Missing 'Glory'
By BILL HAISTEN World Sports Writer
1/30/2006
Coach: call doomed Kansas during loss to Texas Western
During his 19 seasons as Kansas' basketball coach, Ted Owens recorded 348 victories and took the Jayhawks to two Final Fours.
But the most famous Kansas game to have involved Owens was a defeat -- the 1966 NCAA Tournament regional final loss to the Don Haskins-coached Texas Western Miners.
Texas Western went on, with five black starters, to make a resounding social statement by beating all-white Kentucky for the national championship.
The Texas Western title is regarded as having been instrumental in dissolving barriers for black athletes. Owens acknowledges the historical significance of that NCAA Tournament, but says he believes that his Jayhawks were doomed by an incorrect official's call.
Owens says that Kansas, and not Texas Western, should have advanced to the 1966 Final Four in College Park, Md.
"If that call hadn't been made, there wouldn't have been any 'Glory Road,' " says Owens, now 76 and an investment adviser at First Capital Management in Tulsa. "It had been a great basketball game. We were the two best teams in the country. We just happened to be in the same regional. It was a war."
Movie audiences have basked in the
feel-good glow of "Glory Road," based on Texas Western's championship season. Owens has seen the film and its depiction of the Miners-Jayhawks classic, played before a standing-room-only crowd of 8,200 in Lubbock, Texas.
As time was about to expire in overtime, the score was tied. Jayhawk star Jo Jo White launched a 30-foot jumper from the left side.
The shot was good -- but it didn't count.
Official Rudy Marich ruled that White, while he was in possession of the ball and before he elevated for the shot, had touched the sideline with his foot.
As White pivoted before shooting, Owens explains, the toe of his shoe was in bounds and that the heel of the same shoe was slightly beyond and above the boundary, but did not touch the boundary.
The game was extended to a second overtime period, and the Miners escaped with an 81-80 triumph. In that game, Haskins started four black players. Owens had three black starters -- White, Al Lopes and Walt Wesley.
In the "Glory Road" book, co-authored by Haskins and Dan Wetzel, the pivotal play is remembered as having been "the right call."
Owens disagrees as strongly now as he did 40 years ago.
"Jo Jo's foot was not out of bounds," Owens insists. "He makes the shot and we all jump up and celebrate. We're on our way to the Final Four. No matter who won this game, they had a great chance to win the national championship. But the call went against us.
"In the second overtime, the worst thing was getting your kids to concentrate after they'd already thought they won the game. I enjoyed 'Glory Road.' I thought it was a good movie, but they had Jo Jo's foot being out of bounds by six inches. That really ticked me off. What a distortion."
White recalls the Texas Western game, and that controversial call, with mixed emotions. After completing his All-American career at Kansas, he went on to celebrate two NBA championships during his 10-season run in the Boston Celtics' backcourt.
"It was a shot that I knew I made. I knew I wasn't out of bounds," White said by telephone from Boston, where he now is the Celtics' director of special projects. "That call went against us, and, as it turned out, it was a call that made history.
"When Texas Western beat Kentucky, it was a very important game. So, what happened to us turned out to be a good thing. Looking back on it, with the positive impact it had on minorities, it served a greater purpose."
A Hollis native, Owens played on all-white teams at the University of Oklahoma in 1948-51. During his freshman year at OU, he lived at a Norman fire station and held down a job at a grocery store.
In 1956-60, Owens was the head coach at Cameron College in Lawton. One of his Aggie teams had three black starters. In November, in a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his first season at Cameron, Owens will be in Lawton for a reunion of his players. In 1985-87, he was the head coach at Oral Roberts University.
During the 1960-61 season, Owens' first as a Kansas assistant, the Jayhawks had four black starters. He became Kansas' head coach in 1964. In 1962, Cincinnati won the national title with four black starters. In 1963, Loyola of Chicago won the national title with four black starters.
While black players were common on many 1965-66 college rosters, some schools in the southern U.S. were not yet offering scholarships to black basketball players.
The legacy of Haskins, an Enid native who had played for coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma A&M, is that he helped to change the landscape of American sports. One year after conquering Kentucky, Texas Western became known as the University of Texas at El Paso.
"Don Haskins did a great job with that 1966 team, and I don't want to take anything away from that, but the movie made it seem like Texas Western pioneered the opportunity for black youngsters to play," Owens said. "That movement really began years earlier."
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Bill Haisten 581-8397
[email protected]
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Ted Owens through the years
The Hollis native played basketball at OU in 1948-51. In 1950-51, with his two-handed set shot, Owens set the school record for the best single-season field goal percentage.
In 1952-53, he served in Korea as a U.S. Army lieutenant.
In 1956-60, he coached at Cameron College in Lawton. He led his teams to three National Junior College Athletic Association Final Four appearances.
In 1960-64, he was an assistant coach at Kansas.
In 1964-83, he was the head coach at Kansas and had a record of 348-182. He coached five All-Americans -- Jo Jo White, Walt Wesley, Darnell Valentine, Dave Robisch and Bud Stallworth. Owens was a six-time Big Eight coach of the year, and he was the national coach of the year in 1978. Owens-coached Jayhawk teams advanced to the Final Four in 1971 and 1974.
In total victories, Owens ranks third among Kansas coaches. Phog Allen (1907-09, 1919-56) recorded 590 victories. Roy Williams (1988-2003) recorded 418. At Allen Fieldhouse, Owens won a school-record 206 times; Williams had 201 wins at Allen Fieldhouse.
In 1985-87, Owens had a 21-35 mark as the Oral Roberts head coach. He resigned, he says, because ORU officials were pressuring him to fire an assistant coach and hire former ORU coach Ken Trickey as an assistant.
In 1988-89, Owens was the head coach of the Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel) team in the European Cup Championships.
In 1990-94, he was the basketball coach and director of development at Tulsa's Metro Christian Academy.
In 1994-98, he was the athletic director at St. Leo University in the Tampa, Fla., area. He also provided private instruction to young players in the Tampa area. His most talented students were twin brothers Joey and Stephen Graham -- who wound up on Oklahoma State's 2004 Final Four squad.
Today, Owens resides in Tulsa. He is 76 and says he is in perfect health. He runs six miles a week and walks twice a day. He is an investment adviser at First Capital Management. He serves as an adviser to the United States Basketball Academy in Oregon. He still teaches basketball fundamentals to young players, and his son, Teddy, is a varsity assistant at Holland Hall.