UH vs. UCLA 1968 GAME OF THE CENTURY Memories (with Don Chaney, Joseph Duarte, Jacobus & Herskowitz)

[Music] welcome to houston sports talk with your host robert land thanks for joining me for this special look back on the 50th anniversary of the game of the century if you don't know it's the classic uh ucla game back on january the 20th 1968 at the houston astrodome over the last few years on houston sports talk we've spoken to a few different guests about the game the atmosphere and the man behind it all cougars head coach and nate smith hall of famer guy v lewis in this show you'll hear from uh legend don chaney of course one of the stars of that game houston post and chronicle sports writer and editor mickey hersquist who was in the building covering the festivities and finally chronicle cougars beat writer joseph duarte who was there when guy v made the hall of fame but the first person we'll hear from is robert jacobus he authored the book houston cougars in the 1960s death threats the veer offense and the game of the century i'll let him set the scene for us ivy lewis did come up with the idea for the game of the century if people don't remember realize they weren't around then it was when uh on january 20th 1968 which the 50th anniversary coming up this coming january when number one ucla led by lou alcindor we know him as cream abdul jabar they'd won 47 straight games they were playing the number two team in the country you know university of houston with elvin hayes and don cheney you know they'd met in the final four the year before you said they had beaten them but guy lewis laid the groundwork two years before when he started putting the word out that he would like to play ucla he uh started thinking like the astrodome was a possibility because well back then u of h did not have hot pines pavilion yet you know they were playing their home games at del mar stadium over there off of 290 but lewis thought that if they could get ucla to come to town with al cinder and you know mike warren and lynn shackleford and all their high school all-americans you know they could get a good crowd for and so guy lewis kept bugging the athletic director harry foux you know maybe do this thing and all that and eventually foul kind of gave in and he talked to the ucla athletic director john wooden finally gave his approval uh wooden did not like to play games off campus but he did he realized that the game could be good for basketball you know get a lot of publicity and so uh you know they decided that they were going to play january 68 non-conference game and it was like the perfect storm that came along you know when the two teams met they were undefeated you had the two best players in college basketball pre-med bill jabar and elvin hayes you had the largest crowd in basketball history up to that point you know 52 693 fans and it was the first nationally televised uh regular season basketball game in college history the game came down to the wire and alvin hayes had the game of his life 39 points and 15 rebounds and he made the two free throws at the end of the game to win the game for u of h and it laid it laid the foundation for what we know as the march madness today because it showed that large crowds would come out to watch a basketball game that's one of the reasons we have the final four in these big uh stadiums now arenas you know it's very significant it's kind of like what the culmination of uh guy lewis and recruiting black athletes it's kind of what everything led up to was that moment and by that time for the five u of h starters on that team were african-american but it was uh you know people i talked to said it was just you know the greatest sporting event they'd ever been to yeah a couple of things i i think that would surprise people that they may not know that you talk about when i read the book and again i i definitely recommend people go get this book because there's so many really great stories and great information all the way through it but the floor from the los angeles sports arena was shipped to the astrodome so ucla had somewhat of an advantage over houston because they'd played three games on the court earlier in the season that court also turned out to be the same one used when ucla and houston played each other in the final four later that season and you also had players talking about this was great they were talking about talking about being winded just running out to the court at the astronaut because of how much farther it was than the usual court what else comes to mind from that game of the century just just from the atmosphere and stuff that happened during the game that you think surprised you as you were doing the research on this you mentioned the part about the players getting winded they set the court up pretty much in the middle of the dome where second base would be and the teams had to enter those remember dome they had to enter from center field i remember vern lewis guy lewis's son who was playing on team you know he told me that by the time he they jogged out to the court to warm up he was already winded and a gentleman for ucla when i interviewed him one of their uh bench players bill sweet he said he told me the same story basically you know people i've talked to you know you talk about how the noise in the dome was just deafening well i remember howie lorch the student manager the one who was elvin hayes roommate alvin's freshman year he said when they opened those center field gates to go out to the court he said he said he felt like it was the roman gladiators going up for battle you know put 52 000 people there there was never anything like it before not even close i want to say the next largest crowd ever in ncaa history up to that point was like 22 000 so this shattered all the records of attendance and all that i did interview one gentleman and uh they used to sell programs when they used to play the home games over at del mar and they might sell a thousand programs for like 50 cents each but then he said when they got to the dome that night they had like 10 or 15 000 programs to sell and the guys in this gentleman i interviewed said he said this is stupid we're never going to sell that many programs and he said they sold them out in about an hour and uh because you know they didn't realize that the crowd was going to be that big so like i said it was just where everything just came together it's something you could somewhat plan for but you know great events a lot of times aren't really playing they just kind of come together you know with the undefeated teams and the great players and the jamming dumb you know i don't know if we ever see anything like it again and unfortunately the cougars they end up getting smashed by ucla later that season in the semi-final game three things jump out as you look back at that game though one the game was pretty