLA Coach Ben Howland. I suppose there's still time for such a game to be scheduled for next year, but I've seen nothing to indicate it will happen.

As I've also discussed previously, what I would consider the definitive resource on the 1968 classic is Eddie Einhorn's book (written with Ron Rapoport) How March Became Madness. Released last year, the book consists of short chapters, each presenting an interview with a major figure in the modern history of college basketball. The book is not entirely on the Game of the Century but does have 10 chapters specifically devoted to it. Not only that -- the book comes with a DVD of the Game of the Century (actually, just the second half, plus the closing minutes of the first half).

Notre Dame and Michigan State Celebrate 40th Anniversary of Their FOOTBALL Game of the Century

It's been a while since I last posted, but during the college basketball off-season, there's not a lot of news on the sport.

I just wanted to acknowledge tomorrow's Notre Dame-Michigan State football game, which marks the 40th anniversary of the 1966 contest between the schools -- a 10-10 tie, with both teams having come in undefeated -- that some also refer to as the "Game of the Century."

Here are some links to stories about the ND-MSU 40th anniversary match-up: MSNBC-AP (note the patch for the 40th anniversary), Lansing State Journal, and Detroit Free Press.

Getting back to college basketball, as some of you may have heard during the past season (and which you can read about in my archives), UCLA Coach Ben Howland seems to have rebuffed Houston Coach Tom Penders's request for a resumption of play between the Bruins and Cougars, including a 40th anniversary match-up in January 2008 of these schools' Game of the Century. There's still plenty of time before the 2007-08 basketball schedules are determined, but I'm not holding my breath.

I should also note that the situation between Notre Dame and Michigan State in football is different from UCLA and UH in basketball. The Irish and Spartans play virtually every year on the gridiron, so tomorrow's game is just the continuation of a long series. UCLA and Houston have met only sporadically in basketball over the past 40 years.

Status Update on UCLA and UH Basketball Programs

Today marks the first weekend of 2006 without any college basketball. I'm in a little bit of withdrawal, but doing a little writing on UCLA and UH may help ease the symptoms.

As probably everybody who would visit this website knows, UCLA made the NCAA championship game last Monday night, before getting trounced by Florida. Expectations were high three years ago when Ben Howland took over the Bruin program, but getting to the Final Four this quickly certainly exceeded my expectations.

The University of Houston continued its slow, but steady, road back to national prominence, by making the NIT for the second straight year. This year, the Cougars dropped a heart-breaker in the NIT to Missouri State. During the season, UH defeated such highly regarded teams as LSU (who also made the NCAA Final Four) and Arizona (game-by-game log). The Cougars also put together a nice league record in Conference USA, but the proverbial "asterisk" must go with that record as several of the historically best C-USA teams (e.g., Louisville, Cincinnati) had left to go to the Big East.

In summary, things seem to be moving in the right direction for both UCLA and UH, albeit with UCLA further along. Houston has signed Coach Tom Penders to a new contract, which should provide the needed continuity for the Cougar program to continue improving. Now, we just need someone to convince Howland to drop his stated resistance to playing UH in a 40th anniversary commemoration of the Game of the Century in 2008.

Einhorn Book "How March Became Madness" Includes Historical Review of GOTC

With the start of this year's NCAA tournament just a couple of days away, now is a good time for me to review the book How March Became Madness, by Eddie Einhorn with Ron Rapoport. Einhorn, of course, is the person who put together the television package for the 1968 Houston-UCLA Game of the Century. Also, as I wrote about at the time of last fall's World Series, Einhorn has also been part of the Chicago White Sox front office for many years.

The book attempts to provide a history of modern college basketball, with attention to the role of television in developing its popularity. Einhorn and Rapoport do so almost entirely via a series of five-page (roughly) mini-chapters, each based on an interview with a key figure in college hoops history.

The format of self-contained interviews rather than one continuously developing story, makes it easy to pick and choose which interviews you want to read, without worrying about disruption to any continuity. Others may see this as a shortcut on the part of the authors, who evidently elected not to try to integrate all the interviews and present their historical analysis as a traditional text.

These interviews are grouped into sections. One is on the UCLA dynasty, featuring interviews with John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Walton.

Not surprisingly, the largest section is on the Game of the Century, with ten chapters. The introduction to this section points out the following:

UCLA's game against Houston in the Astrodome changed the face of college basketball... The stars were all in alignment that night as we had the two top teams in the country -- which were both undefeated -- the top two players, the largest crowd ever to see a basketball game in the United States [52,693, since surpassed], and basketball's first prime-time television audience, which was its largest in history. And to top everything off, it turned out to be a great game, with Houston breaking UCLA's 47-game win streak with a 71-69 victory (p. 33).

The chapters in this section contain interviews with the following individuals (listed with their roles in the GOTC): Houston coach Guy Lewis, Cougar players Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney, UCLA assistant coaches Gary Cunningham and Jerry Norman, Bruin players Lynn Shackelford and Mike Warren, broadcaster Dick Enberg, UH Sports Information Director Ted Nance, and Houston sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz.

Importantly, these chapters convey the many breakthroughs associated with the GOTC: paving the way for college basketball to become a national television mega-hit over the years; raising the profile of basketball in Texas, long famous as a football state; and helping advance the fortunes of the city of Houston and UH, as well as aiding in their racial integration. Noted Chaney:

Three years after Elvin and I got there, Houston had its first black homecoming queen. That was amazing to me, that a school that had been all white could have something like that happen in so short a time (p. 82).

