A Heartfelt Tribute To Former KU Basketball Head Coach Ted Owens

Ted Owens grew up on a cotton farm in Hollis, Oklahoma, where he was raised by his parents to know right from wrong, to treat people with kindness and deep respect, to always listen to others, to show great empathy, to have profound faith, to have a strong work ethic, to treat people of color on the basis of their character and performance, and to always be a good person.

Owens carried these invaluable life lessons throughout his life, reinforced to him by his Oklahoma Hall of Fame basketball coach, Bruce Drake, and then KU head basketball coach Dick Harp — a man of impeccable values and strong moral fiber —when Owens served as a loyal assistant to Harp as an assistant coach from 1960-64.

In his nearly 91 years on Earth, Owens has learned from these instrumental people in his life and touched and impacted countless people, beginning as head basketball and baseball coach of Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma, from 1956-60, and then as a KU assistant for four years before serving as KU head basketball coach for 19 years, still the second-longest tenured coach in the rich Kansas basketball tradition.

After KU, he continued impacting people’s lives as Oral Roberts head coach, Fresno Flames coach, Tel Aviv Maccabi coach, development director and basketball coach at Metro Christian Academy in Tulsa, athletic director at St. Leo University near Tampa, Florida, and all his other jobs and pursuits.

Above all, Owens has been a true loving and consummate family man, devoted to his wife, Michelle, and his children. He has also stayed in close contact with those players he coached decades ago, including many from Cameron and at KU, and those he also mentored like Joey and Stephen Graham, former Oklahoma State basketball players from 2003-05.

Owens’ daughter, Taylor Owens O’Connell, talked about her dad’s love and influence of people in his 2013 book, At The Hang-Up.

“I am beyond blessed to have a father who loves me endlessly. It’s amazing that a little boy from Hollis could grown up to have such an impact on so many lives,” Owens-O’Connell said.

Owens’ former players deeply love him, just as he loved them.

“The most important thing to my dad today is his meaningful relationships with his players. Every July 16 when 7 a.m. hits, Tommie Smith calls to wish him a happy birthday,” Owens’ son, Teddy, said. “Shortly afterward, David Magley will call, or Bud Stallworth, or Roger Morningstar, or Al Lopes. They call every year, never missing his birthday, because he loved them and believed in them. He continues to do so, and anytime they achieve something he always calls me and update me on their success off the court.” 

As soon as he became KU head coach, you knew Owens would be something special—as a person and as a coach.

After Harp resigned under pressure in 1964, the KU players petitioned for the popular Owens to take over the head-coaching job. Owens had great admiration and respect from his players and KU alumni.

“Owens is the best basketball coach I know for talking to high school boys and recruiting them,” a top KU booster said. “He and Jack Mitchell (then-KU football coach) are in a class by themselves in the field. Owens has also had a hand in recruiting most everybody now in the KU basketball program and they like him and respect him a great deal.”

Owens, who coached at Mount Oread 19 years until being fired in 1983, won six Big Eight Conference Championships, eight Big Eight Holiday Tournament titles, one Big Eight Tournament Championship, advanced to the NCAA tournament seven times, and earned Final Four berths in 1971 and 1974. He was named Big Eight Coach of the Year five times and selected as National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly.

 

Owens, who also coached five All-Americans, ranks as the fourth-winningest coach in Kansas basketball history behind Phog Allen, Bill Self and Roy Williams with a 348-182 (.657) record.

But beyond the wins is the many lives he influenced and impacted. Just listen to former star forward David Magley, who played at KU from 1978-82 and then briefly with the Cleveland Cavaliers as a rookie. Magley and his wife, Evelyn, have always been very close to Owens; they used to babysit Owens’ kids when Magley was in college.

Magley truly admired and loved Owens.

“Of all the lives that Coach Owens has touched over the years, I have to believe that I am the most fortunate,” Magley said in At The Hang-Up.

“He taught me how to compete. He encouraged me and rewarded when I earned it. He showed me how to be a champion with grace.”

Just listen to countless other Jayhawks and coaches, including Riney Lochmann, who played at KU from 1963-66 and then in the ABA.

“The bottom line is that I would run through a brick wall for Coach Owens,” Lochmann said. “I have nothing but great memories from my time there. Kansas has retired many jerseys that hang in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse. My hope is that Coach Owens will also be honored so his name can hang up in Allen Fieldhouse with the rest of his players.”

Just listen to Dave Robisch, the high-scoring forward and All-American who starred at KU from

1968-71.

“Coach Owens is more than a coach. He has been a part of my life since 1967,” Robisch said. “Our relationship has grown stronger over time. I look back now and understand so much more about what went on at KU than I did when I was going through it. He has been there through 42 years of my marriage. He has watched my kids grow up and I have watched his kids grow up. This type of thing does not happen very often. We have a very special friendship that continues to grow as we both get older.”

Just listen to Delvy Lewis, who was a star KU guard and All-Big Eight in 1966.

“I just have nothing but great words to say about Ted Owens as a coach,” Lewis told me in 2003. “He was a gentleman. I just feel badly, because I think he’s kind of gotten a bad rap, as far as perception.  He still has a tremendous winning record. I just hope he gets some credit for what he did, because I think he did a lot more than people realize. To this day, I have the greatest respect for him. He’s just a neat, neat man.”

