He Could Have Been Chasing ‘Bear’ Rather Than ‘Baron’

When Clarence (Big House) Gaines first settled into the physical education department at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina 44 years ago, he wasn’t thinking of setting records. He just wanted to become a good assistant coach.

“I came down here in 1945 to help a guy who was coaching everything,” said Gaines. “Actually, I think I’m a much better football coach than a basketball coach.”

Instead of making a run at Bear Bryant’s record, however, Gaines has become the only college basketball coach other than Adolph Rupp to win 800 games in his career. No. 800 came last Wednesday, when Winston-Salem beat Livingstone, 79-70.

Gaines, 66, says that little has changed in college basketball since he began coaching.

“The equipment hasn’t changed much,” said Gaines, whose team is 11-8 and competes in the Southern Division of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. “You still have the ball and the wooden floor. The kids are much better now because the game has changed from a three-month game to a 12-month game.”

Gaines says it would be “unfair” for a coach to rank his players by talent but says his most famous graduate, Earl Monroe, is the most spectacular player he coached.

He also credits Monroe, who attended Winston-Salem in the late ‘60s before going to the Baltimore Bullets, for helping further the cause of integration.

“When we played at the Greensboro Coliseum, most of our clientele was whites who wanted to see Earl play. They wanted to see blacks play without a lot of that racial stuff.”

Gaines, who reached the 800-win milestone in just 1,000 games, is 75 wins behind Rupp, and says he plans to coach for a while longer.

“I have a good situation here,” said Gaines, a native of Paducah, Ky. “I enjoy what I’m doing and I’ll do it as long as my health holds out.”