| By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com January 20, 2006 MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bucky Waters knew his West Virginia basketball team was going to be served up on a giant silver platter. The year was 1968 and his rebuilding Mountaineer squad was on their way to Los Angeles to play No. 1-ranked UCLA in Pauley Pavilion.
Before hopping on the plane, Waters could be heard saying to a small group of reporters: “This is like going out to fight lions with switches.” The idea was to stop over and face the Bruins before going on to Hawaii to play in the Rainbow Classic. In return, Waters says UCLA was supposed to come back to Morgantown the following year to help West Virginia open its brand new Coliseum which was scheduled to be finished in time for the 1969-70 season. “I went out there to be a sacrificial lamb to (Lew) Alcindor and those guys with the idea that we’d showcase them back in our new Coliseum,” Waters recalled earlier this week from his home in Durham, N.C. “I loved (WVU athletic director) Red Brown, but that was the deal.” The game at UCLA on Dec. 21, 1968 was really more about the construction of the WVU Coliseum than it was facing one of the best college basketball teams of all time. Having a first-rate basketball facility at West Virginia University was Red Brown’s dream from the moment he took over the AD job in 1954. As was the practice of the time, at the culmination of each academic year Brown was required to file a report to the president’s office summarizing the athletic season. He always ended each report with a paragraph or two about the need for a new basketball arena to replace the old Field House down on Beechurst Avenue. It was just one part of Brown’s 15-year journey to build the magnificent WVU Coliseum. In the early 1960s, there was finally some interest on University President Paul Miller’s part after Coach Fred Schaus left WVU for the Los Angeles Lakers. According to former Sports Information Director Eddie Barrett, the preliminary plans for the new basketball arena called for a $6 million facility with bleacher seats. There were some space-aged concepts floating around, too, the most far-reaching of which was to build a retractable roof over the bowl end of the old football stadium. The idea even showed up in one of the school’s press guides. Barrett says the most fruitful thing to come out of that period was the decision to remove the $6 million ceiling on the price tag of the new facility. “They reasoned that if we were going to do this then we better do it right,” Barrett said. Yet by the mid 1960s, the easy-going and amicable Brown was becoming very concerned about the foot-dragging going on down in Charleston. He had a desk full of plans, drawings and designs, but no firm commitment from the state legislature to proceed with the project. He knew he had to do more than just sell an arena to them. He had to come up with ideas that would be appealing to everyone: big-name basketball opponents, horse shows, rock concerts, Ice Capades, well-known entertainers and wide-ranging academic uses. It was to be West Virginia’s Shangri-La. From the moment Bucky Waters was hired to replace George King in 1966, he soon realized that one of his major tasks as West Virginia basketball coach was to promote to the entire state the idea of building a new basketball arena. “I was on the phone with the Board of Governors twice a week,” Waters said. “Red said, ‘You’ve got to talk to them because it’s a money war.’” By 1967, Brown began to see a small crack of light. The legislature was willing to consider floating a bond for the construction of a basketball arena along with several other campus projects, including a new law school and an addition to the medical center. This was a period of steady growth for WVU, which by the mid 1960s had already outgrown its downtown campus. By 1968, West Virginia University had more than doubled in size in a span of just 10 years and was beginning to become a more prominent regional university. Like the campus, the athletic department was growing as well. Football coach Jim Carlen convinced Brown to pull out of the Southern Conference with the idea of playing a more national schedule in football and men’s basketball. Carlen, knowing Brown enjoyed scheduling basketball games in New York City and playing the best teams in the country, realized that that was probably his best angle in persuading Brown to become an independent. Yet at the same time, the momentum to leave the Southern Conference put even more pressure on Brown to get an arena built because his basketball program wasn’t going to have the protection of being in a conference to get into post-season play. There weren’t as many NCAA bids back then and most of them went to conference champions anyway. “We had no place to land with the NCAA tournament and things like that were out of reach,” said Waters. “We just didn’t have any business being independent at that point. There was no Big East Conference back then for West Virginia to go to.”