“I think Riney and I were his favorites on that (great 1965-66 squad, which won the Big Eight title and lost to Texas Western in the Midwest Regional final) team, because he just appreciated the ‘roll up your sleeves and work,’ and that’s pretty much what Riney and I did,” Lewis added. “I hustled and gave it all I had every game. Everybody did. We had a group that pretty much got after it. We were pretty no-nonsense. “

Just listen to Bud Stallworth, who starred at KU from 1969-72 and is another of the five All-Americans (also an Academic All-American) Owens coached at Kansas.

“What I first noticed is that Coach Owens cared about his players beyond just playing sports,” Stallworth said. “He was more like a parent, wanting his players to be more than successful basketball players. He emphasized that we had to be well-rounded on the court and even better better people off the court.”

Just listen to Jo Jo White, still another KU All-American who is enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

“Ted is like a second father to me, he and coach (former longtime KU assistant Sam) Miranda,” White said after his jersey retirement at Allen Fieldhouse in 2003. “They were more than just coaches. They were friends to us, they were our confidant. Our relationship continues on, far beyond the KU days.”

White also raved about Owens in www.celtic-nation.com on April 7, 2003, just hours before KU played Syracuse in the national championship game.  

“He was a very astute coach, and a great teacher of the fundamental,” White said. ”He was also politically involved within the college basketball community and well-versed when it came to the issues surrounding the game. Coach Owens contributed greatly to my growth as a basketball player. I enjoyed playing for him and I learned a lot from being a part of his program.”

And then listen to what White said about Owens in At The Hang-Up:

“Coach Owens was always open to sit and talk with individuals about how to be a better player and a better team. He wasn’t concerned about players approaching him to talk about the team. To me, he was a great coach—always sincere, honest and open with all of us. I absolutely adored the man and my time at KU.”

Owens not only had great respect from his former players, but from his peers in the coaching profession. Just ask Washington Wizards head coach Scott Brooks, who played under Owens with the WBL Fresno Flames in 1988.

“Coach Owens is a man of integrity; he is a sincere, honest person who treats everyone with a great deal of respect—which is something that I’ve carried with me throughout my life on and off the basketball floor,” Brooks said. “Coach Owens has had a great impact on me as a person and a coach. To this day, every time Coach Owens is around it seems that a memory is made.”

Just listen to Hall of Fame Kentucky coach John Calipari, who received his first coaching job under Owens as a graduate assistant at KU in 1982.

“He gave me an opportunity to coach at one of the greatest programs,” Calipari said. “Coach Owens has always handled himself with class. Whether we won or lost, he was just a classy, upstanding gentleman, and he did it at a hard place to coach, but a great place to coach. I will always be indebted to him, and Coach Owens knows that.”

Just listen to Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, who succeeded Owens at KU for five seasons.

“(Owens) told the players he’d been here 23 years, 19 as head coach,” Brown said after the Legends of the Phog exhibition game at Allen Fieldhouse in 2011, during which he and Owens served as honorary head coaches. 

“He was in tears talking to everybody about his love for the school.”

Owens recruited players like Ron Kellogg, Calvin Thompson and Greg Dreiling (Owens coached Kellogg and Thompson for one season), who became vital senior cogs on Brown’s 1986 Final Four team.

“Ted left me with a pretty good group,” Brown said. “I was blessed with a really good team. And the values those kids have because of their relationship with him was pretty neat. He (also) left me with some good coaches. I was fortunate to have Bob Hill, Calipari ... It was a remarkable staff. Ted had a lot to do with this program, and to see his feelings about it is pretty remarkable.”

At age 82 then, Owens still had a strong competitive fire.

“He wanted to beat my (butt), I can tell you that,” Brown said in reference to the exhibition game, where Owens’ White team tied Brown’s Blue squad, 111-111.

Just listen to KU coach Bill Self, who has endless admiration for Owens.

“He comes back (to Lawrence and KU) all the time,” Self once said. “We take golf trips together every summer. We bunked together in Scotland (in 2009) for a week. I’ve gotten to know coach real well. He’s been really good to me and my family. When you’ve (coached here) 19 years, he’s kind of the coach that sometimes get lost, but he went to two Final fours and won an awful lot of games.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been around a coach that takes more pride in what his ex-players are doing than what he does,” Self added to the Lawrence Journal-World on July 16, 2019 when Owens turned 90.

“But it’s also easier to do that because he’s older and he’s seen his guys grow up to be 60-year-old grown men.”

“He’s an amazing guy,” Self said.

Even the legendary Hall of Fame UCLA coach John Wooden greatly admired Owens. Wooden won 10 NCAA titles in 12 years, including a record seven straight.

Owens wrote about his friendship with Wooden in his book:

“Toward the end of John Wooden’s unparalleled career at UCLA, Wooden and I had established a strong-enough friendship that we exchanged notes at the beginning of each season. Wooden sent this note to me in his first year of his retirement.”

It was dated on March 2, 1976.

“Thanks Ted,

Keep your chin up. Our profession needs more men like you.”

Sincerely,

John Wooden

One of the highest compliments, indeed, from arguably the greatest coach in basketball history.

As the Journal-World reported in 2019, Owens has taught the “games he loves” at such faraway places as Japan, China, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland, the Philippines, Korea, England and Israel.

