Ted Owens fired after 19 years as KU head basketball coach

Ted Owens restored the glory to the rich Kansas basketball tradition in his first seven years from 1964-71, leading the Jayhawks to three Big Eight titles, one Final Four, and five Big 8 Holiday Tournament Championships.

Owens’ 1965-66 team and 1970-71 squad were two of the finest in KU basketball history; his ‘71 team was the first team in Big Eight history to go 14-0 en route to Owens’ first Final Four.

In seven years, Owens posted a stellar 149-43 record (.776). He had gained national respect among his peers and the future seemed very bright at Mount Oread.

But during the 1970s, his teams struggled with consistency. He and his staff were very inconsistent recruiters, as Owens found himself on the hot seat after repeated two straight down seasons, followed by a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

After the 1971 team reached the Final Four with a 27-3 record, his next two teams went just 11-15 and a dismal 8-18 (worst record in KU history). So Owens found himself on the hot seat, only to be rescued by a dramatic turnaround in 1973-74, when KU went 13-1 in Big Eight play, won the league championship, and advanced to the Final Four. Kansas won the Big 8 again the following year, yet lost to Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Suddenly, it looked like Owens had turned the corner. But he didn’t. After losing four of his top five scorers, KU faltered to just 13-13 in 1975-76 with two sophomores and one freshman in the starting lineup. The 1976-77 team improved to 18-10, but KU just finished fourth in the Big Eight at 8-6.

Max Falkenstien wrote about Owens being under pressure in his 1996 book, Max and the Jayhawks:

“Kansas had demonstrated progress, but the memories of KU’s 13-13 record two years earlier still lingered. Fans were growing restless for another conference championship, and there was a faction of KU supporters who thought it was time for a coaching change. They made their feelings known to (athletic director) Clyde Walker.

“With his job on the line, Ted shook up his staff.”

Owens’ loyal and great longtime top assistant Sam Miranda resigned under heat.

“Ted was a super nice guy. But Ted listened to everyone,” Miranda said in Falkenstien’s book. “He would listen to all the alums who would raise hell. Clyde Walker was the athletic director at the time, and he wanted Ted out of the job. He had tried to get him earlier, but as long as Odd Williams was on the athletic board, Clyde would never be able to fire him. After the 13-13 season, Clyde wanted him gone. He couldn’t get rid of Ted. Well, the next guy down the line was me. When I coached at KU, I recruited my rear end off and coached hard. I didn’t glad-hand the alums or rub noses with them. If I had been more of a diplomat, I might still be here today. But I wasn’t. It was either I was going to resign, or be fired. So I resigned. It was strictly the alums that put the heat on Clyde, and Clyde put the heat on Ted.”

Owens replaced Miranda with new assistant coach Lafayette Norwood in a package deal to land Wichita Heights phenom Darnell Valentine, who Norwood coached in high school. Owens saved his job by going 13-1 and winning the Big Eight title, yet lost to UCLA in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. KU was ranked as high as No. 5 nationally that season.

Owens then had two down years again, going 18-11 and just 15-14 in 1979-80, before climbing out of despair and advancing to the Sweet 16 in 1980-81 (24-8). That team was led by Valentine and super junior Tony Guy.

Little did Owens know that his long coaching career, where he had withstood so much heat, was soon coming to an end.

Forced to rebuild and rely too much on Guy and David Magley, Owens went just 13-14 in 1981-82 (4-10 for 7th place in the Big Eight). He followed that year with another losing season in 1982-83 (13-16 and again 4-10 and tied for 7th place in the Big 8). 

On Feb. 18, 1983, The Oklahoman’s Jim Lassiter wrote about Owens’ future with the headline: ”KU’s Owens Has Survived Some Storm-Filled Years.”

“One Jayhawker has observed that Owens may be the only coach in America who has never had next year to count on. Every December through March you can hear rumblings from the Sunflower State that Owens is history. His teams have either not won enough games, not won enough big games or not been exciting enough.

“Rumors flew through Kansas like sunflower seeds in January when Kansas lost to Oral Roberts University a few days after the Titans had fired their coach in a midnight, mid-season sacking. The gossipers said that if the Hawks didn't turn around and beat Evansville, Owens would join ORU's Ken Hayes in the unemployment lines.

“The Jayhawks saved Owens that test of fire, but the rumors persist. A Denver newspaper reported last Sunday that the Kansas coach will not be around next year. The unattributed report said there is ‘racial tension’ on the squad and a ‘rift on the coaching staff.’ Reportedly, sales in Kansas of that issue of the Denver paper shot out of sight.”

Asked about the report, Owens just smiled. After all, through his 19 years at Kansas, the Kansas coach was known as “Smiling Ted.”

Lassiter soon continued:

“The Kansas coach has always felt he could count on his athletic department administration for backing. But if there's any reason to believe that Owens may truly be in trouble this time, it's because that home support has eroded. Last fall Kansas named Monte Johnson as its new athletic director. Johnson comes from Wichita. That area of Kansas has never been an Owens stronghold, as indeed, it had never been one of Don Fambrough's bases of support. To now, Johnson's most noteworthy action was to fire Fambrough, who had been at KU for 31 years.

“Without Johnson's backing, Owens has only his record and the promise of the future to plead his case. This Kansas team may be one of the youngest of all time. The Jayhawks' starting lineup includes three freshmen and two juniors and turnovers and poor shooting have made this team a chore to watch.

“It's a chore many Kansans are avoiding in record numbers. The irony of Ted Owens' most troubled season ever is that he is finally enjoying a pleasant personal life again. Three years ago he went through a messy divorce, but since then has remarried and at age 52 has started a new family. He and his wife have two babies under the age of two. One Jayhawk says he has never seen Owens happier, or seen him work any harder. The KU coach is confident this young Kansas team will get better and maybe measurably so when 6-11 Greg Dreiling joins it next season. Dreiling started his career at Wichita State, but transferred this season. In practice he has seemed to be Kansas' answer for a big man in the middle.

“After all these years, Ted Owens can't imagine Kansas not giving him the chance to develop Greg Dreiling and this team,” Lassiter added. “And reluctantly, the university will probably give him just one more season as its been doing for the last 19 years.”

Three weeks after that article was published, Owens’ Jayhawks had their game of the year when lowly KU upset heavily favored No. 19 Oklahoma, 87-77, in the first round of the Big Eight Tournament at Norman on March 8, 1983. 

Freshman guard Calvin Thompson caught fire, scoring a career-high 30 points. a KU also held OU superstar and All-American forward Wayman Tisdale to just 13 points on 6-of-18 shooting. Owens walked out of his alma mater victorious and feeling grand.

“It was a great victory, and the players carried me off the court,” Owens told Jeff Bollig and Doug Vance in their 2008 book, What It Means To Be A Jayhawk.

“As they carried me up that ramp to the dressing room, I looked up in the crowd, and there was my coach at Oklahoma, Bruce Drake, and his wonderful wife, Myrtle, smiling and waving at me. That made it an even more incredible night.”

Thompson said that was one of the most favorite memories of his KU career.

“I couldn’t miss in warm-up, and so I just knew I was going to have a good one,” he told me during a 90-minute interview at his home in 1999.

Jeff Dishman, a member of that team, also described that magical night to me in a 2003 interview.

“We kept running a play for Calvin to get open,” Dishman said. “We kept running the same play over and over again, and they never could get it stopped. And, of course, our whole deal on the other end was stopping Wayman Tisdale. I think we held him to his lowest season total. He went for 50 a couple of times that year. I remember it being a total team effort, and Calvin stepped up and hit some big shots. Carl Henry (19 points) had a pretty good game. We pretty much knew if we could close down on Wayman a little bit, we’d have a shot. Nobody expected us to do that, I didn't think, have a shot against them at that point in our season. It was a good memory.

