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.”

Calipari's Roots at KU

Love him or hate him, Kentucky coach John Calipari was once a Jayhawk. He got his coaching start at KU as a volunteer assistant in 1982 under head coach Ted Owens. He then served as a part-time assistant the next two years under Larry Brown before leaving KU and eventually making his coaching mark, culminating in winning his first national championship recently on April 2. This is a piece I wrote on Calipari on April 7, 2008, the day of the national title game before his Memphis Tigers battled KU. The Jayhawks, of course, won that game with Mario Chalmers hitting the biggest shot in Kansas basketball history. In this article, Calipari reflects on his KU days back in the 80s, calling them the “best time of my life.”

By David Garfield

Phog.net Senior Writer

Posted Apr 7, 2008

SAN ANTONIO — John Calipari remains forever grateful that his coaching career began at the University of Kansas.

Of course, the Memphis head coach would love to beat KU in the national championship game tonight. However, win or lose, he won’t ever forget his three seasons as a KU assistant (1982-85) under Ted Owens and Larry Brown.

On the day before his first national championship game, John Calipari fondly recalled how it all started.

“Bob Hill (then-KU assistant coach) and I were working at Camp Five Star,” Calipari said. “(He) said, ‘Why don’t you come out and work our camp?’ I said, ‘Okay.’ I worked his camp. Ted Owens watched me do a station. He said, ‘Why don’t you stay here. I can’t pay you. If you want to help out and be in the office and stuff envelopes, and learn about college basketball, I’d love to have you here.’”

After just receiving a business marketing degree from Clarion State College in Pennsylvania, the bright-eyed Calipari jumped at the opportunity.

“I went, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Calipari said. “So I went out there with two pair of shoes, three pairs of slacks, a blue blazer, three shirts, and two ties, happy as hell.”

Calipari was a volunteer his first year under Owens, and then a part-time assistant for two years under new head coach Larry Brown.

Calipari had a ball, even though he was financially challenged.

“To eat, I worked at the training meal,” he said. “The Sinclairs ran the training table. I would serve peas or corn. (I’d ask people), ‘What would you like, peas or corn?’ I (said), ‘I’ll be there early for practice if you want to do some extra shooting.’

“I remember the first time in Allen Fieldhouse, the old locker room, I went in and it was old. I’m thinking Phog Allen showered (here). I said, ‘This has been her since the building, right?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ The storied history of Kansas. The environment to live, to raise a family. It was tough for a 25-year-old because you’re not going to hang around the students. You didn't’ have any money to go to the country club. But what it made me do, I just got into basketball. I was in the office all the time doing stuff. It was a great time, and I met my wife in Kansas. She was poor, I was poor.”

Calipari certainly isn’t poor anymore. He’s become one of the best coaches in college basketball and led both UMass (1996) and Memphis to the Final Four. After leaving Kansas, Calipari served as an assistant at Pittsburgh for three years before taking the UMass head coaching job in 1988. He coached there until 1996, taking the Minutemen to five straight NCAA tournaments (1992-96).

He left UMass in June of 1996 to become executive vice president of basketball operations and head coach of the New Jersey Nets. After leading the Nets to a second-place finish in the Atlantic Division and the playoffs in 1998, Calipari was eventually fired the following year.

That’s when he got a call from Brown, the Philadelphia 76ers head coach, asking if Calipari would like to rejoin him as an assistant.

“I’m so appreciative of Larry Brown as a mentor and friend,” Calipari said. “I walked with him this morning on the Riverwalk. None of the things that have happened for me or my family would have happened (if it wasn’t for him).  ... He didn’t have to (hire me as an assistant). He didn’t need me. The guy is a Hall of Famer.”

“I had three calls when I got fired,” Calipari added. “Larry Brown, my father, and Howard Garfinkel (who Calipari knew when he worked Garfinkel’s Five-Star Camp). That’s why Larry Brown reaching out and saying, ‘Come on down here and join me,’ what it did for me, one, it starts to bring you back. Men, their livelihood, how they make a living, is how they think they are. That’s their life. So you kind of die. And so he helps there (and) also confirmed how I felt about the game and how to teach it because I was with him.”