During a speech in Oklahoma around that time, which the Journal-World wrote that The Oklahoman's Berry Tramel called “one of the best speeches he had ever heard” and “refers to Owens as a American treasure,” Owens spoke about his life in basketball.

“I had some time to dream while I was hoeing cotton back on that farm in southwest Oklahoma,” Owens said. “But my dreams were never so great as to imagine what I have been privileged to do during my lifetime, playing college basketball for the great Hall of Fame coach Bruce Drake at OU, coaching at the University of Kansas, where James Naismith was the first coach and Phog Allen coached and promoted the game, and to coach in the St. Andrew’s of college basketball, Allen Fieldhouse.”

“I have learned that as a coach, your success will be measured by the productive and successful lives of those young men and women for whom you were responsible,” Owens added with great meaning. “A chaplain at the NCAA Final Four was speaking to the coaches at a Sunday church service (years ago) and he said it best: ‘You should always remember that you are not using young men and young women to win a game but that you are using the game to win young men and young women.’”

Owens, who is enshrined in the KU Athletics Hall of Fame, Cameron University Athletics Hall of Fame, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Sports Hall of  Fame, did just that with young men in his long and storied coaching career. From humble beginnings in Hollis, to playing at OU, coaching at Cameron Junior College, to then getting the biggest break of his life as head coach at KU for 19 years, Owens has touched countless lives beyond measure.

While his KU coaching career ended on a bitter note with his firing in 1983, Owens still revels in returning to Allen Fieldhouse and seeing KU basketball games while catching up with former players and close lifelong friends. He has such fond memories of his time at Mount Oread.

“Coaching in Allen Fieldhouse is like no other experience I have ever encountered,” Owens told Jeff Bollig and Doug Vance in their 2008 book, What IT Means TO Be A Jayhawk.

“Just running out onto the court before the games — and the anticipation of a noise level unknown to most places — was electrifying. Our fans are pretty knowledgeable about basketball and pretty fair about recognizing the great plays of opponents. It isn’t just a game, but an event — the ‘Rock Chalk Chant,’ the pep band, the pompom squad, and the cheerleaders all add significantly to the game. When I go back to games, I can still sing the same songs and chant the same chants as if it were yesterday. That is tradition.

“It is something that stays with you forever. You can walk into a sports apparel store in almost any city and buy a Jayhawk cap. There aren’t any other Jayhawks. It is a unique name with a unique history. I live in Tulsa, and I see people wearing Jayhawk caps and shirts all the time. You can be proud of being a Jayhawk because it represents more than athletic victories. It represents great academics, great tradition, from Dr. Naismith and Dr. Allen and so many great achievements in politics, aerospace, and other professional areas. Being a Jayhawk fills you with pride.

“I stay as close (to the program) as I can while living in Tulsa. ... I love to come back every time I can and see my former players and coaches. It is one of the great joys of my life.”

Ted Owens made his mark in 19 years as KU head basketball coach

Ted Owens, along with Dick Harp, remains extremely unappreciated among the eight men who have had the prestigious honor of serving as KU head basketball coach in the 121-year rich history of the program. While Owens had some inconsistent years, he is the second-longest tenured coach in school history (19 years from 1964-83) behind legendary Phog Allen.

That must tell you about the good job he did at Kansas.

He was the winningest coach in Allen Fieldhouse history (206 games) before Bill Self broke his mark in 2016, led two teams to Final Fours in 1971 and ‘74, won six Big Eight titles and advanced to NCAA postseason play seven times. Owens was named Big 8 Coach of the Year five times and named National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly. He also coached five All-Americans, including Darnell Valentine, Jo Jo White, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walt Wesley.

In this multiple part series on Owens, I examine his basketball roots, his days at Kansas, and how he opened doors for African-American athletes.

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Ted Owens had a revelation when he was just 5 years old growing up in a cotton farm in Hollis, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression.

“I took a basketball and we had an outdoor goal and I had the ball between my legs, I couldn’t push it up any other way, had it between my legs and pitched it up and it went in,” Owens told John Hendel in his 1991 book, Kansas Jayhawks: History-making Basketball. “I’ve been in the love with the game ever since. I’ve been infatuated with it.

“It wasn’t necessarily the shot heard ‘round the world, but it was meaningful in my life. I’ve just always loved the game and always wanted to be part of the game.”

Owens’ love affair with hoops kept growing, becoming a high school star before earning a scholarship to Oklahoma. He played for coach Bruce Drake and was a three-year lettermen from 1949-51. Driven by a desire to coach and help shape young men, Owens eventually served as head coach at Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma, from 1956-60, where he recruited Homer Watkins, the first African-American player in Oklahoma junior college history in 1958, whom Owens invited to stay at his home. 

Owens signed three more black players the following year. In my 82-page honors thesis in 1988 at the University of Kansas, I related an interview from Owens in the 1980s after he was fired from KU.

I wrote that “Owens was criticized by the white players’ parents, who did not like the fact that three blacks were playing ahead of their sons. However, Owens reiterated that he did not experience much outside pressure, as ‘we just didn’t let it become a problem.’”

Owens, who believed strongly in racial equality and justice, was very successful at Cameron as his teams never won fewer than 20 games in four seasons and three times advanced to the national junior college tournament semifinals with a third-place finish in 1960. His 1958 team was ranked No 1.

Owens, the second-longest tenured coach in KU basketball history behind the legendary Phog Allen (19 years from 1964-83), compiled a glossy 93-24 record at Cameron and coached four All-Americans, while also coaching the baseball team to the National Junior College championship in 1958.