“Calvin really played well,” Dishman added. “We had a specific play to get Carl the ball. He was our first option and Calvin was the second. They kept covering Carl, and hitting Calvin on the second option. He shot a  lot of 15-17 foot jumpers at the top of the key. He kept doing it over and over again. They never did figure it out.”

KU, though, stumbled the next night against Oklahoma State, which featured a point guard named Bill Self (3 points), losing 90-83. Kelly Knight led KU with 26 points and 14 rebounds.

The long season, was at last, over.

There was hope for the future, though, with three talented freshmen in Thompson, Kerry Boagni and Ron Kellogg, and former McDonald’s All-American Dreiling, a 7-foot center with huge potential, was redshirting after transferring from Wichita State.

Owens and lead recruiter, assistant coach Jo Jo White, had also secured a verbal commitment from Curtis Aiken, a great shooter and one of the top high school guards in the country.

The past two years were more seasons of turmoil and losing, and new athletic director Monte Johnson, who had just been on the job for four months and already had fired the loyal Jayhawk football coach Fambrough, had a big decision to make regarding Owens, the second-longest tenured KU basketball coach in history behind Phog Allen of 19 years.

Owens recalled what transpired in his 2013 book, At The Hang-Up.

“Feeling that we were positioned to be a dominate force in the following season, I hoped that the new athletic director, Monte Johnson, would honor the remaining year on my contract and allow me to coach the team,” Owens wrote.

Before Johnson went on vacation with his son to Florida for a week, he called Owens into his office and “wanted me to prepare an evaluation of my program compared to the history of Kansas basketball. ... It was the longest week of my life. ... In my time as head coach at Kansas, we had won 15 Big Eight titles (a combination of regular-season and tournament titles) and advanced to the NCAA Final Four in 1971 and 1974. Fitting Dr. Allen’s criteria for a successful team, the players’ graduation rate was high and they had gone on to successful careers.

“Monte must have known that if he was going to make a change, the timing was ideal, since we were coming off of two seasons that were below the Kansas standards in terms of wins and losses. It was a perfect time to give a new coach the reins to a talented team and allow him to become immediately successful. And that was the decision Monte made.”

So, after 19 years, winning six Big Eight Conference championships, eight Big 8 Holiday Tournament titles, one Big Eight Tournament championship, advancing to the NCAA Tournament seven times, earning Big Eight Coach of the Year five times and named National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly, Owens was fired.

The embattled KU coach had simply run out of lives. He left KU as the second winningest coach in school history behind the legendary Allen with a record of 348-182 (.657).

Owens was candidly bitter by his firing at the time. But as the years passed, he’s now at peace with himself.

But not then.

“I was absolutely devastated,” he wrote in his book. “I had hoped Chancellor Gene Budig would block the move, but he had been at the university for only the last two years, when our teams weren’t as strong as in previous years. Years later, at the 2009 memorial service for longtime KU athletic director Bob Frederick, Gene told me that if he had taken the time to look at my overall record, he wouldn’t have allowed me to be removed as head coach. Even if it was far too late to change matters, I respected Gene and felt good about what he had said.

“...I fault no one, and I take full responsibility for the decline of the program during the two years that followed our NCAA regional participation in 1981. In the spring of 1983, I had felt that we were positioned to restore the program to its rightful place as a conference power and national-title contender, had they decided to honor the last year of my contract. But we can only speculate about what might have been, and those who have followed me--Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self--have certainly done great things at the helm of Jayhawk basketball.”

Owens would deeply miss coaching at Kansas, where he formed lifelong relationships and friendships with his players and staff.

“So after 23 years, I was no longer a part of Kansas basketball. Those years were a wonderful time in my life. I loved every minute of it, from the joy of successes to the pain of disappointments. I dearly loved the University of Kansas, and I continue to do so today.”

Owens then wrote sentimentally and emotionally:

“I did something some say a coach shouldn’t do. They’ll say that a coach shouldn’t fall in love with the fans and the players. But I did. I loved the University of Kansas. I loved my players. My biggest fault was that I didn’t want to disappoint people. When we lost a game or experienced failure, I was really hard on myself. I never blamed anyone else.”

At the postseason banquet that year after he was fired, Owens spoke from the heart while also able to deal with his pain by cracking a joke about he and his wife being late that evening.

“We went down to pick up our unemployment checks and the line was a little longer than we expected,” Owens said.

“I won’t say there’s no anger and bitterness — honestly it come and goes, but there is so much to be grateful for,” Owens added. “I have four wonderful children and a wife who supports me. That’s what really matters. Only history will determine what kind of job we did here, but know this ... no one loves this place more than I do.”

The former KU coach had a message at the banquet for the returning Jayhawks.

“I hope you’ll have a great team,” he said. “I hope you’re almost as good as you could have been if we had been there with you.”

KU went 22-10 in 1983-84 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament with new coach Larry Brown, who Johnson lured from his previous job as New Jersey Nets head coach.

Owens' former players would miss him being a part of KU basketball. They were quite fond of him, including guard Lance Hill, who played at KU from 1981-83.

“He opened the door for a lot of players here,” Hill told the Lawrence Journal-World. “I won’t forget what Tony Guy said at last year’s banquet. ‘He was a father to me.’”

Finally, Owens looked like a prophet when he said these words at the banquet:

“This team has laid the foundation for greatness in Kansas basketball.”

Indeed, it did.

Former Jayhawk standout Rodger Bohnenstiehl make his mark as a scoring machine

Rodger Bohnenstiehl might not be a name the young KU fan knows about, but Rodger was one of the better players of his era and a member of the 1,000-point club. He was All-Big Eight in 1967, where he led KU in scoring at 16.4 points per game. The 6-6 scoring machine also set a Big Eight career record of 56.6 percent field goal shooting that stood for many years. He finished as the school’s No. 9 all-time leading scorer.

Bohnenstiehl was part of the great and memorable 1965-66 team as a sophomore, serving as backup to All-American center Walt Wesley as KU marched to the Midwest Regional final before losing to eventual NCAA champion Texas Western. KU went 23-4 that season and again the next year, where Rodger led the ‘Hawks to their second straight Big Eight championship and berth in the NCAA Tournament, where KU lost to Houston in the first round. He was even the leading scorer that season ahead of future Naismith Hall of Famer Jo Jo White, a sophomore who averaged 14.8 points per game.

Voice of the Jayhawks Tom Hedrick, someone I loved to listen to on the radio growing up and one of the most positive, kindest and genuine people I’ve ever met, called Rodger “The Machine” for his lethal turnaround jump shot. Hedrick also coined Bohnenstiehl “quick as a hiccup.”

I had a wonderful and memorable Where Are They Now? interview with Rodger in 2001 for Jayhawk Insider, where he talked openly about his recruitment to KU and how instrumental KU assistant Sam Miranda — a fellow Collinsville, Ill., native — was to luring him to Mount Oread. Rodger also spoke of practicing that sweet turnaround jump shot for endless hours in high school and his favorite memories of being a Jayhawk.

Thanks Rodger for the time you gave me. I will forever be grateful.

...