After a year with Philly, Calipari was hired as the University of Memphis’ 16th head basketball coach on March 11, 2000. He has since left an indelible mark with the program. In fact, his 104 victories since 2005-06 tie Memphis for the No. 1 spot on the all-time NCAA Division I  list for most wins (104) in three years.

KU coach Bill Self has great respect for Calipari. Self actually became a graduate assistant at KU in 1985 three weeks after Calipari left KU for Pittsburgh.

“I’ve known Cal forever,” Self said. “Going to UMass and then coming to Memphis and getting both places to the Final Four is a remarkable, remarkable accomplishment.”

Calipari gives Self props as well.

“Through that connection (with Brown), we’ve been friends,” Calipari said. “I am so happy for him and what he’s been able to do in his career. He’s a good man. He’s a great coach. We probably recruit the same type of kids and the same players. (We) recruit more against Kansas than I recruit against anybody else.

“We’re two competitive coaches. It’s easier for me when I like somebody than it is if I really want to beat somebody, because that gets me off point. I tell (my players), ‘You get inspired when you’re mad.’ I can’t do it. I’d rather have a guy that I really respect and like. Let me go coach against that guy, have fun doing it.”

Calipari hopes to have a lot of fun Monday night coaching against Self in the national championship game. But even if he wins it all, that moment can never replace the three years he spent at Kansas.

"It was the best time of my life," Calipari said.

http://kansas.scout.com/2/744264.html 

College basketball blue bloods Kansas and Kentucky collide tonight in national championship game

I wrote this piece before the national championship game between KU and UK on April 2.


By David Garfield

As Kansas marches into the national championship game tonight against Kentucky — the two winningest teams in college basketball history (UK is No. 1 and KU No. 2) — my mind races back to a recurring dream I had as a teenager growing up in Lawrence and attending South Junior High.

The picture and dream is indelibly etched in my mind. It’s the NCAA championship — Kansas vs. Kentucky. KU is down by one point with 20 seconds left in the game. Darnell Valentine, the Jayhawk point guard sensation with the tree-trunk thighs, dribbles the ball upcourt as KU fans around the country watch with bated breath. With seven seconds remaining, Valentine deftly penetrates the lane and then dishes the ball to Tony Guy. Guy takes one dribble and lets fly a 20-foot jumper at the buzzer that all KU faithful pray hits nothing but net.

Swish. KU wins the national championship.

I’d get mad chills thinking about that perfect scenario. Unfortunately, that dream never became reality as Guy and Valentine’s national title hopes fell short in 1981 with a loss to Wichita State in the Sweet 16.

But now, 31 years later, KU (32-6) — those tough, gritty, comeback kids — will go toe to toe with the Kentucky Wildcats (37-2) at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans in what could be a classic championship game.

It seems so fitting that two of the most tradition-rich and storied schools should finally meet for the first time in the national title game. These programs are intrinsically tied together with Adolph Rupp, the late, legendary Kentucky coach, actually playing for Phog Allen at KU and winning the Helms Foundation National Championship (retroactively) in 1922 and 1923.

Allen, the Father of Basketball Coaching, retired in 1956 as the winningest coach in college basketball history with 746 victories to just 264 losses in his 50-year coaching career. Eleven years later on Feb. 18, 1967, Rupp — the “Baron of Basketball” — broke his mentor’s record with a 103-74 win over Mississippi State. Rupp, who retired in 1972, amassed 876 career wins in his 42-year coaching tenure in Lexington, currently the fourth winningest mark just behind KU graduate Dean Smith.

The rich storyline between the two schools is even more intriguing considering that on Dec. 10, 1977, Rupp died at age 76 on the night Kentucky beat Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse during a game billed as “Adolph Rupp Night.”

I’m a history buff and always lived for those Kentucky and KU games during my wonder years growing up just five minutes from Allen Fieldhouse and watching most of the home contests live as the teams embarked on a 15-year series from 1971 to 1985. While KU won just twice during that span (in 1973 and 1985 — both in the fieldhouse), those games were full of intense excitement and energy in the Phog, giving me goosebumps each time.