Before becoming KU head coach, he served as Dick Harp’s assistant at Mount Oread from 1960-64. Owens remains extremely grateful for everything Harp did for his life.

“I remember him as the man who gave me an opportunity to coach at this level,” Owens said during his press conference before the 60 Year Celebration of Allen Fieldhouse in 2014. “He not only was a great mentor for me in the game of basketball, but personally. He shared his faith with me, a faith I’ve carried for the rest of my life. He made an enormous impact in my life. I’m really grateful I had the opportunity to spend four years with coach and many years after that with our association when he was with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.”

Owens replaced Harp as head coach in 1964 when Harp resigned after two straight losing seasons. Owens was the winningest coach in Allen Fieldhouse history (206 games) before Bill Self broke his mark in 2016, led two teams to Final Fours in 1971 and ‘74, while his ‘71 team went 14-0 in Big Eight play.

He also won six Big Eight titles and advanced to NCAA postseason play seven times. Also, in 1968, Owens’ Jayhawks lost to Dayton in the NIT finals. Owens was named Big 8 Coach of the Year five times and named National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly. He coached five All-Americans, including Darnell Valentine, Jo Jo White, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walt Wesley.

His 1966 team was arguably his best team and one of the top squads in KU hoops history with the likes of White, Wesley, All-Big Eight guard Delvy Lewis, Al Lopes, Riney Lochmann and Ron  Franz, all of whom played in the NBA or ABA, except Lewis and Lopes. Reserve forward Bob Wilson also played in the ABA.

That magical team, which Owens inserted White into the starting lineup at semester break when he became eligible, went 23-4 and lost in the Midwest Regional Finals in a heartbreaking game KU appeared to have won in overtime.

White swished a 25-footer by the sideline at the buzzer that should have won the game for Kansas, but the official ruled him out of bounds.

“We were celebrating. We were out on the court, we’re on the the way to the Final Four and a chance to win the national championship and I think a very good chance to win the national championship,” Owens said. 

“The official called it pretty late. Today, with all the camera angles you have, there would be no question whether he was in or out of bounds. Based on the sequence of shots, it looks like he pivoted but his heel never came down. It was above the plane, but his heel never came down and he never was out of bounds.

“But what the sequence of shots shows clearly that Rudy March, the official, never saw. His vision was up all the time. The whole sequence of shots shows his vision. Quite frankly, I think he saw where he landed. He floated after he landed, and he called it based on that.

“You only have so many chances to win national championships,” Owens added, “and we had a really great opportunity to do that.”

Texas Western won the game in double overtime, 81-80, and eventually won the national title over Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky team  (“Rupp’s Runts”), a KU squad that would have overpowered inside.

“We felt like if we had won against Texas Western, we would have gone on and won the national championship,” Lochmann told me in 2003. “It took me about a week to get out  of shock. I was really down in the dumps afterwards, from the standpoint to being totally depressed knowing that was your last college game. You don’t dwell on those things after a while, but that was a hurtful game. We kind of left our heart and soul out on on the court.”

Franz agreed. He said that was a magical team.

“That was probably one of the better teams that Kansas has had in its history,” Franz said in a 2001 interview. “We’ve had a lot of great teams, but that team could do a lot of different things and knew the fundamentals of basketball. We could shoot from the outside, rebound, and get up and down the floor. (Don, Texas Western) Coach Haskins said that was the toughest game they played all year.”

Despite the heartbreak, Owens and KU rebounded from that loss as the Kansas coach led the ‘Hawks to another 23-4 season, a Big Eight title and a No. 3 national ranking. However, Kansas lost in the first round to Houston in the NCAA Midwest Region.

Then, in 1967-68, KU got hot at the end of the year, winning 11 of 13 games, including six straight, before falling to Dayton in the NIT finals, 61-48. KU finished at 22-8 and ranked No. 19 nationally.

After two straight seasons of again failing to win the Big Eight championship, KU had a magical season in 1970-71, posting a remarkable 27-3 record, a 14-0 record in Big Eight play and Final Four berth, where the Jayhawks lost to John Wooden’s UCLA team, 68-60. KU, which entered the Final Four at 27-1, won 21 straight games before its loss to the Bruins. Kansas then lost the Final Four consolation game to Western Kentucky

That team had great talent, size, quickness, rebounding and true chemistry, led by Robisch (19.2 ppg), Stallworth (16.9 ppg), Roger Brown (11.2 rpg), Pierre Russell (10.3 ppg) and point guard Aubrey Nash (6.7 ppg).

“We were a good team because we won tough games,” Brown told me in 2001. “We won on the road.”

“We just jelled as a team,” Brown added. “Everyone pretty much got along with one another and we wanted to win. We all played hard. Everybody seemed to be on the same page. I think our team was about business. We knew we were going to win if we went out and did what we were supposed to do. And that’s what we did.

“Everything fell into place.”

Stallworth agreed that was a very special team.

“We were awesome,” Stallworth told me during a three-hour interview in 1990. “I thought we were the best team in the country. We were the cockiest team I had been around in a while. We felt we had a legitimate shot to win it all. ... We thought we were one of the best teams KU had ever put on the floor.”

Owens was so proud of that team, especially for unifying a campus and town in Lawrence that was going through political and racial unrest.