much a home game for the bruins it was in los angeles we talked about the court situations as a court that that they had played on two the cougs were held to their lowest shooting percentage in seven years which uh says something about uh the cougars but you gotta credit ucla's defense of course three they lost one of their key starters right before the ncaa tournament this this might be a little bit lost in history and i i'm glad you brought that up his name was george reynolds how important was he and what happened with george reynolds george reynolds came along in the 1967-68 year the year of the game of the century and they recruited him out of a junior college in california the name escapes me at the moment uh he's originally from new jersey and i tried to track george down the interview and i thought i had him a couple times but he's been kind of elusive trying to talk to but um he was he was the point guard from what i've read and i've watched films of the game of the century he and don cheney were the backcourt and ucla had uh a great backcourt also with uh mike warren and lucius allen our two guys reynolds and cheney could keep up with those two and guard them and things like that well right for the ncaa tournament turns out there was a controversy over some of uh george reynolds transfer hours from junior college and he was declared ineligible because he didn't have enough hours something along those lines and so he's ineligible for the ncaa tournament well guy lewis's son vern lewis stepped into the point guard role and vern did a you know burn did a good job but defensively he just wasn't there with george reynolds so you know that was somewhat of a factor in the cougars losing you know they did lose 101 to 69 some people have admitted that but from what i've from reading uh john wooden and talking to people when ecla won the rematch game in the final four john wooden said that was probably the best game that his ucla teams ever played you know they were just lights out it's just it's just one of those things ucla had high praise though for for reynolds after that after the game of the century and said he i think he was a guy that might have surprised him a little bit when they played him wasn't expecting him to be as good defensively you know it's one of those things with guy v everybody talks about the x's and o's with guy v and i'm glad you sort of outlined in the book and got people talking about what kind of x's and o's guy guy v was tell people a little about about him as a strategist well in dive he was was an x's no guy and uh you know a lot of people through the years thought guy would just roll the balls out of practice and you know and they you know just can't do whatever but uh coach lewis's assistant coach harvey pate he was his assistant for many years he played basketball frank gaba at all at oklahoma state and you know basketball fans know that hank iver was you know huge on defense and things like that and then uh when don schwartz came along in the late 60s became an assistant coach in the 70s and 80s um you know he was real big on defense and doing drills and things like that and so you know yeah guy lewis sometimes gets a bad rap about not a lot of x's and o's but like i mentioned earlier john wooden got his own press from guy lewis um you know after that game in 1961 where the cougars beat ucla at the same eastern coliseum so yeah and hopefully uh the book helped dispel some of those myths about uh todd lewis not being an x's and o's kind of guy you just heard from robert jacobus that was part of a much longer conversation i had with jacobus from this past summer if you haven't heard that podcast go back into our archives and take a listen there was so much in his book about how the university of houston integrated college sports in the south incredibly interesting interview so much that you might not know next up let's hear from former houston rockets coach don chaney well i throw that one out there but of course cheney along with alvin hayes they were both the stars of that 68 cougars squad and the game of the century he played all 40 minutes of the game and i caught up with cheney right after guy v lewis's memorial service really sad a couple of years ago but we had a chance to reminisce a little bit and i asked how geyvy prepared the team for that game going into a game like game like that everybody is very tense and tight because everyone knew about ucla and their record and how great they were and here's a little team houston who's finally reached a point where you know they got a nice team that could compete with a team like that but guy lewis kept his team together he kept our confidence high he prepared us 100 and we weren't that tense and and i have to credit him for that because a lot of times a game that big you're nervous a little bit scared we went into that game very confident and i think a lot of it has to do because of him what did you learn from him as a coach you went on to you know coaching the nba and you were taken from a lot of different guys i would assume but i assume you got a lot from coach lewis i learned a lot from him and i told him this once before especially on the defensive end i came into university houston as an offense player i left there as a defensive player and i owed that to him and i think by being a defensive player and going into the nba i think that's one of the reason why i lasted as long as i did because he gave me a very sound foundation defensively and he instilled in me a lot of confidence you know and in terms of uh what it takes to win what it takes to compete and all about teamwork and and and team sacrifice he is one of those coaches who you know he wanted to win and he prepared his player to play us to a point where they were ready to win we were in shape we mentally prepared and we were going into games knowing that we were prepared and that that was all about from the coaching level is to make sure that your players are prepared that was coug great don cheney who actually won nba coach of the year with the houston rockets if you don't remember he also won an nba championship with the 1974 boston celtics you can hear more from cheney and another legend from the cougar days greg cadillac anderson in a podcast from a couple of years ago next up is mickey herskowitz who covered the game of the century for the houston post mickey just a masterful storyteller and he didn't disappoint us at all here's her squits setting the scene for us on that whole day of course it was the biggest crowd in the history of basketball and i'm not sure if the harlem globetrotters ever drew more but they would have been the only basketball team and i don't know that we could consider them legitimately a basketball team but no college no pro team under no circumstances had ever drawn 65 66 67 000 people so the astronaut was packed before the