In essence, what Brown had done was place all of his eggs into one basket. West Virginia had to build a new arena if it wished to remain relevant in college basketball. It was a considerable gamble because it wasn’t a slam dunk that the arena was going to be built. “I was all for it,” said Waters. “From my standpoint, our responsibility to the University as I told Red was, ‘If we don’t get this Coliseum now you can kiss the Mountaineer basketball tradition good bye.’ Cole Field House (Maryland) was close by and Ohio University had a beautiful new arena. Kids are impressed by facilities and unless they’re dyed in the wool, grown-up West Virginia kids they’re not coming. For us to constantly go to other places and bring in kids … it was very difficult.” According to Waters, the great run of West Virginia-bred basketball players was over. By the late 1960s the state wasn’t producing any more Hot Rod Hundleys, Jerry Wests, Rod Thorns and Ron Williamses. The Coliseum was looking more and more like the basketball program’s life preserver. “I’m calling every week trying to explain to them, ‘I know this sounds selfish but I’m telling you in the world of recruiting, facilities mean everything and we’re getting passed by,’” Waters said. “‘We’re talking about moving out of the Southern Conference and taking on the world. We just can’t do it in this building.’” Brown knew he had to use his young, energetic coach to keep the issue in the newspapers. He would continue to work the back channels and lobby in private. There were editorials in the campus newspaper questioning the value of having a basketball arena over much-needed academic improvements. The arguments were very persuasive. “For all the right reasons they talked about the need for a new law school and the addition of the hospital: all of them were first-rate, unquestionable university needs,” Waters admitted. “We were just caught out there.” According to the former coach, when the bids on the Coliseum and the other projects finally came in the total cost for everything was nearly twice as much as the state legislature was willing to allocate. The noose was tightening.
“The guys in Charleston said, ‘That’s it. You’ve got to figure out how you’re going to divide up the pie,’” said Waters. “The Daily Athenaeum called it ‘Bucky’s Palace’ and why do we need ‘Bucky’s Palace?’” Waters remembers getting a telephone call on a Friday evening from an excited Brown, who told him he had an audience with the university board of trustees the next morning. They were going to make a decision on which projects were going to be funded and at what amount. “How long do I have, Red?” Bucky asked. “You’ve got 10 minutes.” “Ten minutes? That’s all I get? That’s 10 minutes for $10 million,” Waters said. Waters had all of these elaborate charts and comparisons prepared to make his presentation; now he was going to have to go in there and come up with something compelling off the top of his head. “I just went in there with my heart and I said, ‘It may seem like an extravagance but you have to measure what the Mountaineer basketball tradition means and its continuance,’” he said. “‘I’m not a miracle worker.’” Waters can still remember sitting in the football stadium when the announcement came that funding for the construction of the WVU Coliseum was approved. Red Brown was wearing an ear-to-ear grin, having waited 13 long years to finally see his dream realized. There were probably a few tears as well. At the expense of the Coliseum, construction on the new law school was delayed a couple of years.
Even though Waters pulled off a stunning upset of No. 1-ranked Duke his first season at WVU in 1966, two years later local sportswriters likened his chances of a repeat against UCLA as being about as likely as a man walking on the moon. As fate would have it, just about the same time the West Virginia players were warming up for its game against the powerful Bruins in Pauley Pavilion, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders were traveling toward a Christmas Eve orbit of the moon. This mission was the last obstacle along the way to a lunar landing. Perhaps Waters did have another big upset in him after all. Well, perhaps not. “If you go down their lineup it’s one thing to have a great all-star like Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). But then you add Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe and Lynn Shackleford …,” recalled West Virginia guard Bob Hummell. “It was unbelievable.” “They were an awesome basketball team,” said Waters. West Virginia was playing a UCLA program that was right smack in the middle of the greatest run in college basketball history. Coach John Wooden had already claimed national titles in 1964, 1965, 1967 and 1968 on the way to an unbelievable 10 championships in 12 years. And his team was well down the path toward another one in 1969. Many were calling UCLA’s front line of Alcindor, Rowe, Shackleford and Wicks the best ever assembled in college basketball. It wasn’t a matter of if UCLA was going to win another national title in 1969 -- it was rather by how much? You could have split that ‘69 UCLA team into two and both of them would have probably wound up facing each other in the championship game. They were that good. West Virginia was a respectable 4-1 but was coming off a last-second loss to Richmond a week before. The Mountaineers were giving up nine inches to Alcindor in the post with its 6-5 center Carey Bailey, and two inches each on the wings in 6-6 Greg Ludwig and 6-5 Larry Woods. Bucky’s approach against UCLA was simple: he wasn’t going to lie to his players and sell them something they wouldn’t believe. To a man they knew what they were up against. Waters figured his only chance of an upset was to slow down the game and whenever Alcindor wasn’t in the paint then his team could shoot the ball. If he was, they’d hold it and run clock and try to do some things to get him out of there. “It’s 26-20 and we’re doing it perfectly,” Waters recalled. “Our kids are playing fearless, the crowd is kind of quiet and we’re doing well. Everyone is kind of looking around thinking, who the hell are these guys? “Then (Alcindor) turns to try a little baby hook and Carey jumps up and blocks the shot,” said Waters. “One of our guys picks up the ball and we’ve got a 3 on 2. Our player sets up to take a shot on the wing and here is Alcindor, nostrils flaring and eyes bulging, racing down the floor after him. He’s trying to catch the ball out of the air – not block it. “But he couldn’t quite catch the ball and he crashes into the backboard,” Waters continued. “You could have heard a pin drop in the place. Everyone had this expression of did I see what I thought I saw? My guys are looking around at each other and thinking, uh oh, so I called time out.”