“The 1970-71 season was incredible, with the first Final Four for members of the team and the coaches, an undefeated conference season, and a winning streak of 21 games,” Owens wrote in his 2013 book, At The Hang-Up.

“As I look back, though, the team’s most remarkable achievement was unifying a campus and city in a common cause. Our players demonstrated that people from divergent backgrounds and ethnic groups can set aside their differences and, by loving and respecting one another, can exceed expectations. Today, the team continues their special bond, and they held a touching reunion in 2011.

After two down seasons (11-15 in 1971-72 and 8-18 in 1972-73), Owens’ Jayhawks made one of the best comebacks in college basketball history by going 23-7 in 1973-74 and advancing to the Final Four again. The pieces fit, the chemistry was superb, and this was a balanced attack with no true star.

With the addition of high school All-American Norm Cook and junior college standout Roger Morningstar, they helped propel the Jayhawks to the Big Eight championship and Final Four, where they lost to Marquette 64-51. KU finished the season ranked No. 7 nationally.

Center Danny Knight led five players in double-figure scoring (12.4 ppg), followed by Morningstar (12.3), Dale Greenlee (11.8), Cook (11.4) and Rick Suttle (11.3), my first KU basketball hero who sacrificed his game as “Super Sub” after leading KU in scoring the previous year at 16.3 points per game.

After a nailbiting win over Creighton (55-54) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Midwest Region, KU faced ORU on its home court, the Mabee Center. A sign painted on the court read: 

“Expect A Miracle.”

And KU definitely did.

KU trailed 77-68 with 4:49 left in regulation and then by seven points with 3:19 left before rallying and sending the game into overtime and a 93-90 victory. Knight led six players in double figures with 19 points, while Kansas shot a scorching 55 percent from the field.

“Teams just didn’t come back like that,” Greenlee said of the era without a time clock and no three-pointers. “I’d look at (Tom) Kivisto. He’d look at me. We’d look at Roger and Danny and Rick and Norm. We didn’t feel we were out of the game. We figured we’d do what we had to do to get back in it.”

“The Comeback Kids” had a great habit of overcoming big deficits in winning games all year.

“We pretty much had a season when we’d come back a lot,” Greenlee said.

This team had a very strong identity and what Greenlee called a “really tight group. We kind of watched out for each other. Coach once said, ‘We played like brothers.’ No one really cared who scored.”

While the Marquette loss was painful, it was a season to remember for KU and all Jayhawk fans. Kansas also lost the consolation game to UCLA after up eight points at halftime.

“They finally worse us down,” Owens wrote in his book, “and we lost the last game of a miraculous season.’

KU returned to the Big Dance the following year, winning the Big Eight yet losing in the first round of the NCAA Midwest Region to a talented Notre Dame led by superstar Adrian Dantley, 77-71.

After two more down seasons (13-13 in 1975-76 and 18-10 in 1976-77), Owens again felt the hot seat with pressure to be fired.

But John Douglas, nicknamed “The Franchise” by voice of the Jayhawks Tom Hedrick who led KU in scoring in 1977 at 19.2 points per game (he scored 46 points at Iowa State on Feb. 16, 1977, which remains the third-most points in a game by a Jayhawk behind Wilt Chamberlain and Bud Stallworth), felt this criticism was extremely unfair.

“He’s the best coach in the Big Eight,” Douglas said in a wire story. “He shouldn’t be fired.”

Former KU standout Riney Lochmann played for the love of the game

I recently profiled Delvy Lewis. Now, I’m featuring his former KU teammate Riney Lochmann, who was a co-captain with Lewis on that great 1965-66 team. A Parade High School All-American from Wichita, this 6-6 forward was one of the greatest team and unselfish players in KU annals. A great scorer in high school, Lochmann sacrificed his game for the betterment of the team at Kansas. He only averaged a career-high 6.7 points per game his junior season in 1964-65, yet was good enough to play three years in the ABA.

When Jo Jo White became eligible during the second semester in 1966, Lochmann happily agreed to give up his starter’s role and come off the bench.

                                                       KU Libraries Digital Collection

“He (head coach Ted Owens) talked to me ahead of time and said, ‘We got a chance to go all the way,’” Lochmann told me in a 2003 interview. “He told me that with Jo Jo coming in, that he was going to play...and I would end up coming off the bench, which I had no problem at all. I said, ‘If it’s going to make us a better team, I’m all for it.’ I knew that it would, because I knew how good Jo Jo was. He was a phenomenal, phenomenal, college player. I realized how much it was going to help us.”

Like Lewis, Lochmann loved playing for Owens.

“Ted Owens, just his honesty. He was fun to play for,” Lochmann said. “Just enjoyed that relationship.”

Lochmann endeared himself to Owens and all Jayhawk fans with his fierce hustle, great work ethic, and true love of the game. "I think Riney and I were (Owens') favorites on that team (1965-66), because he just appreciated the 'roll up your sleeves and work,' and that's pretty much what Riney and I did," Lewis told me years ago.

Lochmann talked to me about his childhood heroes during our interview 16 years ago.