“This is what happened. I originally had visited the University of Missouri, Evansville and Indiana. Sam Miranda called me. He was in New Mexico. I flew out to New Mexico and I really liked it. While I was there, I signed a conference letter of intent because I liked Sam and I liked the school. When I got back home, my father got real ill, I mean really, really ill. My mother and I talked. We decided that was too far to go. It was two and a half hours by jet. She thought I should stay stay somewhere closer to home. So I was going to call Bob Vanatta, who was the head basketball coach at Missouri and ask him if the scholarship there was still good. While I was in the process of thinking about doing that, Sam Miranda called. He said, 'I’m leaving New Mexico and going to Kansas.’ I said, ‘Well, that's great Sam, because I’m not going to New Mexico either because my dad is very, very ill, and my mother wants me to stay close. I’m going to call Bob Vanatta and see if he’s still got a scholarship. He said, ’No you’re not. You come out to Kansas. I want you to see that before you do anything,’ so I flew out and fell in love with the place.’ This was like early June when I went out there, and there were a bunch of guys around there, Riney Lochmann, Wesley Unseld, and guys like that. I hung around with them. They were great guys, people I wanted to be with and a part of.

“In high school, that’s all I did was turnaround jump shots. It was quite an adjustment to play facing the basket. The offense that was designed put me in position where I could use the turnaround jump shot quite a bit. A lot of times, I’d get the opportunity to post up inside, and that’s where I was able to use it.”

“We had a guy when I was in high school named Bogey Redmond. My freshman year in high school, they won the state. They were 32-0. I kind of idolized him as a player.  He was 6-6 and 220, and I was about 6-6 and 180. He was kind of my idol. I always wanted to be like him, but better. I think in order to be a player, I think you got to have somebody that you kind of idolize. You got to kind of mimic after him. I didn’t like the pros.  At that time, there wasn’t any college basketball on TV, but it was on the radio. I used to listen to the Cincinnati Bearcats.

“As an eight grader, I was cut from the team, so I wasn’t go to try out as a freshman. I wasn’t going to get cut again. I was playing in PE, and Coach Fletcher asked if I was coming out for basketball. I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you come out and try it. If you like, you can stay, if you don’t, you can go ahead and go.’ So that’s how I got my start in basketball. I liked it, I stayed with it. He worked with me. We had some great teams there. We were 75-14 for three years in high school. It’s a lot like my college career. My sophomore year, we were ] 26-8, my  junior year we were 26-3 and lost in the super sectional, which was one game before state. My senior year, we were undefeated all year and lost in the super sectional by five points, just one game before state. I’ve always been close, but no cigar so to speak.

“I spent a lot of my time at the gym in the summer, a lot of time by myself practicing that shot. I go by and get the key from his (Coach Fletcher) house and practice it. I’d go by at 8 a.m. and get it, and give it back at noon. Every morning during the week. That’s the only way you get better is by working at it and working hard at it.”

Here is that 2001 Where Are They Now? story.

...

Rodger Bohnenstiehl’s jump shot didn’t exactly set the world on fire his eighth grade year in Collinsville, Ill. In fact, he was cut from the team and didn’t even plan on trying out again the following season.

 

Bohnenstiehl, however, had a change of heart when the basketball coach approached him one day in physical education class.

“Coach (Virgil) Fletcher asked if I was coming out for basketball,” Bohnenstiehl recalled recently from his home in Crete, Ill. “I told him, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you come out and try it. If you like it, you can stay. If you don’t, you can go ahead and go.’”

Bohnenstiehl stuck with the sport and eventually blossomed into a high school standout. He worked conscientiously with his coach after practice, as well as spending endless hours by himself each morning during the sweltering summer months perfecting his turnaround jump shot.

“I’d go by and get the key (to the gym) from his (Fletcher) house at 8 and give it back to him at noon,” Bohnenstiehl said.  “That’s the only way you get better is by working hard at it.”

Recruited by KU assistant coach and fellow Collinsville native Sam Miranda, Bohnenstiehl (6-6) brought his sweet turnaround jumper to Mount Oread in 1964. He substituted for All-American Walt Wesley at center his sophomore season (1965-66) before starting at forward his junior and senior campaigns. Bohnenstiehl, who was All-Big Eight as a junior (16.4 ppg) and finished his career as the No. 9-leading scorer in Jayhawk history (1,006 points), set a Big Eight field goal percentage record (56.6 percent) that stood for many years.

“Voice of the Jayhawks” Tom Hedrick was so enamored by Bohnenstiehl’s uncanny shooting accuracy and trademark jump shot that he nicknamed him “The Machine.” Hedrick coined he was “quick as a hiccup.”

“That (turnaround jumper) was the only way I could score because I played against people that were a lot bigger than I was,” Bohnenstiehl said. “You had to do something to get your shot off. I just tried to be as quick as I could. I wasn’t fast, but I was quick.”

Bohnenstiehl played an instrumental cog in some of the most successful years in KU basketball.  Kansas won two Big Eight championships and went 23-4 in both 1965-66 and 1966-67. The ‘66 squad with Wesley and Jo Jo White lost to Texas Western (eventual NCAA champs) in the Midwest Regional finals, while the ‘67 team got beat in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Allen Fieldhouse. Bohnenstiehl led KU to the NIT finals in Madison Square Garden his senior year (22-8) before falling to Dayton.

“It seemed like even though we had a lot of success, we could never get the big one,” he said.  “We just came so close.”

Despite not winning the “big one,” Bohnenstiehl and his teammates enjoyed every second of the ride.

“We loved it,” he said. “It’s always great because teams were shooting for you and you know you had to be at your best. We went to some places like Oklahoma and Nebraska where it was just brutal. Nebraska had that small gym where the out-of-bounds lines were right at the bleachers. When you stood there and took the ball out of bounds, people would pull hair off your legs.”

After concluding a scintillating career in 1968, Bohnenstiehl was drafted by both New York (NBA) and the Pittsburgh Pipers (ABA). He made it to the Pipers’ last cut.

“I broke my nose and ring finger,” Bohnenstiehl said. “I guess it wasn’t to be.”

He then played AAU basketball in Lawrence before returning to native Illinois in 1970 and embarking on a high school teaching and coaching career. From 1985 to 1997, Bohnenstiehl served as head basketball coach at Rich South High School. Bohnenstiehl, who still teaches P.E. and driver’s education at Rich South, received great satisfaction from coaching and shaping young men.

“The biggest joy is watching kids improve and being able to put a team together and make it jell,” he said.

 “The Machine” certainly made remarkable improvement himself since those days of yesteryear when he was cut from his eighth grade basketball team. Bohnenstiehl is thankful his basketball skills and turnaround jump shot allowed him the opportunity to play at such a tradition rich university as Kansas, and treasures the lifetime friendships he built with teammates and coaches.  

Asked now about his feelings in breaking the 1,000-point barrier his final college game, Bohnenstiehl speaks from the heart.

“I wasn’t much for stats or watching how many points I scored,” he replied. “I just loved the game and tried to play it my hardest.”

A Closer Look at Rodger Bohnenstiehl:

Years at KU: 1964-68

Career Notables: All Big Eight in 1967 (led KU in scoring at 16.4 ppg)...Captain of ‘68 team...Paced KU in field goal percentage 1966-68 (set a Big Eight career record of 56.6 percent that stood for years)...Finished career as No. 9 all-time leading scorer.

Family: Wife, Gail, and children — Michael, 20, Katie, 17.

Education: 1969, B.S. Physical Education; 1991, M.S. Educational Administration (Governor’s State University in Illinois).

Since Leaving KU: Bohnenstiehl played AAU basketball in Lawrence before returning to native Illinois in 1970 and embarking on a high school teaching and coaching career. He taught and coached at four schools (Kankakee, Rich East, Bradley, and Rich South). In 1997, he quit his job (12 years) as head basketball coach at Rich South. 

