Ted Owens talks race and Kansas basketball

This blog is full of excerpts of my 82-page honors thesis I wrote in 1988 at the University of Kansas. My adviser Norman Yetman interviewed Ted Owens in the 1980s after he was fired after 19 years as KU head coach, in which he served honorably and with great dignity. Yetman gave me FULL and COMPLETE permission to use Owens' quotes in my thesis. At one advising meeting, Yetman told me he "loved the way I milked" Owens' quotes throughout the thesis. This tape of Owens and all his wonderful quotes added so much to my thesis and really helped bring it to life. Ted Owens’ values and racial tolerance were instilled in him by his loving parents growing up on a cotton farm in Hollis, Oklahoma.

Owens’ parents taught him and his siblings to accept all people, regardless of their race.

Despite growing up without much contact with blacks, Owens developed much respect for African Americans, which he’s carried with him today. Contrary to many people in the South, Owens and his family did not view blacks on the basis of their skin color, but by their character.

“We admired the field workers," Owens said. ."..We judged people on the basis of their performance and the kind of persons they were.”

After a standout high school and college career at Oklahoma, Owens opened doors for African Americans at Cameron Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma, from 1956-60, where he coached the basketball and baseball teams. He recruited the first black player, Homer Watkins, in Oklahoma junior college history in 1958 and even invited Watkins to stay at his home at this predominantly white campus to make his new player feel more comfortable and welcome.

Owens signed three more black players the following year. In my 82-page honors thesis at KU in 1988 on “Racial Participation and Integration in University of Kansas Men’s Basketball: 1952-75,” I wrote that Owens was criticized by the white players’ parents, who did not like the fact that three blacks were playing ahead of their sons. However, Owens reiterated that he did not experience much outside pressure, as “we just didn’t let it become a problem.”

After receiving his big break in 1960 when KU coach Dick Harp hired him as assistant coach, Owens found himself coaching seven African-American players on the 1960-61 team. Owens said that KU was known then as the “blackhawks.” This racial slur hurt Kansas in recruiting, as its Sunflower rival Kansas State would use this term to scare off white recruits from going to KU.

“To recruit against Kansas State, you always had to deal with that problem,” Owens said. “If you were recruiting a white player in the state of Kansas, invariably Kansas State had made a big pitch of that, and you had to deal with that with them.”

Owens stressed that Kansas State boosters and alumni were most responsible in intimidating KU’s recruits, as he did not think the coaches themselves had anything to do with these actions.

Indeed, the KSU coaches had nothing to do with this. Kansas State head coach Tex Winter was a very tolerant and open-minded man who embraced blacks. K-State was actually a forerunner in the recruitment of blacks in the Big Seven, signing the first black basketball player in the league in 1950 with Gene Wilson, the same year KU’s Phog Allen signed his first African-American player in LaVannes Squires. Earl Woods (Tiger’s dad) was also KSU’s first black baseball player in 1951, while Harold Robinson became the Big Seven’s first African-American scholarship athlete (football) in 1949. Robinson later received a congratulatory letter from Jackie Robinson, who integrated major league baseball in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Soon after Owens was hired at KU, Harp sent him to recruit at the National Negro High School Tournament in Nashville. At the time, 16 states were still segregated so the top black high school players in the South convened at the Nashville tournament.

Owens related what a positive experience he had at the tournament. Although he felt a little conspicuous being one of the only whites in the stands with coach George Ireland of Loyola of Chicago, black recruiters made him feel quite welcome. This tournament had traditionally been a hotbed for black colleges, as they had their pick of an abundance of black talent. However, these black coaches were extremely supportive of Owens and his efforts to recruit the black players. Owens stated that the black coaches were so glad that KU and Loyola of Chicago would give these players a chance to play at a major university. Because of their warmth and hospitality, Owens respected the coaches greatly and viewed them as his “heroes.”

The tournament paid great dividends for Owens as he made contact with a coach there and recruited and signed Walt Wesley from Fort Myers, Florida, who would become an All-American in 1966 and enjoy a long NBA career who held the Cleveland Cavalier's long all-time record for most points in game (50) before LeBron James broke the mark.

When Owens replaced Harp as head coach in 1964, his first team in 1964-65 had just two black players, followed by four African-American players (starters Wesley, Jo Jo White, Al Lopes and reserve Bob Wilson) on the great 1965-66 team which lost to Texas Western in the Midwest Regional final. Texas Western made history that year with an all-black starting lineup beating all-white Kentucky for the national championship.

