SL, thanks for your note. I would be more than happy to share some comments and feel free to ask any questions. This is obviously a difficult time. Coach was in the hospital a few months ago but was able to go home. I communicated with one of the kids today and it sadly doesn't sound good. I think that Coach is either 90 or 91 and he's just tired. That happens when you get old and your body starts to shut down.
I am obviously biased but I think that Coach Black did more for the university than almost any coach especially in hoops. Its not always about won-loss records. He loved the University as much as anyone could including Bill Little. He was the coach that actually integrated the hoops program starting in the late 60s. The first black bbal player was Sam Bradley but I believe that he had either a track or football scholarship so he was technically a walk on. The second was Jimmy Blacklock who I think played at Yates in Houston, went to Tyler JC and then came to Texas. The third but the first black student athlete to sign a 4 year LOI was a teammate Larry Robinson from Hobbs NM.I think that he was the best player in the SWC in the 70s and from there, more black kids came to Texas.
Coach, in my opinion was extremely underrated as a coach in part because the media didn't like him for the most part. Coach probably ran the cleanest hoops program in the country and did not hesitate to turn in another school if he knew they were cheating. A lot of Texas high school coaches didn't like that either so we had to recruit literally nationwide. I had team mates from Texas but also New Mexico, California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Louisiana and I may be forgetting a few others. He was definitely a strict disciplinarian but he was fair. Practice was serious business and tough.
He was probably the opposite of Coach Lemons. As far as that sweet 16 team, things were much different back then. The only major conference to have a post season tournament to determine who went to the playoffs was the ACC. If I remember correctly, Virginia won the tourney 3 straight years despite the fact that they actually finished last each of those 3 years. So to get to the tournament, we had to win the SWC. I believe that year, we tied with SMU for the conference and had a playoff game in Waco and we won. Our first round opponent was UH in Las Cruces NM. I believe they were one of the favorites to make the final four. The Houston media said that if we didn't show up, we would only lose 2-0. Otherwise it would be a least a 20 point loss. UH if I remember correctly had Dwight Jones and Dwight Davis, 2 top 10 NBA picks. They started the game on a big run. Coach calmed everyone down, Robinson beat the crap out of those 2 despite playing on 1 leg and we won. The next game was the sweet 16 against Kansas State. Back then, they were the Kansas power coached by Jack Hartman. We had several injuries and just couldn't keep up. That team when healthy could have won one or two more games.
The one sad thing back then is that without going into any detail for the moment is that we were an after thought to the athletic department. I think they tolerated us because they had to. I can't help but wonder if things would have been different if we had their support.
SL, does any of this help? Please feel free to ask anything else if you like. Those were interesting times but are being quickly forgotten. I appreciate your interest.