Guy Lewis’ Stature Certainly Doesn’t Match His Record

His teams have been to the Final Four five times and only John Wooden, Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp have won more games in the NCAA playoffs, but Guy Lewis never got much respect from the media.

In fact, they thought he was a joke.

Of his practices at the University of Houston, it was written: “He blows the whistle, rolls the ball out on the floor and lets them go.”

Mike Jones of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram thought about that when Lewis announced his retirement last month, and recalled when a writer from a national magazine called TCU Coach Jim Killingsworth to ask about Lewis’ coaching ability.

“Hold on,” Killingsworth said. “You’ve got the wrong man. You want to talk to the coaches who have been beating him regularly all these years.”

“Right,” the writer said. “Just who would they be?”

“I don’t know,” Killingsworth said. “But if you find out who they are, let me know.”

Click.

Add Lewis: Said former University of Houston All-American Elvin Hayes, now an assistant athletic director at the school: “The stories that the man can’t coach are very unfair. I scored 27,000 points in the NBA with a shot he taught me the first day I was here.

“If he can’t coach, what does that make John Wooden? Dean Smith? Ray Meyer? He beat all those people during his career. Does that make them losers?”

Trivia Time: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish are the only members of Boston’s 1980-81 NBA championship team still playing for the Celtics. How many of the eight others can you name? (Answer below.)

Cooper Rollow of the Chicago Tribune, in a capsule history of the Chicago Bears, credited Dick Butkus with the most compassionate quote.

Butkus said: “I never deliberately tried to hurt anybody, you know, unless it was important--like a league game or something.”

Dennis Brown, the 6-foot 4-inch, 285-pound defensive lineman from Long Beach Jordan in announcing that he would be going to Washington, told the Seattle Times he dropped USC from consideration when Trojan assistant coach Dave Wannstedt left to join the staff at the University of Miami.

“He had been recruiting me and I was real interested,” Brown said. “I’ve always been a Trojan fan. But when he decided to leave, I got the impression that their coaching staff wasn’t too stable.”

Said former New York Ranger goalie John Davidson when asked what he enjoys most about retirement: “No curfews.”

From Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times, after taking in the scene on Bourbon Street before the Super Bowl: “It was reported Jim McMahon said that all New Orleans women are sluts. That’s not true. I think most of the New Orleans women are men.”

Trivia Answer: Cedric Maxwell, Nate Archibald, Rick Robey, Chris Ford, Gerald Henderson, M.L. Carr, Terry Duerod, Eric Fernsten. Wayne Kreklow also played but did not finish the season.

Quotebook

Chuck Nevitt of the Detroit Pistons, on one advantage of being 7-5: “At a party, it’s a great ice-breaker.”