“Micky Mantle was (a hero) in baseball, Johnny Unitas, those were people I looked up to because I enjoyed all sports. I might have been a better football player, but I enjoyed basketball more. I thought it was more fun, so I probably had to work harder to improve my game in basketball. Bob Pettit was (a hero), I always liked watching the old Boston Celtic teams; I didn’t have any particular one, just the fact how they played together with Bill Russell and all those other guys. I was in Boston the same years that Larry Bird was there. I became a real real fan of Larry Bird’s, just what he brought to the game. He brought really an enthusiasm and love to the game, it just kind of carried over to his teammates. I got to see him play his whole career, which was a real thrill.”

In 2012, Wichita Eagle columnist Bob Lutz ranked Lochmann the No. 20 best Wichita City League player he’s seen since the early 1960s.

“I saw Lochmann play for the (Wichita North) Redskins during a Saturday afternoon game in Derby way, way, way back. It was the first high school game I saw, I believe. And it was televised by KAKE. My recollection is that Derby won the game. Anyway, Lochmann was a 6-6 forward who could really score, one of the finest players of his era."

Here is the Where Are They Now? article I wrote on Lochmann in 2003 for Jayhawk Insider. Thanks so much for your time you gave me Riney and for sharing all your fond KU memories and stories. I will forever be grateful! 

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For Riney Lochmann, sports has always been about the love of the game. From first picking up a basketball as a child in Wichita, to playing college hoops for Kansas and professionally in the ABA, to now, at 58, playing roundball in the national senior Olympics.

His love affair with basketball was first nurtured growing up in Wichita and idolizing the likes of Bob Pettit, Wilt Chamberlain, and the great Boston Celtics teams. While he admits football was his best sport, it was not his passion.  His true love was basketball, which he practiced religiously.  

Lochmann’s work ethic paid off, becoming a Parade All-American at Wichita North High School. Major colleges throughout the country beckoned at his doorstep, including Duke and Cincinnati. But those schools never really had a chance.

“I was always a great fan of Kansas University and their whole tradition,” said Lochmann, who fondly remembers listening to the radio as an eighth grader and hearing about Chamberlain’s wondrous exploits. “I was maybe a little old fashioned, but (I thought)  a Kansas boy should go to a Kansas school. Even though I showed interest in some of these other places, I knew I was always going to go to Kansas.”

And what a ride he had. Life at Mount Oread, however, didn’t begin so rosy for Lochmann his sophomore year. The rugged forward (6-6, 215) started the first five games before injuring his right knee, which would require surgery. While he came back to play the final seven games, Lochmann’s season was basically lost.

“It was discouraging just from the standpoint I really loved the game so much and the fact I worked real hard and was able to start as a sophomore,” Lochmann said recently from his home in Dublin, Ohio. “But it did give me more resolve to get the knee in shape and to be ready to go the next season.”

Both Lochmann and KU, which finished at just 13-12 in 1962-63, were looking to rebound the following year. Head coach Dick Harp had resigned, as assistant Ted Owens took over the post.  Owens brought a new sense of discipline to the program, leading KU to a 17-8 record. Lochmann flourished his junior season, averaging 6.7 points and 6.8 boards. A team player and tenacious hustler, Lochmann said he fully accepted being a role player after averaging 20-plus points per game in high school.

“I prided myself in playing defense and also rebounding, and being able to shut down or defend at least the toughest offensive player on the other team,” he said. “I would say I was unselfish. I put team first and then any individual accolades secondary because I’ve always felt that basketball is a team sport, and if there were certain things I  could do to help the team, that’s what I was going to do. ...I just enjoyed the game and felt like, ‘Hey, that’s what it’s all about.’”

With “Wonderful” Walt Wesley, Lochmann, Al Lopes, Del Lewis, and Ron Franz returning for the 1965-66 campaign, KU was picked as one of the top teams in the country. The Jayhawks rolled out to a 15-3 start before semester break. That’s when Owens had to make a decision whether or not to play Jo Jo White, the heralded freshman from St. Louis, Mo., who had just become eligible. Lochmann, a senior co-captain and starter, recalls what transpired.

“He (Owens) talked to me ahead of time and said, ‘We got a chance to go all the way,’” Lochmann said.  “He told me that with Jo Jo coming in, that he was going to play...and I would end up coming off the bench, which I had no problem at all. I said, ‘If it’s going to make us a better team, I’m all for it.’  I knew that it would, because I knew how good Jo Jo was.  He was a phenomenal, phenomenal, college player.  I realized how much it was going to help us.”

As White made an immediate impact and Lochmann injected fire and punch off the bench, KU easily won its next eight games and advanced to the Midwest Regional finals before losing to Texas Western (81-80) in double overtime. KU had appeared to win the game in the first overtime when White hit a 30-foot jumper at the buzzer. However, the referee ruled that White’s foot was on the line, and disallowed the bucket. It was a heartbreaking loss for Lochmann, the KU players, and all Jayhawk fans.

“We felt like if we had won against Texas Western (eventual NCAA champs), we would have gone on and won the national championship,” Lochmann said. “It took me about a week to get out of shock. I was really down in the dumps afterwards, from the standpoint to being totally depressed knowing that was your last college game. You don’t dwell on those things after a while, but that was a hurtful game. We kind of left our heart and soul out on on the court.”

Lochmann believes a strong case can be made that the 1965-66 squad was KU’s best team ever. A whopping five players from that club went on to play professional basketball.

“I do know that was a team that had probably all the ingredients you could want in a basketball team, because it had size, quickness, and strength,” Lochmann said. “We were deep from the bench. There weren’t many things that you didn’t have as a team that could win games.”