Currently:  Bohnenstiehl lives in Crete, Ill., and teaches physical education and driver’s education at Rich South High School.

Hobbies: Handyman work, golf, painting.

Favorite Memories: The 1965-66 squad. “We had a lot of talent there. We had some depth. Things really jelled for us. It was just an outstanding year.”...Final home game on March 9, 1968 (Bohnenstiehl went 10-11 from the field as KU thrashed Iowa State, 91-58, in a nationally televised contest). “I had my family there.  It was something special.”

On The Jayhawks Today: “It’s fun to watch them. There are a lot of people in the area that know I went to Kansas. They watch the games, and we talk about them...He’s (Roy Williams) kept the tradition going. That’s not always easy to do, especially with the pressures.”

My tribute to former great KU assistant coach Sam Miranda

In Part II on Sam Miranda, I write about my tribute to him after he passed in 2009. This was published in Jayhawk Illustrated.

...

The news hit me hard and sharp, jolting me wide awake in the late night hours on May 29.

It was near 3 a.m. when I went online and read that former KU assistant basketball coach Sam Miranda had died of cancer the previous day at age 78. I stayed awake the rest of the evening and the next day with Miranda occupying all my thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Miranda was not just a Jayhawk assistant under Ted Owens from 1964-77. He was a legendary recruiter and master teacher who won over recruits and players with his supreme salesmanship, enthusiasm, persistence, tireless work ethic, honesty, and demanding tough love.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Miranda in November of 2000 for a Where Are They Now? feature for Jayhawk Insider magazine. I’ve often thought of that interview the last decade and how much fun I had hearing Miranda’s recruiting stories. And I thought Sam enjoyed reminiscing about his KU days maybe just as much.

He was full of energy that night, full of life, full of love and passion for his family and Kansas basketball. While he was no longer affiliated with KU after he resigned in 1977, Miranda never once stopped believing, cheering, and supporting the school he gave his heart and soul to for 13 years.

He laughed some while recalling his recruiting stories of former Jayhawks like Rick Suttle, Roger Morningstar, Tom Kivisto and Dale Greenlee — four of my first KU basketball heroes and stars on the 1973-74 Final Four team.

These were players I put on a pedestal; they became larger than life to me as a very impressionable 7-year-old boy growing up in Lawrence. They could simply do no wrong. At the time, I gave no thought as to how these players arrived at KU or who was responsible in recruiting them. Heck, I was too young to think about that. I just watched in awe and wonder as Suttle and company drove KU on a magical ride to the Final Four. 

Years later, I became a diligent student of KU basketball history and read voraciously every book and article I could find about the Jayhawks’ past. That’s when I learned about Miranda’s influence on KU basketball, how he started the Illinois pipeline to Kansas and got Jo Jo White to sign with Kansas without ever seeing him play in person. 

Then I had the good fortune to interview Miranda and many of his former players in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and learned even more about this unsung hero of Kansas basketball.

In 2000, he was voted by a blue-ribbon Jayhawk panel as the best assistant coach in Kansas basketball history.

 “There’s been a lot of fine, fine coaches, and whomever that panel was, I appreciate their thoughtfulness very much,” Miranda told me in our interview in 2000. “That’s a fine honor when you think of 103 years of Kansas basketball, and to be selected as the top person, that’s quite a good feeling.”

Miranda’s basketball roots were planted in Collinsville, Ill., where he was Prep Player of the Year for the St. Louis metro area his junior year of high school in 1947 and named first-team All-State in 1948. Miranda, who was inducted as a player into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1973, became a star guard at Indiana under legendary coach Branch McCracken. He earned second-team all-Big Ten honors as a junior in 1951 and was named first-team Little All-American in 1951 and 1952.

Miranda’s dribbling ability gained national acclaim; in 1950, he was selected to demonstrate ball handling skills in a General Mills educational sports film. After his senior year in 1952, Miranda toured against the Harlem Globetrotters as a member of the College All-Star team.

 He spent two years in the U.S. Army before embarking on a coaching career in the Illinois high school ranks for eight years, where he built lasting relationships and contacts with his players and fellow coaches. Miranda then became an assistant coach at New Mexico for two years before new KU head coach Ted Owens hired him as his top aide in 1964 after taking over for Dick Harp.

Miranda actually first met Owens (KU assistant at the time under Harp) for about five minutes when he was an assistant at New Mexico during a trip to Lawrence, where he was scouting the Jayhawks in preparation for the Lobos game with Kansas in Albuquerque on Dec. 19, 1963.

New Mexico won, 59-54.

“That was the biggest game and biggest win the University of New Mexico ever had up to that point by far,” Miranda said.

After that 1963-64 season, Miranda stopped at an interstate restaurant north of Chicago on a recruiting trip and picked up the paper and read that Harp had resigned and Owens was the new KU head coach.

“I just thought at the time, ‘Man, what a great break for Ted. A relatively young person to get that kind of job,’” Miranda said. “And then about four or five days later, I got a call from him in regards to (joining his staff). He wanted to recruit the Illinois and St. Louis area, where I had some success recruiting. He came out to Albuquerque and we visited a night or so. I came back the next weekend (to Lawrence) and looked around and decided to come to KU.”

Miranda went right to work, securing a commitment from fellow Collinsville native and high school All-American Rodger Bohnenstiehl, and then soon lured White from St. Louis.

He was just beginning. 

Focusing primarily in the Illinois and St. Louis area, Miranda brought in a boatload of talent from Illinois the next 13 years. In fact, the 1974 Final Four team comprised 10 players from Illinois, including seven of the top eight.

"I was from Illinois and knew it was a great basketball state," Miranda once told writer Taylor Bell of the Chicago Sun-Times. "I knew a lot of high school coaches. I figured we had to outwork people. I was on the phone every night from 7 to 10 talking to players in Illinois. We had practice on Friday afternoon. Afterward, I'd catch a flight in Kansas City, fly to Illinois, see a game, visit with parents, 

go to dinner, then fly back on a 12:45 flight to Kansas City."

Miranda simply outworked his competition. He was quite passionate about recruiting. 

“I enjoyed recruiting,” Miranda told me. “It’s a challenge. You go in a home the summer time prior to their senior year. You’re in there with all the big schools and you’re trying to be one of the five to come out and visit your school. When you walk out on a summer evening, you know if you’ve done a good or bad job. It’s an exhilarating feeling when you walk out and you’ve done a good job of recruiting and get the kid to commit and say, ‘Yes, I’ll come visit Kansas.’”

Bell said Miranda was peerless in his profession.

“Since I began covering high school sports in the 1950s, I've become acquainted with the process and some of the best football and basketball recruiters who ever persuaded a highly impressionable teenager to leave his family, friends and hometown for a name on a map that the youngster didn't know existed. In some cases, there wasn't even a name,” Bell wrote.

“Sam Miranda was the best of all. ... Miranda built Kansas into a Final Four program in the 1970s by recruiting many of the best high school players in Illinois, including Springfield's Dave Robisch, East Aurora's Tom Kivisto, Collinsville's Rodger Bohnenstiehl, Kenwood's Donnie Von Moore and Kewanee's Tommie Smith. He set the standard for recruiters who followed him. He wrote the book. Nobody worked harder. In an era where there were virtually no restrictions on recruiting, Miranda literally camped out on a recruit's doorstep. Before anyone else, he understood the two most important axioms of recruiting: 

“1. The first coach in the door usually is the one who signs the kid.