As Waters began explaining to his team that it was just one play and there was still plenty of basketball left, Waters noticed the eyes of his players slowly rising up as he was talking. Their eyes continued looking up. “That’s when I knew Alcindor was walking past our bench,” Waters laughed. “I turned to Carey and I said, ‘Thanks a lot. That block really didn’t help us out, pal. You just ticked off the big guy.’” “I can tell you, that guy was more like 7-4 or 7-5 with a wing span like one of those MD-80s going out of Hartsfield here in Atlanta,” said Hummell. “They just went on a flurry that was like an Ali Shuffle.” Sure enough, UCLA kicked into high gear and outscored the Mountaineers, 29-6 during one lethal stretch to run away with 39-point victory. “We had a nice club but we didn’t have a national championship-caliber team like that, especially playing on their home floor,” Waters said. Hummell, who finished the game with 12 points, said that UCLA team left a lasting impression on him. “Some people would ask, ‘Hummell, when you’re taking the ball out of bounds what was it like playing against them?’ I tell them, ‘Hell, we’re still trying to get the ball inbounds.’” With about seven minutes to go Waters called one final time out. “I said, ‘Look guys, we’re going to Hawaii. Don’t anybody call time out. I want you to play hard, I want you to smile and have fun. We’re not going to beat these guys – maybe there will be another day – but don’t let them ruin our trip. So think about palm tress and girls and grass skirts,’” Waters said. “They’re now laughing at this point because the look I got before the time out was, ‘Coach, we’re getting killed.’” As his players were going back out onto the floor, one of them stopped by Waters and told him something that caught the coach completely off guard. “Coach,” he said. “John Wooden is yelling at us.” “What?” “Yeah, every time we get close enough to him he starts talking to us,” he said. Waters couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So I look and sure enough – he’s a wonderful man, a great Christian man and a beautiful person – but he’s also a competitor,” Waters said. “Every time the ball comes into the corner where he’s sitting … he’s got that program all rolled up and he’s leaning forward and using it like a little megaphone. “If you really weren’t looking you’d never know he was doing that,” Waters chuckled. “He looked very studious with the program all rolled up and I’d be darn if he wasn’t yelling. He’d say, ‘Watch out; don’t turn the ball over. You’re going to walk.’ It was that kind of thing. “I couldn’t believe it,” Waters said. “To this day I would kid (Wooden) about it and he’d just smile and say, ‘Well …’”
“He was kind of like Frank McGuire was at South Carolina,” added Hummell. “We played South Carolina at the Sugar Bowl Classic down in New Orleans and he’s talking to his players, adjusting his tie, always having a nice little smile on his face. In the meantime he’s saying under his breath, ‘If you do that again we’re going to be talking about your scholarship.’ The demeanor that some of these coaches could pull off on the sidelines – they knew what they were doing. “You could tell Coach Wooden had total control of his team.” Hummell also recalls that 1969 UCLA team being very businesslike. “They weren’t interested in talking to the other team and all of that,” he said. “Of course when you’re winning (88) in a row you’re always a gentleman on the court.” Despite losing by such a large margin, Hummell says the trip to UCLA was a memorable one. “With Red Brown we always traveled first-class,” he said. “We stayed at the Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was assassinated. We had tickets to see Judy Garland perform. “We’re in the dressing room before the game and Coach Waters told us we’ve got a special guest coming later in the day and in walked Michael Landon (Waters’ high school classmate in Collingswood, N.J.). He had gloves on and it looked like he had just come off the set (of Bonanza).” “It was a great opportunity and it was fun in a number of ways,” Waters said. “I was proud of our kids with the way they fought but with about eight minutes to go the deficit was just getting greater and greater,” he said. “What was the final score?” Waters finally asked. “95-56,” I answered. “Ah,” he moaned. Adding insult to injury, UCLA never made the return trip to Morgantown. |
Thursday, January 19, 2006
California Dreamin
California Dreamin
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