Lochmann, of course, moved on with his life. After graduating in 1966, he spent the next season as a graduate assistant coach at Kansas. Then, he defied great odds and made the ABA’s Dallas Chaparrals the next season, which was the inaugural year for the league. Nicknamed “The Bull,” Lochmann played three years in Dallas, and made it to the playoffs each season. Lochmann relished his opportunity, saying it was a childhood dream to play professional basketball. 

 

“To a kid out of college who loves to play the game and getting paid to play, you couldn’t be (more happier),” he said. “You got to see the country.  We played in some of the finest and nicest cities in the country.” 

Shortly upon getting married, Lochmann quit the ABA in 1970 and accepted a sales and promotion job with Converse. He spent the next 20 years working in Kansas City and Boston before leaving Converse in 1990 as senior vice president of sales and promotions. After opening a footwear company for a year, Lochmann worked with Puma before moving to Ohio in 1995, where he was employed with United Rotary Brush, which manufacturers street and airport sweepers. Lochmann, who spent five years with the organization, then switched careers to become the project manager for a consulting company (Martin Consultants). 

“We come in and try to turn the (bankrupt) companies around and get them reorganized,” Lochmann said. “It’s interesting. It’s certainly a change from what I’ve had done anyway. There’s a lot of diverse companies that you get involved with.  As yo  know, every conceivable business under the sun can go bankrupt.”

When he’s not working, Lochmann finds time to stay close to his lifetime passion. He helps volunteer coach the local high school girls basketball team in Dublin, and also assists with basketball camps in the area. And yes, he plays basketball twice a week in a 50-over league. Lochmann, who has played for teams in two national senior Olympics, has a squad already qualified for the 2003 senior Olympic games in Virginia.

The former Jayhawk standout is currently looking forward to attending the 105th reunion of Kansas basketball in February. Although he never made All-Big Eight or All-American, Lochmann said he relished his days on the Hill.

“I probably could have gone other places and maybe had scored more points or whatever, but at Kansas, it was part of the team,” he said. “That’s what I enjoyed the best. I don’t have any regrets at all. One of the things I’ve always told my wife, is when I pass away, I want my remains spread over Allen Fieldhouse.”

All for the love of the game.

A Closer Look at Riney Lochmann

Years at KU: 1962-66

Career Notables: Member of 1965-66 Big Eight championship team, which advanced to the Midwest Regional finals...Career-high 6.7 ppg and 6.8 rpg in 1964-65 (finished 14th in the conference in rebounding)...Co-MVP of Big 8 Holiday Tournament in 1964.

Family: Wife, Cheryl and children —Craig, 18, Sarah, 20 (plays basketball for University of South Florida), Hunter, 30, and Megan, 31.

Education:  B.S. Education, 1966.

Since Leaving KU: Lochmann spent one year as graduate assistant basketball coach at KU before playing three years in the ABA. He then spent 20 years working for Converse. In 1991, he started an active footwear business. After the company dissolved, he worked for Puma before moving to Ohio in 1995 and being employed by United Rotary Brush for five years. He's spent the last couple of years working as project manager for Martin Consultants.

Currently: Lochmann serves as project manager for Martin Consultants in Ohio.

Hobbies: Basketball, spending time with family, working out, golf.

Favorite Memories: “My fondest memories were just being able to play basketball there those four years with all the fun times we had and the tremendous friends and teammates that I met while I was there. Those were times when you can’t erase how fun they were, but they certainly went by much too fast. As you get older, the faster the years go by.”...Whipping Top 10 Nebraska at home, 110-73, on Feb. 26, 1966.  “We really put it to them. I think that kind of put our stamp from the standpoint of then winning the Big 8 championship and being one of the better teams in the country...The fact that there was such a deafening noise — you  know how they stamp their feet — you could hardly hear yourself. It was so loud in there as we were pretty much putting them away in the second half.”

On the Jayhawks today: “I think they’ve gotten off to a little bit of a shaky start. ...They play a real difficult and competitive schedule. I think it will help them now once the conference starts, because the conference is so tough and competitive.”

Recalling former Jayhawk standout Delvy Lewis

.                                                     KU Libraries Digital Collection
Delvy Lewis was one of the most underrated point guards and leaders in KU history. Lewis, a Topeka native who played at KU from 1963-66, teamed with Jo Jo White in the backcourt in 1966 and made it a dream season to remember. KU went 23-4, won the Big Eight championship and advanced to the Midwest Regional final, where it lost to eventual NCAA champs Texas Western.

Lewis was named first-team All-Big Eight his senior year in 1965-66, when he averaged 10.9 points per game and led the team in assists and free throw percentage. He posted career averages of 8.6 points and 2.6 rebounds in 76 games, while shooting 40.2 percent from the field and 75.1 percent at the free throw line.

A fierce competitor and blue-collar worker, Lewis endeared himself to head coach Ted Owens. Lewis and Riney Lochmann were co-captains their senior year in 1965-66.

“I think Riney and I were his (Owens') favorites on that team, because he just appreciated the ‘roll up your sleeves and work,’ and that’s pretty much what Riney and I did,” Lewis told me in 2003 for Jayhawk Insider. “I hustled and gave it all I had every game. Everybody did. We had a group that pretty much got after it. We were pretty no nonsense."