2. You must learn who will make the final decision—athlete, father, mother, grandmother, uncle, high school coach, AAU coach—and form a close relationship.”

Miranda spoke to me about that recruiting philosophy.

“In recruiting, I always thought in any family, there’s basically one person who is the key person in recruiting the youngster,” Miranda said. “You recruit the young man and then you recruit the person who is going to help (him) make that decision.”

In Suttle’s case, Miranda won over his mother’s respect. Suttle was leaning towards Jacksonville, which had been to the Final Four in 1970, before eventually signing with KU.

“I recruited him hard for three years,” Miranda said. “Finally in the end, (Suttle’s mom) said, ‘You’re going with Sam. That’s it.’ ... She just had confidence in us.”

Miranda landed White through the confidence and trust of his high school coach, Jodie Bailey.

“About the third or fourth time I was back to see Jo Jo, we’re at a restaurant talking and I’m going over why I thought he should come to Kansas and everything,” Miranda said. “Jodie Bailey was sitting there and he said, ‘Jo Jo, that sounds good to me.’ And that was it. That kind of sealed it.”

There was another reason why White signed with Kansas.

"I went to Kansas because I couldn't talk to any other coaches. I was always on the phone with Sam," Bell reported White once saying.

While Miranda was instrumental in recruiting and signing countless prospects over the years, he selflessly credited Owens for KU’s recruiting success.

“Of course, the head coach is naturally the vital guy because he’s got to make an impression,” Miranda said. “I don’t care how good an assistant coach is in recruiting, if the head coach doesn’t make a great impression, it’s going to be hard to get the kid. And Ted always did a great job recruiting.”

With his fierce coaching personality, Miranda was the perfect blend to Owens. As former Jayhawks like to say, Owens was the nice “good cop,” while Miranda played the “bad cop” role.

“Owens was the nice guy that tried to be mean,” Morningstar said. “We all kind of laughed at. Coach Miranda, you never looked at crosswise. He had the fear of God in all of us.”

But he also had the unyielding respect and love of all his players.

Just ask Morningstar.

“He was a great guy and meant so much to a lot of us,” Morningstar wrote me in an email after Miranda’s death.

Just ask former KU center Roger Brown.

 

Brown was one of countless post players who made huge strides under Miranda’s tutelage. Brown credits Miranda, who worked primarily with KU’s big men — as a key factor in his development.

“He said (during the recruiting process) he was going to be out there every day working with me,” Brown said during an interview in 2002. “I didn’t take him seriously. I just took it in passing, but when I got there and realized how intense he was as a coach and that he was true to his word, I said, ‘OK, then.’

“He spent a lot of time with me and Dave (Robisch) every day. I think that was a big factor in my development. I think that was a major thing that he gave attention to all the players, especially the big men.  I think that was instrumental.”  

Just ask Von Moore.

“If it wasn’t for Sam I would not have ever gotten off the bench at Kansas,” Von Moore commented last April in Suntimes.com after a story on Miranda. “I can still hear those familiar words: ‘Don't you think we should put Donnie in the game.’ Every time he said it Ted would put me in the game. He taught me how to play the game and believed in me. But most importantly he taught me honor, dignity and respect. He was my role model and I carry a part of him with me to this very day. When I coach and when I teach. 

“What a gift. Thanks Sam.”

Just ask Greenlee.

“Sam Miranda is one of the finest men I have ever known,” Greenlee commented in Suntimes.com in May. “I had broken my ankle my senior year of high school playing football, so all of the colleges that had been recruiting me for basketball backed off. My high school football coach in Rockford, Illinois, Bill Swaby, grew up with Coach Miranda in Collinsville, and got Sam to take a look at me. Coach showed faith in me and allowed me to come to KU for a fantastic four years of my life. Best break I ever had. Thanks Coach Miranda, for everything. 

“You're the best!”

Just ask Bohnenstiehl.

“Sam was a great man to play for,” Bohnestiehl said during an interview in 2003. “He made you work. He was very disciplined. You had to work hard.”

Just ask White.

“Ted is like a second father to me, he and coach Miranda,” White said after his jersey retirement ceremony at Allen Fieldhouse in 2003. “They (Miranda and Owens) were more than just coaches. 

They were friends to us, they were our confidant. Our relationship continues on, far beyond the KU days.”

Indeed, many of Miranda’s former players kept in touch and met with him when they visited Lawrence. Miranda cherished the lifetime relationships he built with his players and was so proud of their post-KU accomplishments.

 “I think the association with the players is probably the most important thing for any coach, really, particularly after your finished coaching,” Miranda told me. “The players that you do get and how they perform and how they work hard and how they do a great job for the university and their teammates is always something to reflect and look back on.”

“(It’s a) good feeling to see the guys go on and be successful in sports and out of sports.”

After the 1976-77 season, two Final Fours (1971 and ‘74) and 23 years in the coaching profession, Miranda left KU and went to work for Maupintour Travel. He was an outside sales manager for 17 years before retiring in 1994. 

He lived in Lawrence ever since with his wife, Polly.

“It’s been a very satisfying life,” Miranda said in 2000.

Miranda left an indelible impact with everyone he met along the way. One reader of the Respublica.com captured the sentiments of all who knew Miranda with a comment on the Illinois community blog’s website after Miranda’s death.

“Every basketball town, every town, deserves a Sam, but too few have them.”

Sam Miranda was one of the best assistant coaches in KU basketball history

I had the good fortune to interview former KU assistant coach Sam Miranda in 2000 for a Where Are They Now? story for Jayhawk Insider. We had a wonderful conversation as Miranda mesmerized me with stories of recruiting the likes of Jo Jo White, Rick Suttle, Dave Robisch and Tom Kivisto.

A Collinsville, Ill., native and former standout guard at Indiana who was inducted as a player into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1973, Miranda was responsible for recruiting the Illinois pipeline. Seven of the eight top players on the 1974 Final Four team hailed from Illinois, my heroes like Suttle, Kivisto, Roger Morningstar, Dale Greenleee and Norm Cook.

Miranda, who served for 13 years as KU head coach Ted Owens’ loyal assistant and was part of two Final Fours and five Big Eight championships, was voted by a Jayhawk blue-ribbon panel in 2000 as the best assistant coach in KU history, an honor that deeply humbled him.

“There’s been a lot of fine, fine coaches, and whoever that panel was, I appreciate their thoughtfulness very much,” he said. “That’s a fine honor when you think of 103 years of Kansas basketball, and to be selected as the top person, that’s quite a good feeling.”

I was very saddened when he passed at age 78 in 2009 and thought of him constantly. However, I also felt some comfort knowing I got a chance to interview him and hear his favorite KU memories and how his life turned out during our talk in 2000. I still have very fond memories about our interview. 

Sam was a very demanding and tough coach, but his players deeply loved and respected him. Miranda cherished the lifelong relationships he built with his players, including White.

After his jersey retirement ceremony at Allen Fieldhouse in 2003, where Miranda and Owens stood next to Jo Jo at midcourt as White’s No. 15 jersey was unfurled in the rafters, I asked Jo Jo how he felt about Sam and Ted.

“Ted is like a second father to me, he and coach Miranda,” White told me. “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 mentioned Miranda at his Hall of Fame induction in Springfield, Mass., in 2015 as being a very influential figure for him at KU, along with Owens.

In this two-part series, I first recall my Where Are They Now? story on Miranda in 2000. Then, in Part II, I will include my heartfelt tribute story about him when he passed in 2009.

