Memories of a golden age still untarnished ]

By Ric Anderson, The Capital-Journal, Feb 1, 2002

LAWRENCE --- Bill Hougland's 1952 NCAA basketball championship plaque isn't quite museum quality, bearing a few scratches around its edges and a layer of tarnish on its once-gleaming brass. But Hougland doesn't mind.

"That's been to a lot of show-and-tells," says the father of five, now retired and living in a richly appointed home near the Lawrence Country Club. Besides, Hougland's true treasures from 1952 aren't made of walnut and precious metal. They're the friendships, the lifelong bonds he formed with his teammates on Kansas' title team.

Listen. One of Hougland's buddies just called. "Well, hi, Dean," Hougland says. "Good to hear from you." Dean would be Dean Smith, a reserve point guard on Phog Allen's title team of 50 years ago, before he followed in Allen's footsteps and became the all-time winningest coach during a 36-year career at North Carolina. He's calling to get a few details on this weekend's reunion, which will include a get-together tonight and a banquet on Saturday. In between, the group will be honored at halftime of Saturday's KU-Colorado game.

All but a few will accompany Smith, as Hougland sadly notes. John Keller and Dean Kelley are deceased, and La Vannes Squires, KU's first black player, sent word that he wouldn't be attending. "Obviously," Hougland says, "this might be the last time all of us will be able to get together. And that's one of the reasons we wanted to do it now."

But another reason --- a big one --- is to celebrate and reminisce. And, boy, will there be a lot of memories kicked around. They'll talk about how Clyde Lovellette, the squad's All-American center, remains the only player to lead the nation in scoring and win a national title in the same year. They'll recall giggling about Allen's penchant for butchering names.

They'll remember how, after KU's only back-to-back regular-season defeats, assistant coach Dick Harp laid the groundwork for the title run. "Dick really was so important to us as far as a defensive idea," Smith said during an interview from his office in Chapel Hill, N.C. "We started an overplay defense, man to man. I don't know who else had done it, I don't think anybody. I think Dick got it from Mr. Iba (Hank Iba, former Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State, coach), who used it when they were way behind late in a game."

While other teams were playing a strict man-to-man or maybe a zone or a sagging man defense, Harp had the Jayhawks denying passes, forcing opponents to drive and then rushing to help each other. Five decades later, Smith still marvels at Harp's innovative twist. "In the '91 Final Four, Kansas, North Carolina, UNLV and Duke --- all four teams --- played that same man defense," he said.

Harp's idea wouldn't have worked, though, without Lovellette, who averaged 28.4 points in 1951-52 and finished the season with a 33- point, 17-rebound performance in the final. "Our offense was basically to get it to Clyde any way you could," Hougland said.

Well, sort of. Hougland's modesty masks the fact that Lovellette was surrounded by talented and driven role players such as Charlie Hoag, Bob Kenney, Bill Lienhard, Kelley and Keller, to name a few. Oh, yeah, and Hougland. "Bill was an awfully good player," Smith says. "Today, he'd be in the NBA."

But there were fewer NBA teams back then, just as there was less hype surrounding the college game. In 1952, there was no March Madness. No national television coverage. No coast-to-coast office pools.

Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Dick Snider, then a sports writer who covered the team, recalls attending a party for the entire media contingent in Seattle. It was held in the Washington sports information director's living room. Once in Seattle, KU breezed through the tournament with a 74-55 clubbing of Santa Clara in the national semifinal and an 80-63 win over St. John's in the championship. Hougland got his plaque after that victory, but not a ring. "A bunch of us went together years later and bought them on our own," he says, adding that KU coach Roy Williams found out about the purchase and reimbursed team members

The ring came later, but Hougland got another memento from the season immediately after winning it. It was an Olympic gold medal, one of two he won while representing the United States in 1952 and 1956. Seven members of the '52 team went to the Games, having gained the privilege after the Jayhawks finished runner-up to the national AAU champion in an Olympic trial playoff.

Hougland nearly lost the medals through the years in transit to show-and-tell trips. Now he keeps them in a wooden case built by his father. "I've picked them up off the schoolyard a couple of times," he says. Again, though, the medals weren't the most important things Hougland earned that season. To a man, his teammates say the same thing.

Take Hoag, for instance. A few years back, he was involved in a car accident. Among the people who called the emergency room was his old fraternity brother and teammate, Smith. "The guys you played with are very important, and you're glad to see them do well in life and be happy in life," Hoag says. "These get- togethers are really fun. It's too bad a couple of them aren't still around. But these are truly great guys."