The chills were never greater than on Dec. 12, 1981 at Allen Fieldhouse when my hero Guy swished a shot from the top of the key in overtime against Kentucky. I immediately jumped out of my seat (Section 2, Row 4, Seat 3) and hugged my dad out of sheer delight, wanting to hold on to that moment forever. Despite KU losing the game, the resounding cheers from the crowd after Guy hit that thrilling shot still echo in my mind three decades later.

While KU and UK met again after 1985 in a two-year series in 1989-90 (and in 1998 for a made-for-TV Great Eight Game and a 1999 NCAA tournament game), and then another home-and-home series from 2005-06, the series was again discontinued.

I’ve always felt KU and Kentucky should play on a regular basis. And so do fans of the two schools, including former Jayhawk standout and huge KU booster Tom Kivisto. Just before the Jayhawks and Wildcats tipped off in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Chicago in 2007, Kivisto told me he was working at the time to promote and renew a regular-season series between the two schools.

“You look at the history of these two teams, it’s unbelievable,” Kivisto said. “What’s great about that story is that a lot of modern day people who just get caught up on the road to the Final Four the last 20 years wouldn’t know that richness. So it’s a great new story that’s an old story to bring out as new. It would be a fabulous revival, one that would probably rival the Duke-North Carolina (series) that gets a lot of publicity. This one’s got a lot richer (history).

“They need to play every year, and we’re not far from each other. It ought to happen.”

While KU and UK haven’t played a home-and-home series since I talked to Kivisto in 2007, they now meet on the grandest stage of college basketball on Monday night in New Orleans, a rematch of their earlier battle this season on Nov. 15 in Madison Square Garden in New York, which Kentucky won, 75-65.

For basketball purists, this was meant to be since James Naismith — KU’s first basketball coach — invented the game and hung up the the first peach basket in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts.

KU vs. Kentucky for college basketball biggest prize. It doesn’t get much better with both teams so steeped in hoops history.

After all, Kentucky has been to 15 Final Fours (tied for No. 3 all time); KU has earned 14 Final Four berths (No. 5 all time). UK has 52 NCAA tournament appearances (No. 1 all time); KU has been to the Big Dance 41 times (No. 4). The Wildcats have won seven NCAA championships (No. 2 all time); KU has won three NCAA titles (tied for No. 6 all time). And KU has boasted 28 consensus first-team All-Americans (No. 1 all time) to Kentucky's 24 (tied for No. 4).

While UK will be the overwhelming favorite to win the game, just like Oklahoma was in 1988 against KU in the national title game (KU upset the Sooners, 83-79), Kansas knows it can top the talent-laden Wildcats, especially if they “muddy” up the game and not let UK get in rhythm.

“I truly believe in my heart we can beat anybody,” KU coach Bill Self said. “We may not be favored in a series if we're playing four out of seven, but in my heart I believe we can beat anybody.”

KU showed its toughness against Kentucky early in its second game this season on Nov. 15 with the Jayhawks up by seven points twice in the first half before the Wildcats pulled away after halftime with a 75-65 victory.

Over four months later, the two best players in college basketball will battle again in Kentucky's Anthony Davis and KU’s Thomas Robinson. And two of the best coaches in college hoops will match wits in Kentucky’s John Calipari and KU's Self — two men who were on opposite sidelines in the 2008 national title game when Self’s Jayhawks beat Calipari’s Memphis Tigers. Calipari, as many know, once sat on the KU bench as an assistant to Ted Owens and Larry Brown in the 1980s.

While former Jayhawks Darnell Valentine and Tony Guy never had the opportunity to meet and beat Kentucky for the national championship, the dream lives on. Now, Tyshawn Taylor is the silver quick point guard who could be penetrating the lane tonight with seven seconds left with KU down one point to Kentucky and dishing to Elijah Johnson for the biggest 20-foot jumper of his life.

I can close my eyes and see Johnson — Mr. Big Shot — with his feet set and confidence high, effortlessly releasing the ball, the orange leather spinning upwards towards the goal.

Nothing but net at the buzzer.

KU wins the national championship ... and my childhood dream finally becomes reality.