game i went to the top row of the upper deck just to get a sense of the perspective of what it was like and you couldn't see the basketball it looked like a golf ball from up there so the people who sat in those upper reaches had to use opera glasses or binoculars and sitting courtside at the press table the basketball thumping was so loud your eardrums got you know echoes how cinder was not yet creamed until jabar he had scratched on his eyeball it was wearing goggles so that was sort of unreal seeing kareem abdul-jabbar who was then lou alcindor and goggles looking like somebody from outer space and elwin was so hyped for that game that he sank the two free throws that iced the ball game the cougars won it and when the ucla missed the last shot album dribbled out the clock the last 14-20 seconds just as a kind of a blowback on all the talk about how skilled al cinder was he could even handle the wall alvin was determined to dribble the ball to show that he could handle the ball as well yeah and i remember that great scene where he throws the ball up towards the ceiling as the time's running out and guy v lewis becomes a legend and really he just passed away a few months ago and i just want to get you a couple thoughts from you on guy v because it seems like the cougars really didn't have a program before guy v as far as basketball there really hasn't been much since then hopefully that's changing as we speak but what about guy v lewis what made him such a special guy well first of all he came from a little town called ark texas and when he enrolled at the university of houston they were just starting their basketball program i think he played on the first basketball team that the universe houston had he told me the first time the first time they worked out they played with a basketball that was peeling the actual leather cover was coming off of it guy could have been a hall of fame college player on that record alone it was a six foot four inch center for the cougars and he routinely would score 40 or more points i know he had at least a high of 49 maybe more than that he may have had a 57 point game he was a great shooter he was a terrific rebounder he carried that over he went from being a player to an assistant coach i can't now remember who the head coach was but he succeeded him and then became the only coach they had or the second coach they had for the next 30 years what people never understood was what a terrific motivator guy was he handled every player differently he knew exactly what kind of motivation they needed whether they needed a pep talk or a tough love or whether they needed a kick in the bottom guy handled everybody differently he was a terrific x's nose coach even though he never got credit for that but i remember one time he fired up his team so much that they rushed off to go to the court for the second half after his halftime speech and they locked him in the dressing room and it wasn't until the second half was ready to start that they realized they didn't have their coach with him so they had to go back and let him out of the locker room but i knew basketball one of the amazing things to me was how people talked about how little coaching he did he'd roll the ball out and let the players play and the nba coaches that had elven for example always talked about how he had to be handled how difficult he was and you never heard him being difficult with guy v lewis guy always got the best out of him and all of his players he was a terrific tactician so that was mickey herskowitz with his memories of guy v in the game of the century i strongly recommend my entire our conversation with mickey from a couple of years ago just go back into our archive if you haven't heard heard it he just gets into everything from the original cult 45s the houston astros to the early oilers his role in bringing the rockets to houston and his time spent with mickey mantle and nolan ryan definitely worth a listen now let's finish up with chronicle cougars beat rider joseph duarte who i spoke to right after guy v's passing duarte puts guyvee's career and his whole life in perspective here's joseph on the man with the checkered towel as college basketball in general he was an innovator he was a pioneer you know he was one of the first coaches in the south to integrate and accept the integration in basketball uh he also saw the future and set up that game of the century with ucla so right there and then of course being the the father of the five slam pajama dynasty and to see him you know have alvin hayes and clyde drexler and hakeem olajuwon among the top 50 nba players of all time says a lot but what i'll remember most is you know i didn't get to know him as well except for the last few years but i took a trip down to his his town in ark texas just outside of tyler and guy v hadn't lived there for 60 years but the locals still talked about him as if he was one of their own as that they remembered him he was the kid who'd always dress nice had the only convertible in town and was a two sometimes three sports star so when somebody remembers you 60 years after you last lived there i think that says a lot about your legacy as not just a coach but as a person but certainly one of the giants of the game he will be missed talk about the feeling in the program just the fact that he was able to finally get into the hall of fame before he passed away i mean that was a huge accomplishment for this program and it was just such a good feeling to see that happen because everybody had been waiting for so long for that well i was in springfield the day that he got inducted and to watch him get wheeled down the the street as part of the procession to the uh the ceremony to see the look on his face he could not speak because of a stroke that happened about a decade before but he didn't have to that day the smile on his face would have gone baseline to baseline and i think that's really where uh you know he waited much too long to get into the hall of fame and many of his players lobbied for him some threatened to boycott like alvin hayes but the fact that he never won a national championship was held against him but when you put 592 wins five final four appearances uh countless conference championships and ncaa tournament appearances there's no reason guy v lewis should have not been in the hall of fame nor waited as long so i think he got his due that day when he finally got in you just heard from joseph duarte on guy v lewis's legacy of course you keep going back to coach lewis when you talk about the magical win in 68 and the game that changed college basketball history hope you enjoyed our look back and retrospective on the 50th anniversary of the game of the century the final score houston cougars 71 ucla bruins behind kareem and john wooden 69. on january 20th 1968 cougs house was the astrodome what a classic [Music] you