Sam, thanks for the memories and recruiting so many of my childhood heroes, players that brought me so much joy and wonder growing up in Lawrence and attending KU games with my dad with our season tickets since 1973 before I began covering KU hoops in 1998 for 20 years.

...

When Sam Miranda became the assistant basketball coach at Kansas in 1964, he soon made a call to a high school coach in St. Louis, Mo.

“I asked him, ‘Who do you think is the best player in St. Louis?’  He said, ‘Sam, the best player in St. Louis by far is Jo Jo White. You don’t even have to see him. If you can can get him, take him.’”

Miranda immediately launched a recruiting blitz on this phenom guard from McKinley High School. He called White three or four times a week and visited his family at home in the summer.

“About the third or fourth time I was back to see Jo Jo, we’re at a restaurant talking and I’m going over why I thought he should come to Kansas and everything,” Miranda said. “Jodie Bailey (White’s high school coach) was sitting there and he said, ‘Jo Jo, that sounds good to me.’ And that was it. That kind of sealed it.”

White, of course, eventually signed with Kansas and became arguably the best guard in Big Eight history. For Miranda, he was just  beginning. Throughout his 13-year tenure as Ted Owens’ top assistant and chief recruiter, Miranda was instrumental in signing countless high school standouts. Names like Rodger Bohnenstiehl, Dave Robisch, Tom Kivisto, Roger Morningstar and Rick Suttle still dance in his mind.

A native of Collinsville, Ill., Miranda had especially good success recruiting in the Illinois and St. Louis area (seven of the top eight players on the 1974 Final Four team hailed from Illinois).  

“I enjoyed recruiting,” Miranda said recently from his home in Lawrence, Kan. “It’s a challenge. You go in a home the summer time prior to their senior year. You’re in there with all the big schools and you’re trying to be one of the five to come out and visit your school. When you walk out on a summer evening, you know if you’ve done a good or bad job. It’s an exhilarating feeling when you walk out and you’ve done a good job of recruiting and get the kid to commit and say, ‘Yes, I’ll come visit Kansas.’”

 

Regarded as one of the most honest, knowledgeable, and talented assistants in the collegiate ranks, Miranda was recently selected by a blue-ribbon Jayhawk panel as the top assistant coach in Kansas history.  

 

“There’s been a lot of fine, fine coaches, and whoever that panel was, I appreciate their thoughtfulness very much,” he said. “That’s a fine honor when you think of 103 years of Kansas basketball, and to be selected as the top person, that’s quite a good feeling.”

Miranda has many warm feelings about his KU days, including the great 1966 team. He can’t possibly forget the NCAA tournament regional finals that year against Texas Western, when the officials ruled that White had stepped out of bounds just before a game-winning shot in OT.

“I don’t know if KU’s ever had a better team,” Miranda said. “We had four or five guys who played NBA and ABA (White, Walt Wesley. Riney Lochmann, Ron Franz and Bobby Wilson). The ones who didn’t — Bohnenstiehl, Delvy Lewis and Al Lopes — were all outstanding college players. I honestly believe we would have won the national championship.”

After the 1976-77 season and 23 years in the coaching profession (eight in high school and 15 at the college level), Miranda left KU and went to work for Maupintour Travel. He was an outside sales manager for 17 years before retiring in 1994. 

Miranda admits now that he might have erred in not going after a couple head-coaching positions during his tenure at KU.

“You got to do what you think is right at the time,” he said. “I just thought at the time I would stay at KU. It was probably a mistake.”

However, Miranda loved his job at Maupintour and is at peace with himself living in Lawrence with his wife, Polly.  

“It’s been a very satisfying life,” he said. 

It’s a life made richer with the lasting relationships built with so many former players that he recruited to Mount Oread. Miranda’s voice becomes more lively now as he reflects back to the late 1960s and his recruitment of Robisch, a standout center from Springfield, Ill. who had just broken all of the scoring records in the Illinois state tournament. 

“Everybody in the country wanted him,” Miranda said. “We (Miranda and Owens) go back to see him just to make sure we’re in the picture, still fighting for him. So we sit down and visit quite a while. His dad, who was a Lutheran minister, said, ‘Coach, I’m going to excuse ourselves. Dave and I are going to go out on the back porch and talk a little bit. We’ll be right back.’ They came back in 10 minutes or so and his dad says, ‘Well, Dave and I have talked, and we’ve decided he’s going to come to Kansas.’” You could have knocked us over with a feather because we’re back there just to stay in the picture, and he commits that night!”

And Miranda’s reaction that moment?

“We felt pretty darn good about it, naturally,” Miranda said, laughing. “We kept our composure and congratulated him.”

A Closer Look at Sam Miranda:

Years at KU: 1964-1977

Career Notables: Member of two Final Fours and five conference championships...instrumental in recruiting the Illinois and St. Louis area pipeline...selected best assistant coach in KU history by blue-ribbon Jayhawk panel.

Family: Miranda and his wife, Polly, have four daughters (Joanna, Sueanna, Sarah, and Laurie) and seven grandchildren.

Education: 1952, B.S. Physical Education, Indiana University (Miranda earned second-team All-Big 10 basketball honors as a junior and was a member of the College All-Star team his senior year in its annual tour against the Harlem Globetrotters). 1956, M.S. Education, Southern Illinois.

Since Leaving KU: Miranda worked for Maupintour Travel for 17 years as an outside sales manager before retiring in 1994.

Currently: Miranda is retired and lives in Lawrence.

Hobbies: tennis, yard work, and spending time with grandchildren.

Favorite KU Memories: 1966 squad and 1971 and ‘74 Final Four teams...Whipping No. 4 Long Beach State at halftime, 32-8, on Dec. 1, 1970 (KU won 69-52). “They couldn’t even get a shot off...The crowd was screaming and yelling. We just played tremendous.”

On the Jayhawks Today: “I think they’re outstanding. Roy Williams does a fabulous job. He’s probably the best coach Kansas has ever had — on and off the floor.”

Jo Jo White was an iron man and one of the all-time NBA greats

This next player during the series is the No. 1 former Jayhawk guard to have the best NBA career, and one of only two backcourt players in the top-10. Jo Jo White was one of the all-time NBA greats who is now enshrined in Springfield, Mass., in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame after giving his heart and soul to the game for so many years.

No. 3 Jo Jo White

The No. 9 overall pick in the first round by the Boston Celtics in the 1969 NBA Draft just after legendary Boston center Bill Russell retired, Jo Jo White helped usher in a new era in Beantown while playing 12 seasons in the league and making his name as one of the all-time Celtics and NBA greats. White’s No. 10 jersey was retired and hung from the rafters on April 9, 1982 in Boston Garden, while he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in September 2015, a long overdue wait for the former Jayhawk star.

"I am so honored to be here,” ESPN.com reported White saying at his media conference on Sept. 10, the day before his induction. “I only wish my mother and father were here.

"I absolutely adored playing this game," White added. "I'm so proud to be right here."

The jubilant White, who had brain surgery seven years ago and had to relearn how to talk and walk, had no complaints that this magical and priceless moment took so long.

"I didn't play the game for (individual honors)," White said. "I don't make those decisions. To see them finally get to you, it's like, 'Oh, you're in now.' I don't make those decisions.”

The 6-3 guard, who played his first nine-plus seasons in Boston before finishing up with Golden State and Kansas City in 1981, ranks No. 9 all time in Celtics history in minutes and field goals, No. 8 in field goals attempts and points per game (18.4), No. 7 in assists, No. 10 in points and steals per game, and No. 6 in minutes per game (37.3).

