Ryan Monceaux
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The University of Houston has had one of the most consistent coaching staffs in all of collegiate athletics. With men like Dave Williams, Guy V. Lewis, Bill Yeoman and Rolan Walton at the helm of UH's most prolific sports, the chemistry and philosophies of Cougar teams remained unchanged. And so did the winning ways. Under these four coaches, UH continually beat high profile teams and remained in the national spotlight.
Dave Williams brought to golf something that was unheard of: change. He was hired in 1952 after the engineering professor perpetually beat then-golf coach Harry Fouke on the links. Williams set out on a mission that would eventually culminate in an unprecedented 16 national titles in a 36 year stretch.
When he was hired, UH's golf team had never won a match, and funding for the team was virtually non-existent. Williams took over and decided to find a way to change the fortunes of the golf team.
By 1955, Williams had propelled his team to a fourth place finish in the nation after a season where Cougar golf won the first four tournaments in its history. A year later Williams coached his team to the national championship after four more wins. But he wasn't finished. He went on to win the national title the next season, and again in 1958, then again in 1959 and 1960. Williams had won five national titles in a row.
During the 1955 season, Williams wanted to find a way to make collegiate golf more productive and cost efficient. He developed a better way to play tournament golf, replacing the dual-match system with a stroke-play format that allowed several teams to compete at one time. He used that system in the All-America Intercollegiate Invitational, and all of collegiate golf followed his lead. Soon, every major college tournament, including the NCAAs, were played using Williams' format.
Williams constantly brought the best golfing talent in the nation to Houston. In the 1960s, through a stretch of seven out of 10 national titles, the Cougars had 13 first-team All-Americans. In fact, Williams coached 28 first team All-Americans in his 36 seasons.
As he wound down his career in coaching, Williams brought future PGA Tour players Fred Couples from Seattle, Steve Elkington from Australia, Nick Faldo from England and Texans Billy Ray Brown, Bruce Lietzke and Blaine McAllister to his Houston team and guided them throughout college and onto the pros.
Williams is considered the "Father of College Golf" and will be inducted into the UH Hall of Honor in September. His contributions to golf earned him the namesake for the national men's college golf coach of the year, The Dave Williams Award.
In 1956, Guy V. Lewis took over for Alden Pasche as head men's basketball coach. Pasche was Lewis' coach while he was a collegian at UH, and Lewis was determined to take Cougar basketball to the next level.
In his first three seasons, Lewis did not have a winning season. Over the next 27 years, he never had a losing one. He highlighted his career at UH with five Final Fours, never winning a national title but coming as close as any one can without winning.
Lewis was the first basketball coach in the South to integrate his team. In 1964, he brought in black athletes long before the Southwest Conference or Southeast Conference thought about it.
Lewis was also the man who came up with the innovative idea of putting college basketball on national TV and in domes. In January 1968, the UH-UCLA game in the Astrodome was the first in a line of games that produced huge ratings and huge money.
But Guy V. Lewis did a little more. He consistently put winners on the court, winning 592 games in his 30 years on the sidelines. Three of his teams won 30 or more games. Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Otis Birdsong all played under Lewis before going on to fame in the NBA.
His teams were unparalleled in terms of collective success. In the late '60s, Hayes was a two-time All-American and led UH to an undefeated regular season in 1968. The team lost both games in the Final Four and finished fourth in the nation after a being ranked first in the AP poll.
In the early 1980s, Lewis put together the most famous team in UH history. Houstonian Clyde Drexler teamed with Nigerian Akeem Olujuwon, Reid Gettys and Micheal Young to make up what Houston Post columnist Thomas Bonk dubbed Phi Slama Jama. That team took college basketball above the rim, and that style of play took the Coogs to the Final Four three straight years.
With teams that reached the NCAA championship game in 1983 and 1984, Guy Lewis cemented himself among college basketball's greats. His inability to win the national title is the only barrier between him and coaching immortality.
In December of 1961, UH hired a 33-year-old football coach from East Lansing, Mich., by the name of Bill Yeoman.
Yeoman quickly set the stage for his career as he went 7-4 in his first season on Cullen. After three mediocre years followed, Yeoman revitalized the team with a nine-year stretch where his worst record was 6-4-1. During that stretch, the Coogs went to the third-ever bowl game in school history, the 1971 Bluebonnet Bowl in the Astrodome.
Houston joined the Southwest Conference in 1976 and quickly made an impact. The team finished that season 10-2 and tied for first for the conference title. In UH's first appearance in the Cotton Bowl, the team beat Maryland 30-21. That year's squad finished fourth in the nation, the highest finish in school history.
In 1978 and '79, the team again finished first in the SWC and went to the Cotton Bowl. In '78, they lost to Notre Dame by a score 34-35, then rebounded the next season to beat Nebraska 17-14 in Dallas.
1984 was Coach Yeoman's last great year. His team battled for a 7-5 record, which was good enough for a tie for the conference championship and the team's last Cotton Bowl berth. In a season which saw the team beat Texas A&M and Texas in the same year, the up-and-down Coogs lost that game to Notre Dame 28-45.
Coach Yeoman would retire after the 1986 season, which would see UH's worst record to date, 1-10. He now works for the athletic development office, and is seen as a hero in Cougar athletic history.
Compared to Williams, Lewis, and Yeoman, Rolan Walton spent hardly any time at UH. In 1975, Walton took over the program from legendary coach Lovette Hill and became the most winning coach in the program's history.
After a sluggish first season, Walton's team won 31 games in 1976. He finished third in the SWC after a 6-9 finish to the season. In his 12 years, his teams won 25 games 10 times, including a school record 44 in 1985. Walton never won a conference crown, but his teams were always competitive down to the wire in the SWC race.