Owens refuted the notion what many historians say that the 1966 national championship was a watershed moment in opening doors for blacks in recruitment.

“They attribute that game to the breaking of racial barriers. The truth of the matter is when I came here in 1960, which was six years before then, we were starting four black players at that time,” Owens said. “They didn’t break the racial barrier. There were a lot of us who had done that before. Even (Texas Western coach) Don Haskins, which is the way we should all have have looked at it, he said, ‘I never thought about breaking racial barriers, I thought about winning basketball games and I wanted to get the best players that I could get.’ And of course, that’s the way it should have been all the time.”

However, while Harp, Ireland and a few others were pioneers in the recruitment of black players, all one has to look at the national average of black participation to see how Owens’ statement about the 1966 game may not be fully accurate.

In 1966, the national average of the country’s teams with blacks was 58 percent with 16 percent of black players representing all players. In 1970, four years after Texas Western’s defining win over UK, 80 percent of the country’s teams now had blacks on their roster with black players representing 27 percent of the total number of players.

The recruitment of blacks after 1966 was especially widespread in the South, where the SEC integrated in 1968 with Perry Wallace the first African-American scholarship athlete at Vanderbilt.

As I wrote in my thesis, Neil Issacs noted in All The Moves: A History of College Basketball, “By defeating Kentucky, Texas Western had finally gotten a lesson across to the SEC, the ACC, and the world: since that time no pretender to basketball eminence has ever drawn a color line in its recruiting.”

The SEC had no blacks before 1966. With Wallace’s arrival that year on campus at Vanderbilt (he had to sit a year as a freshman and became eligible in 1967-68), more African-American players flocked to the conference, other Southern leagues, and throughout America. Stanley Eitzen and George Sage reported in Sociology of North American Sport that “by 1975, black athletes were common in the SEC and in all the other athletic conferences. The transition from a segregated program to an integrated one is perhaps best illustrated by the University of Alabama; in 1968 there were no blacks on its teams, but its 1975 basketball team had an all-black starting lineup.”

Owens kept recruiting more black players as the years evolved. While his 1966-67 team had just three black players, there were five African Americans in 1968, six in 1969, four in 1970, five in 1971, four in 1972 and seven each in 1973,‘74 and ‘75. 1975 was the year “stacking” ended in college basketball, a sociological phenomenon where it has been documented that black players were overrepresented at forward and underrepresented in the outcome control positions of guard and center, which were considered central positions of leadership and intelligence.

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Scholars Norman Yetman and Forrest Berghorn wrote in 1987 that “considered the team quarterback or ‘floor general,’ the guard or point positions requires the qualities of good judgment, leadership and dependability...The center or post position was portrayed as having the greatest amount of outcome control because it is the position nearest to the ball. Finally, because the purely physical attributes of speed, quickness, strength and rebounding ability have been considered most important at the forward or wing, it has been referred to as the ‘animal’ position." In my well-documented and researched thesis, I noted that KU did not practice this form of stacking.

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As KU black players increased their prominence on the roster, outside pressures from fans and alumni did not disappear. Jack Olsen of Sports Illustrated wrote in 1968 that “the pressure has relaxed a little at KU, and Coach Ted Owens has occasionally used four Negroes at once without incident.”

While there might not have been as much pressure as in the early 1960s, Owens still encountered problems about playing too many blacks. Owens recalled the time when an alumnus told him that he was “playing too many damn n----s.” Furthermore, Owens referred to an incident when a booster approached him and stated:

 “’Ted, I really like you ... but the minute you start five of them (blacks) you lose me.’” 

Owens responded: ‘’Well, I’ll have to lose you if they end up being my five best players. If you think I could ask a young man to come here and play and not be given the fairest opportunity to start...’”

The former KU coach talked about a time in 1971, when some friends of his told him about what one of the fans said during a game. KU had just won 21 straight games, as the fans were all proud of the players when they came out for the starting lineup introductions. However, as the players came on the court, a fan stated: “I didn’t realize they started four blacks (Roger Brown, Bud Stallworth, Pierre Russell and Aubrey Nash).”