Lewis, who died in 2012, relished playing for Owens and KU.

"I just have nothing but great words to say about Ted Owens as a coach,” Lewis said. "He was a gentleman. I just feel badly, because I think he’s kind of gotten a bad rap, as far as perception. He still has a tremendous winning record. I just hope he gets some credit for what he did, because I think he did a lot more than people realize. To this day, I have the greatest respect for him. He’s just a neat, neat man.”

A die-hard Jayhawk fan growing up with his dad, Lewis has fond memories of listening on the radio with his father to his heroes like B.H. Born and Wilt Chamberlain.

This was father and son time alone to bond, their little word.

KU was where he wanted to go all along.

“It was just a great honor to play at KU,” Lewis said. “It’s a great tradition. To say that you played there and to have some success, is just a thrill.”

Here is a look at Delvy’s recollections on his recruitment to KU and his high school career at Washburn Rural. We talked for over an hour that memorable night in 2003.

...

“I was pretty much headed to K-State, they had offered me a scholarship. Of course, my teammate Ron Paradis, who was a great player, in fact, he was certainly more acclaimed than I was in high school-- Tex Winter had come to the school. That’s where Ron had decided he was going to go and Tex wanted me to go also, and I really wanted to go to KU, but they had not offered me a scholarship. I had several other places that talked to me. Colorado had visited with me a little bit, and a couple of some smaller schools out west. I really honestly just thought I’d probably end up at K-State, and I’d be close to home. I liked Tex Winter. He was a good guy, I was very impressed with him. Then we played in the state tournament my senior year, and we ended up playing Wyandotte in the semi-final. I had a great game. I had 28 points. I just had one of those really good games. After that, I heard from KU. I was voted on the all-state team, both Ron and I both were. They (KU) called and asked to come and visit with us. Of course, my dad was just an avid KU person. He’s passed away, he’s passed away now for a number of years. I can remember sitting at the radio and listening to B.H. Born. He was just an avid fan. Of course, Wilt. That’s where he (dad) would have wanted me to go, but we didn’t think it was going to happen since they hadn’t contacted me. But when they came and visited with me and said they would like me to consider going there, there wasn’t much consideration. That’s where I wanted to go. I chose to go there.

“We had a high school coach who was extremely disciplined. Tom O’Dell was his name. He was just a super high school coach. We won the state tournament as a sophomore with another coach, and then he came in our junior and senior years. The other coach was really laid back and easy going, pretty much do as you please. O’Dell was really structured and really a disciplinarian, really got on you, which was great for me because when I went to college, I really didn’t have any major adjustments fundamentally. I played defense. Fundamentals wasn’t a big stretch. Just the emotion and the stuff we were going through was the hard part to deal with. As far as the fundamental part was, I felt really well prepared. The only thing I needed to work on was going to my left more. I was pretty much a right-handed player. Tom O’ Dell, I give him a tremendous amount of credit for demanding that kind of discipline.

“Gosh we had a lot of memories. We were the little rural school. Back in the 60’s, there were just two divisions. There were two divisions,  2A and 1A, and I guess they did have some lower divisions. Class 2A was the biggest. When we won the state my sophomore year, we were 1A. The next year, I want to say we had 400 and some kids in our school. We were like seven or eight kids too many, so we went to the double A. That’s when we ended up playing Topeka High and all the big double A schools, which had 1500, 1700 kids and we had 400 and we beat them. I remember that was always a big deal. We were always playing the big schools, and we beat them. That’s how we got to the state tournament. We ended up beating Topeka High in regionals and going to state. Then, we played Wyandotte in the semis. We were a real small school. Now Washburn Rural is a big school. 

“I can remember playing in grade school. I can remember that far back. And Ron Paradis, we lived in the same area, so we went to the same school. Pauline was the school system. We always had good teams. I’m sure I probably did (emulate someone), but I don’t remember that. I was just a big fan of KU because of  my dad. He was just an avid KU guy. We’d just listen to the radio, pretty much listened to the games. Like I said, I can remember listening to them when I was a kid, probably like what a lot these kids do today, watching them on the tube. I can remember listening to the Wilt Chamberlain era. In fact, I went up to B. H. Born at the reunion and told him I can remember listening to him play back in the 50’s. My dad was always a fan and always had the games on. I remember Wilt’s group, Maurice King, Bob Billings, all those players.  

“I think it was just a handful of schools, I had a lot of small schools. Colorado voiced a little bit of interest. But it was pretty much Tex Winter, and that’s pretty much where I was going until the Wyandotte game. That was the game that I think caught their eye. Owens, I think he said he was at the game. I don’t know if (Dick) Harp was there or not. I wasn’t really holding out. Back then, they pretty much waited until the season was over before they got commitments. They had recruiting trips. Tex came in and visited with me a couple of times. He took me out to lunch, and visited about the program and what his expectations were. That’s pretty much where I figured I would go. Then, after the season, I started to get the attention from KU. That would have been my choice. Oh sure. I really thought the world of Tex. I could have played for him. We just are a KU family. My dad was such a fan, and it just kind of rubbed off on me. So that was where my heart was. Of course, when I got the  opportunity, there was no question. They offered me a full scholarship, and I said, ‘Lets go.’ He (dad) went to all the games, all the ones that were within reasonable driving area. My mother both went to all the games and just thoroughly loved it. They went to all the games, they were big supporters.”