White had a complete offensive and defensive game, and was one of the NBA’s first “iron men,” competing in all 82 games from 1972-77 and also playing over 3,200 minutes each season from 1971-77, where the St. Louis, Mo., native was an All-Star for seven-straight years while finishing in the top-10 in the league in total assists from 1972-77. He also ranked No. 9 in field goals in 1971-72 and No. 8 in 1975-76 and No. 7 in free throw percentage in 1976-77 and No. 6 in 1978-79.

White, who was named first-team All-Rookie and second-team All-NBA in 1974-75 and 1976-77, averaged a career-high 23.1 points per game in 1971-72 (third year in league) and a career-best 6.1 assists per game in 1972-73.

He helped lead the Celtics to the NBA championship in 1974 and 1976 and was MVP of the ‘76 Finals, the crowning moment of his career. White came up with a memorable and thrilling performance against the Phoenix Suns in Game Five, scoring a game-high 33 points, dishing a game-best nine assists in 60 minutes as Boston won, 128-126, in triple overtime.

Many basketball observers claim that to be the greatest game ever played.

“This I would say is frozen in time,” White said on NBA.com during a chat session in 2006. “I happened to be on the floor for 60 minutes of the game. I vividly remember just about every play made during that game.

“I personally would have to say it was one of the greatest games, and I was very happy to be a part of it. It had so many heroes in it. Certainly it was the longest game I'd ever been in, with so many players making so many big shots. It was draining. It was strenuous. You had to reach down for everything you had to pull out a victory. It had all the dramatics that anyone could ask for.”

White said he became extremely tired during the game, but was driven to complete the contest and win.

“Fatigue became a factor. I was tired, but I was conditioned to go the distance, so my thinking was that if I was tired, the other players were close to death. So that gave me motivation to push on, and any athlete worth his salt would want to be on the floor for that game, and I was up to the task.”

White, who competed in 837 games, finished his illustrious career with 14,399 points (17.2 ppg), 4,095 assists (4.9 apg), 3,345 rebounds (4.0 rpg) and 686 steals (1.3) in 35.8 minutes per game (No. 45 all time). White also shot 44.4 percent from the field and 83.4 percent at the free throw line (No. 96 all time).

White, who always came up big in the postseason, played in six playoff series (80 games) and averaged 21.5 points, 5.7 assists, 4.4 rebounds in 42.9 minutes per game.

He also ranks No. 84 all time in 2-point field goals and No. 42 in defensive rating (100.8).

Bill Simmons lists White the No. 95 best player in NBA history in his 2009 “The Book of Basketball.” Simmons cites White’s clutch play in Game Five of the ‘76 Finals, when he hit a big technical at the end of the second overtime, and then the clinching free throws in the third OT, “even though he was so exhausted by that point, he was sitting down on the court when Phoenix shot free throws.

“If your life depended on it, you wanted Jo Jo out there. Period.”

White was a tremendous all-around athlete and was actually also drafted by baseball’s Cincinnati Reds and the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. But he chose to pursue his first love with hoops. White’s former head coach at Boston, Tommy Heinsohn, who was also inducted into the Hall of Fame in September 2015 as a coach, said he was a supreme Celtic.

"I've been a big champion of (White). He should have been in a long time ago," Heinsohn told ESPN.com. "He was a significant player on a very successful (two-time championship team).

"I can still remember him, after the triple-overtime game where he played (60) minutes (of a possible 63), unable to get off the (locker room) floor after the game was over. He truly loved the game. And a lot of people took him for granted. He's one of those guys on the Celtics that was a terrific, terrific player."

Heinsohn was one of just many admirers of White’s during his career. The 1978 Complete Pro Basketball Handbook wrote that former Celtic great Bob Cousy “says (White’s) play selection is almost flawless.”

Before he achieved greatness in the NBA, White was a star at Kansas. A two-time All-American in 1968 and 1969, White was also a three-time All-Big Eight selection and a member of the 1968 gold-medal USA Olympic Team, where he became a national hero.

His jersey was retired in Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 27, 2003.

He scored a career-high 30 points against Colorado on Feb. 1, 1969 in his KU finale, the 999th win for the Jayhawk program, while finishing his career as the fourth-leading scorer in school history (1,286 points) and the highest among any KU guard.

“He had a truly great game considering the pressure, the occasion, his folks being here and the crowd wanting him to succeed,” KU coach Ted Owens told the Lawrence Journal-World afterwards. “I’ve never been happier for a player, and no player ever deserved such an ovation any more. I pulled him with 12 seconds left to sure he’d get the response he deserved.”

It was a fitting end to a stellar career. 

“Jo Jo White (was) probably the best guard that ever played in the Big Eight,” former and late KU assistant Sam Miranda told me in a November 2000 interview.

White, who was a mid-year high school graduate, came to Kansas without Owens and ace recruiter Miranda actually ever seeing him play.

“He worked out for just one or two days before the big freshmen rivalry game against Kansas State,” Owens wrote in his 2013 book, “At the Hang-Up.”

“It wasn’t very far into the game before we knew we had a tremendous player on our hands. Jo Jo was 6’3” and 190 pounds, and if a coach were going to order a point guard off the Internet (it would’ve been a mail order catalogue back then), the point guard would have looked like Jo Jo. He was such a complete player with great court vision, a calm and confident court presence and the ability to put pressure on the opposition point guard — oh, yeah, and he could shoot it, too.”

White shot, dribbled, passed and defended all the way to the Hall of Fame. His induction speech was prerecorded due to his health problems and shown on the video board. It was an emotional speech which received a huge ovation.

“In May 2010, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my brain,” White said. “The doctor said I wasn’t supposed to be here, but God had other other plan(s), and for this, I am truly, truly grateful. I always tried to be the best. I tried out for the high school JV team. I got cut, so what did I do? I went out for the varsity team and made it. ... I had two great mentors at the University of Kansas, my head coach Ted Owens (he was in attendance at White’s HOF induction) and the team’s assistant coach Sam Miranda. To Sam and Ted, I love you.

“Being drafted by the Boston Celtics was one of the best things to ever happen to me...”

And “one of the best things to ever happen” to the Celtics in Beantown, where his jersey lives in the rafters at TD Garden.

For all time.

Flashback: Jayhawk legend Jo Jo White gets his jersey retired in the Allen Fieldhouse rafters

Jo Jo White received a once-in-a-lifetime honor when he was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept. 11. While White told ESPN.com after his press conference the day prior to his induction that he "didn’t play the game for (individual honors)," he was still overwhelmed and thrilled to be enshrined after an extremely long wait after he last played in the NBA in 1981.

White, who had surgery to remove a brain tumor in 2010 and needed to learn how to talk and walk again, had his enshrinement speech pre-recorded on the video board.

Ted Owens, White’s former KU head coach, was in attendance at his enshrinement. I only wish Sam Miranda could have been there. Sam was Owens’ assistant at Kansas and the one who recruited White very hard to KU after accepting the Jayhawk coaching job in 1964. Miranda, who died in 2009, was close with White after all these years and always waited with anticipation each year when the Hall of Fame inductees were announced.

White said in his enshrinement speech that he loved both Owens and Miranda. Sam would have been proud of Jo Jo’s honor on Sept. 11, as would White’s late parents.

Before White became a seven-time NBA All-Star with the Celtics and one of the best players in C’s history, he was a two-time All-American at Kansas who lifted KU to great heights during his career. His jersey was retired in Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 27, 2003. I attended that game and wrote about the ceremony and White’s college and pro career in Jayhawk Insider Magazine. 

In tribute of Jo Jo’s Hall of Fame induction, here is that story from 2003.