The book also comes with a DVD of the Houston-UCLA Game of the Century, which to me is the best part. It contains the last few minutes of the first half, then the entire second half. The players really seemed to shoot the ball with much more of a high-arch trajectory than is seen today (unless it's some kind of visual illusion). The commercials are edited out, but sometimes the first second or two of a commercial shows; it's interesting to see the kinds of things that were advertised in 1968.

As noted above, however, the book goes beyond the GOTC, encompassing many aspects in the history of modern college basketball. There's a section featuring interviews with great coaches of the modern era: Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Roy Williams, etc. The broadcast side of college hoops is covered in sections on great (or at least prominent) broadcasters, including Enberg, Dick Vitale, Billy Packer, and Al Michaels, and on media executives.

I learned an interesting thing from the interview with Bob Knight, who of course coaches at Texas Tech, where I am on the faculty. Shortly after Knight graduated from Ohio State, there was at least a possibility that he would go to law school at UCLA and help coach the freshman team. Imagine, Bob Knight might have progressed to being a UCLA varsity assistant and thus conceivably could have succeeded John Wooden at some point! Could Wooden's good citizenship have tamed the volatility in Knight?

L.A. Sports Arena (Which Has GOTC Ties) Loses Last Major Client in USC

Tonight, the last college basketball game (presumably ever) will be played in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, as the USC Trojans host Oregon State.

The Sports Arena, which opened in 1959 in the Exposition Park area of L.A. (which also includes the USC campus and football's L.A. Memorial Coliseum), will no longer be needed for Trojan basketball, as the on-campus Galen Center will open for next season (construction cam).

The NBA's L.A. Clippers, of course, vacated the Sports Arena for the Staples Center about seven years ago (a photo of the Sports Arena's exterior is shown on this Clippers' historical website).

Although I couldn't find any definitive information on what will become of the Sports Arena, this newspaper column suggests that it could be torn down for parking should the Coliseum area be renovated to accommodate a new NFL team.

As many of you are probably aware, the significance of the L.A. Sports Arena for the Houston-UCLA basketball rivalry is two-fold:

First, when the Houston Astrodome was set up for the 1968 UH-UCLA Game of the Century, it was the Sports Arena's hardwood that Elvin Hayes, Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), et al., were playing on.

Then, when the Cougars and Bruins met again later that season in a semi-final game of the Final Four, they played in L.A. at the Sports Arena.

Houston's coach at the time, Guy V. Lewis, discussed his team's two 1968 games against UCLA in a January 2004 interview published in the new book How March Became Madness. This book was compiled by Eddie Einhorn, who put together the television package for the GOTC, with Ron Rapoport. Said Lewis:

...What's funny is that we lost on the same floor we beat them on. The floor we used in the Astrodome originally came from the Sports Arena in Los Angeles. They just bundled it up and put it on a truck and brought it here (p. 40).

A bonus feature of the book is that it comes with a DVD of the UH-UCLA Game of the Century broadcast. You get the last few minutes of the first half and the entire second half. One thing evident from the DVD is that the folks in Houston either used their woodcrafting skills to make a new center circle or painted over the one that arrived from L.A. At the GOTC, the center circle featured the word ASTRO arched over the top, the word DOME arched up from the bottom, and a UH logo in the small interior circle.

Between the DVD and the interviews with many of the principals from the Game of the Century (as well as with many other college hoops luminaries not associated with UH or UCLA), the book is an amazing resource for GOTC aficionados, in particular, and all those interested in the history of modern college basketball, in general.

I will be doing one or more future entries on How March Became Madness.

NBA All-Star Weekend in Houston; Hayes Involved in Activities

Tonight begins the annual NBA All-Star Weekend, this year being held in Houston. Among tonight's events is the game between top NBA rookies and second-year players.

Activities surrounding all-star games often try to involve local heroes, and this year is no exception. Elvin Hayes, who led the UH Cougars to victory over UCLA in the Game of the Century and later played professionally for the Houston Rockets, is serving as an assistant coach for the rookie team.

In conjunction with his appearance back in Houston, Hayes was the subject of an article in today's Houston Chronicle. The article talks about Hayes's role in the GOTC, to be sure, but primarily features his reflections on playing in NBA all-star games. Hayes saw these games as opportunities to develop camaraderie with other elite players around the league. In fact, the article discusses how Hayes feels these gatherings helped warm up relations between him and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (formerly Lew Alcindor), his rival from UCLA in the GOTC:

Hayes credits his All-Star appearances for easing a rift between him and Abdul-Jabbar. After they were pitted as rivals in college, the tensions carried over to the NBA.

"Once we got an opportunity to get into the All-Star situation and really begin to talk and be around each other, it became less strenuous," Hayes said. "It was less of a strain and effort to put forth, 'Hello, how do you do?' That kind of breaks the ice, breaks the walls down. The All-Star Game can resolve a lot of problems that players have on the court."

***
With Houston becoming the basketball hub of the universe this weekend, the city also served as the site for the announcement of this year's nominees for the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Guy V. Lewis, the UH coach in the GOTC, will still have to wait to get in the Hall, as he was not among this year's nominees. One discussant on the CoogFans chat board thought Lewis might not be eligible any longer for election via the regular route and must now go through a veterans' screening process; this may or may not be true. (I'm "AlanTech" in the discussion thread.)

How coaches such as former Purdue skipper Gene Keady, whose best NCAA showings are two Elite Eights, can be nominated ahead of Lewis, who coached UH to five Final Fours (including two title game appearances), has baffled a lot of people (nothing personal against Keady, of course).