From Owens’ accounts, it seems clear that he experienced outside pressures from boosters and fans about recruiting and playing a large number of blacks. When asked whether the pressures were so great that he would be compelled to recruit more white players, Owens candidly replied:

“I think there was always that possibility and I tried to deal with it. I tried not to let it become a factor, but that possibility always existed, because even though they weren’t terribly vocal about it, there was still some feeling (about recruiting and playing too many blacks.)”

However, while Owens felt the pressures of race, he stated that he “tried over the years never to let race be a factor on my team, and never let it enter into (any basketball related decisions).”

Owens commented on the time when he could have succumbed to the pressure and started a white player, Bob Kivisto, over a black, Nash. In 1971, Kivisto and Nash were battling each other for the starting point guard position. As Owens decided about which player to start, he faced the dilemma of Kivisto’s father, Ernie. He was a legendary and prominent high school coach in Illinois who Owens thought could greatly help KU’s recruiting. 

Owens felt it would been very easy to start Kivisto over Nash. Although the two players were very close in ability, Owens started Nash, as he felt that Nash deserved the honor, for he was a tremendous competitor. While Kivisto’s father never made Owens’ decision into a racial matter, he became irate and threatened to take his son out of school. Owens knew this was one instance in which he could have let outside pressure influence his decision-making ability.

“If there ever was a time, that would have been easy to play the white,” Owens said, “because there wasn’t much different in the two, but I just believed in Aubrey Nash.”

As point guard and gritty player and defender, Nash helped lead KU to the 1971 Final Four and a dream 27-3 season.

Throughout his coaching career, Owens was consciously aware of the problems which could arise between white and black players, and he tried to create an atmosphere of harmony between his players, whereby the players would be judged on and off the court by their character and performance, and not by the color of their skin, just as Owens and his family viewed the field workers on his cotton farm growing up in Hollis.

Owens related that he never participated in the racial banter between his players and even coaches, for he felt this would disrupt the racial harmony between blacks and whites, and players would misinterpret Owens’ beliefs.

“I never wanted to be misunderstood,” Owens said. “I thought that people who joke about that sort of thing, that deep down there is some feeling there or they wouldn’t be (involved in the racial banter).”

Furthermore, Owens was quite conscious that he didn’t have any full-time black assistant coaches before hiring Lafayette Norwood in 1977. In fact, the lack of black assistant coaches caused Owens to worry that his black players might feel they weren’t given an equal opportunity to succeed. 

Owens used to tell his staff:

“‘The thing that I don’t want to ever hear out of one of our meetings, or anything connected with this organization, is for you to say anything about race or anything that would give a youngster a feeling that he wasn’t given the fairest opportunity.’”

Overall, in reflecting on his 19 years as KU head coach, Owens felt that there was a “great feeling racially on our teams. ... I have always taken pride in that race, or racial conflict, hasn’t been a big factor on our team.”

Owens, who believed strongly in racial equality from his early beginnings growing up on a cotton form in Oklahoma, commented on the benefits that he had experienced in his involvement with blacks through basketball.

“It helped a little bit to open doors or to make some things possible that wouldn’t have been,” he said. “... What’s happened to me has benefited me a great deal. ... I can look more in making judgments and make them not on a racial standpoint."

Thank you Ted Owens for making the world a better place.

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.

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“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.

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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.”

Jo Jo White made '65-66 special

It was 50 years ago that KU’s great 1965-66 team marched to to the Midwest Regional finals and nearly beat Texas Western (now UTEP), a team with five black starters which eventually won the national championship that year against all-white Kentucky. Texas Western’s championship revolutionized college basketball recruiting, especially in the South, as now blacks were given an equal opportunity at a scholarship and the American dream.

For Jayhawk Insider’s Feb. 22, 2001 March Madness preview, my editor asked me and another staff writer to pick the best KU basketball team in history. The other writer got first choice and selected the marvelous 34-2 1996-97 team, which was upset by Arizona (eventual national champion) in the Sweet 16.

A KU hoops historian, I weighed my decision on which KU team to pick as the all-time best. I considered the 1952 national champions, the 1971 Final Four team, the 1986 Final Four squad, and the 1966 team. I had gotten to know and interview some of the members of that ‘66 team through my Where are they Now? profiles in Jayhawk Insider, and had become fascinated with Ted Owens’ former squad. The more I thought about it, I decided they were the best team to ever play at Kansas, despite never advancing to the Final Four and winning a national championship.