...

It had been 35 years since Jo Jo White last created his hardwood magic in Allen Fieldhouse.  But now, here he was at 56 years old, back home where he belonged in Lawrence at his jersey retirement ceremony during halftime of the nationally televised KU-Texas game on Jan. 27.

As Jayhawk announcer Max Falkenstien introduced White, he spoke of the great contributions this ex-Kansas star made in his illustrious college and pro career. With former KU head coach Ted Owens and assistant Sam Miranda standing by his side, White soon picked up the microphone and spoke from the heart.

“I am humbled by this recognition,” White said with fervor.

He went on to say he could not have accomplished this alone.

“I gave you everything I had,” White said. “And, in return, you gave me everything you had. That’s what I call a relationship, our relationship. That relationship I will cherish for the rest of my life. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!”

The sellout crowd of 16,300 roared in approval, even those students who were not yet born during White’s career at Kansas.

“As long as we got tape, roll the tape,” White told the media a few minutes after his speech. “We got to keep them abreast of our history.  There is tremendous history here at the University of Kansas.”

Indeed, there is. And White has always been a major part of the great tradition of Kansas basketball. He was a three-time All-Big Eight selection and a two-time All-American. White led KU to two conference championships, one Elite Eight appearance, and a trip to the NIT finals. He was also a member of the U.S. Olympic gold medal winning team in 1968. White, who led KU in scoring his junior season (15.3 ppg) and tied with Dave Robisch for the team lead in scoring his senior year (18.1 ppg), currently ranks No. 21 on the KU career scoring charts.  

But White’s game transcended raw numbers and statistics. No. 15 played with passion, pride and intensity matched by very few who have ever played the game. And that’s how he spoke at halftime on Jan. 27. White, whose dad was a minister, resembled a preacher himself speaking to a jam-packed and mesmerized congregation.

“It was very emotional,” White said. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to say until I walked down on the floor. To be in a position for them to retire my number, it’s quite an honor.”

But, as White said in his speech, he had some help along the way.

“I recognize it is not because of my own energies,” he said. “I depended on a lot of people for my success. The old adage it takes an entire village for any one person to be successful, is true. I relied on all the fans, all the coaches, and they came through for me. I just hope that I came through for them.”

He sure did.

“He’s probably the best guard that ever played in the Big Eight,” Miranda said.

The former KU assistant coach had his eyes on the young star from McKinley High School in St. Louis, Mo., shortly after taking the Kansas job in 1964. Miranda fondly recalls White’s recruitment.

“His mom and dad right off the bat said, ‘Sam,we’re not all that knowledgeable on what a young person should be looking for. We’re going to rely a lot on Jodie Bailey (White’s high school coach).’ Jodie Bailey was the key guy, no question about it.”

During Miranda’s third or fourth visit with White, the KU aide went over his recruiting pitch again with the player during dinner. Bailey, who was sitting there, seemed quite impressed. Miranda said Bailey told White “’that sounds good to me.’ And that was it. That kind of sealed it.”

Miranda actually never saw White play, but worked tirelessly in recruiting the St. Louis native.

“He was a mid-year graduate,” Miranda said. “He graduated in December. I was going back to see him play, but there was a tremendous snowstorm and the plane couldn’t go out into St. Louis. That was early in December, and I just didn’t get back. He graduated, and we got him.”

“I bet I called him three or four times a week, at least,” Miranda added. “Just constantly calling him and talking to him. ...We had him out for a visit. The weekend he was out there was the Oklahoma football game (Oct. 17, 1964). The kickoff, Gale Sayers goes 96 yards for a touchdown, and the students went wild. The students after the game came out on the field. I think Kansas won 15-14. Jo Jo was really impressed with that, the enthusiasm of the crowd.”

It didn’t take long for White to make an impact at Kansas after becoming eligible at semester break. Starting his first game against Oklahoma State at home on Feb. 12, 1966, White caught the opening tip and went down and swished a 20-footer.  

A star was born.  

And then eight games later, White took his act onto the national stage against Texas Western in the second round of the NCAA Midwest Regional. With the score tied in overtime, KU called a timeout with seven seconds left.

“In that huddle, he kept saying, ‘Let me take it, let me take it. Coach, let me take it. I can make it. Let me take it,’ over and over again,” Miranda said. “All the other players didn’t say anything so we set it up for him. We threw it into him and set some screens down the left sideline. He went down and took the shot and made it, and we thought we won it in the first overtime. They ruled it out of bounds. The interesting part is he just insisted he wanted to take the shot, the youngest player that we had. He had great confidence in himself.”

KU, of course, lost that game, 81-80, in double overtime to the eventual national champions who revolutionized basketball with five black starters against all-white Kentucky in the title game. But White had certainly arrived as a player. His overall athleticism was a revelation to Kansas basketball.

“He probably started the thing to get the quick guard,” said former teammate Ron Franz. “He added a dimension that they hadn’t had in a while.”

While White had great athletic ability,” Franz said the 6-3 guard did have one weakness.

“He couldn’t dunk,” Franz said with a laugh. “We always made fun. We used to have a dunk line before we’d went in right before the game, and the only guy that didn’t dunk was Jo Jo. Everybody else dunked, but he never could dunk.”

After concluding his career as the No. 4 all-time leading scorer at Kansas, White became the ninth overall selection by Boston in the 1969 NBA Draft. A multidimensional athlete, White also had offers in professional baseball and football. He was drafted by both the Cincinnati Reds and Dallas Cowboys. But that was never a viable option for White, who followed his childhood dream and first love.

"Pro basketball was something I wanted to play since I was a little guy back in St. Louis," White told Celtics.com. "I thought a lot about it my senior year in college and remember figuring that if I ever earned $20,000 a year I'd really be doing something. I expected the NBA to be very demanding, a very tough league, and it was everything I expected."

White had a fabulous career, most notably with the tradition-rich Celtics. He made the All-Rookie team, and then became a seven-time All-Star (1971-77). He was All-NBA second team in 1975 and 1977, and won the NBA championship twice (1974 and ‘76). White was the consummate ironman, playing in all 82 regular-season games for five consecutive years (1972-77). 

He reached the pinnacle during the 1976 NBA Finals versus the Phoenix Suns, when White was named MVP of the series. In what many basketball observers hail as “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” White put on a show for the ages in leading Boston to a 128-126 triple overtime victory in Game 5. He scored a game-high 33 points and dished out nine assists in a whopping 60 minutes. 

White calls the game his “greatest  moment.”

"I would say it’s frozen in time,” he said. “I vividly remember just about every play made during that game. You know that saying about when it's your day, everything goes right. Well, that was my day. Everything I put up went in, everything I did was right."

White wound up playing 10 seasons for the Celtics before being traded to Golden State. He ended his storied career with Kansas City in 1981. For the record, White scored 14,399 career points (17.2 ppg) in 837 regular-season games. White, who was an assistant coach at KU from 1981-83, actually made a comeback of sorts with the CBA’s Topeka Sizzlers in 1987-88 (he played five games).

He’s worked with the Celtics as director of special projects and community relations representative since 2000. While Boston is home for White, he feels a deep loyalty and connection to KU and his former coaches. His daughter, Meka, is actually a student at Kansas.

“Ted is like a second father to me, he and coach Miranda,” White said. “They were more than just coaches. They were friends to us, they were our confidant. Our relationship continues on, far beyond the KU days.”

And now White is forever etched in KU history with his jersey retired from the Allen Fieldhouse rafters.

“It’s a fantastic thrill for me,” White said. “It’s awesome.”