Here is the story I write that February day in 2001 on the magical 1965-66 Jayhawks.

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It was perhaps the greatest decision of Ted Owens’ coaching career.

Owens knew the 1965-66 Kansas basketball team was quite good. At 15-3 and ranked No. 9 in the country at semester break, Owens felt his squad could possibly win the Big Eight Conference championship and make some noise in the NCAA Tournament. But with the addition of Jo Jo White (an early high school graduate in 1965 who became eligible at mid-semester in ‘66), Owens thought he had an exceptional team that could win the NCAA championship.

So he inserted the confident freshman from St. Louis, Mo., in the starting lineup against Oklahoma State at home on Feb. 12. White caught the opening tip and immediately made a 20-footer (KU coasted to a 59-38 win).

The making of greatness and the last piece of the puzzle to Forever’s Team had been planted.

White added a lethal dimension of speed, quickness, and offensive and defensive firepower to the lineup, which already included superstar center Walt Wesley, sharp shooting forward Ron Franz, athletic Al Lopes, and the crafty Del Lewis. KU not only won the next seven games, the ‘Hawks annihilated opponents with an astounding 26.4 scoring margin.

Included in this magical journey was a victory over top 10-ranked Nebraska in Allen Fieldhouse on Feb. 26, which had given KU its last defeat (83-75) over a month earlier. White and his teammates shredded the Cornhuskers’ full-court press for a 110-73 blowout. Owens later called this one of the greatest games ever played in Allen Fieldhouse.

KU blew out teams, in large part, with the deadly inside-outside combination of Wesley and White (11.3 points per game). Wesley (20.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per game), one of the top three centers in Jayhawk history, dominated the paint and was a first-team All-American. The dynamic duo guided Kansas to the Big Eight title (first time since 1960) and Midwest Regional finals in Lubbock, Texas, against Texas Western. With the score tied and seconds remaining in the game, KU called timeout. White, who had played just eight games in his college career, insisted on taking the last shot.

His long, rainbow jumper from the left sideline hit nothing but net.

However, KU’s celebration was short lived as the referee, Rudy Marich, waved off the shot and said White stepped on the end line. Kansas wound up losing the game in double overtime, 81-80.

If only fate had been on KU’s side (films later seemed to document that White had not stepped out of bounds), there might be little argument in local barber shops about which Jayhawk team reigns supreme. Texas Western advanced to the Final Four and beat Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcats (“Rupp’s Runts”) for the national championship, a team KU arguably would have manhandled, given its overwhelming size advantage and talent.

The 1965-66 squad was simply loaded with skilled players, as five members played professional basketball (only the 1996-97 team can claim this distinction). White — arguably the best guard to ever play in the Big Eight — was an NBA All-Star with the Boston Celtics. In addition, Franz (seven years), Riney Lochmann (three years) and Bobby Wilson all played in the ABA.

And then there was “Wonderful Walt” Wesley, who spent 11 years in the NBA and previously held the Cleveland Cavaliers single-game scoring record with 50 points. While the underrated Lewis (10.9 points per game) never played professionally, he made All-Big Eight that season. Lopes, too, did not play pro ball, but he ranked second on the team in scoring (12.4 points per game).

Along with the overwhelming talent, what made this squad even more special and unique was its cohesiveness and unselfishness. The team chemistry was superb with four players averaging in double figures, and the fifth (Franz) averaging 9.6 points. When Owens was wrestling with the decision to activate White at mid-semester, senior co-captain Lochmann made a remarkable sacrifice and actually volunteered to give up his starting position and come off the bench.

And who says nice guys finish last?

Yes, the history books show that White stepped out of bounds against Texas Western and KU (23-4) finished the season ranked No. 4 in the nation. But for many Crimson and Blue followers, the 1965-66 Jayhawks will always be No. 1.

For all time.

Concluding Thoughts:

While the 1965-66 KU team was my choice as the best Jayhawk squad of all time when I wrote this story in 2001, my pick now would obviously be the 2008 national championship team.

Kansas won a school-record 37 games that season to just three losses and had a whopping seven players make the NBA: Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Darnell Jackson, Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich and Sasha Kaun. Chalmers won two NBA championships with the Miami Heat while Kaun captured an NBA title with the Cleveland Cavaliers in June.