God’s Team—Oral Roberts University Titans

Titans In Our Midst

When most people think about college basketball they usually think about the current powerhouses and names familiar to most sports fans: Duke and Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina and Roy Williams and Bobby Knight among others. And, if the same question had been asked in 1965 most probably would have said John Wooden and UCLA, Adolph Rupp and Kentucky and Henry Iba and Oklahoma State the most notable names of the times. All were and are great programs and featured head coaches who had established long traditions of success and excellence.

However, another force was brewing at the time that would certainly change the face of Tulsa collegiate basketball if not the country. In 1965, evangelist Oral Roberts founded a university in his name. The main reason was because God commanded him to “raise up your students to hear My voice…to go where My light is dim…where My voice is heard small.” So in 1965 Oral Roberts University was founded in a 550-acre pasture located at the corner of 81st and Lewis bordered by Southern Hills Country Club to the north, Lewis Avenue to the west, 81st street to the south and an undeveloped area to the east. The center of the ornate campus featured a 200-foot, spire Prayer Tower (home of the Abundant Life Prayer Group featuring a 24/7 prayer hotline) that attracted over 200,000 visitors in 1972 and a clarion call to “Expect a Miracle.”Oral Roberts said God had told him to build ORU to educate the “whole man.” The inaugural class consisted of 300 co-ed students (apparently the women did not mind the discriminatory mission statement) and a student-to-teacher ratio of 16:1 who were offering a well-rounded curriculum that would develop the “Mind. Spirit. Body.” 

The dedication ceremony was held on April 2, 1967 before 20,000 people, including my parents, and was keynoted by the popular evangelist Billy Graham who said, 

"This certainly is the university of tomorrow. Evangelical Christendom can be proud today of this university and what it will mean to the future of this country….May ORU produce a holy enthusiasm for the will of God. It’s still true that people who get exited about the Scriptures and the will of God are people who can change the world…To this end we dedicate ORU.” 

Although the “Mind. Spirit. Body” mantra was certainly the main driver behind the schools’ existence another motivation drove the founder. Oral Roberts was an avid sports enthusiast and considered sports the main vehicle to spread the word of his evangelical mission. Football was most popular at the time and was riding a renaissance across the county due to the expansion of the NFL and AFL as well as the growth of television. However, Oklahoma Sooner football and the struggling Dallas Cowboys were king in Oklahoma. Plus, the Glenn Dobbs’ aerial circus of cross-town rival University of Tulsa would make it hard on recruiting as well as difficult to pull the locals away from.

Besides, football was labor intensive and a suitable stadium and expenses could sky rocket and cripple a fledgling university. So, Oral Roberts turned his attention to another sport. The ORU Titans men’s basketball team would be founded that inaugural year to Oral Roberts satisfaction in order for his evangelical message to reach the “60 million men” who read the daily sports pages across the country. Keeping true to his mission, Oral Roberts created a uniform to fulfill God’s order. It was by no accident that the Titans colors were Blue, Gold and White. First, Blue represented God’s enveloping presence over all things. Gold represented the royalty of God. And, not to be outdone, White represented God’s purity of Spirit in every person. After the uniforms were decided upon, his first order was to hire a head coach who could fulfill his mission. After five years under inaugural coach Bill White who compiled a 65-35 record, Oral found his man in Ken Trickey.

Over the next five years Ken Trickey developed one of the most successful college basketball teams in the country. Oh sure they were not in a conference and they were actually an NAIA small-college team. However, do not let those two facts obscure the greatness that was being developed in the Southern Hills of Tulsa. Trickey was hired as head coach in 1969 after a successful five year stint at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. In fact, it was Trickey's 115-98 thumping of ORU on December 2, 1968 at the Titan Fieldhouse that convinced Oral Roberts to offer him the Titans job. The Cairo, Illinois native had resurrected the basketball program as a member of the Ohio Valley Conference. A captain of the 1954 Blue Raider team which made it to the NAIA tournament in Kansas City, Trickey had returned to his alma mater in 1962 as assistant basketball coach and head baseball coach. During the next five years in Tulsa, Trickey would compile an overall record of 118 and 23 for an 84% winning percentage. He would leave and come back later and is still ORU’s all-time leader in wins as a coach. However, his first stint is simply defined in terms of greatness. In 1969-70, Trickey was 27-4 and 15-0 at home.

To prove the first year was not a fluke, Trickey led ORU to a 21-5 record the next season and another perfect home record of 11-0. In 1970-71, ORU averaged 104.1 points per game and held their opponents to under 84 points per game. In 1971-72, the first year of NCAA action, ORU proved they were no small-college fluke and improved to 26-2 (the team averaged 105.1 pts. per game vs. 90.1 for opponents) and again was perfect at home (14-0 at home for a three-year home record of 40-0.) That 1971-72 squad was ranked in the Associated Press Top 20 for four weeks reaching the highest ranking of 16th. They also established the season team record for points scored of 2,943 and the season team record for points average per game (105.1) in the 1971/72 season. The highlight of the year was qualifying for the National Invitational Tournament and upset of perennial power Memphis State before losing to St. John’s. 

So for those of you counting at home let’s go to the Ken Trickey scorecard after his first three seasons: 74 wins versus 11 losses for an 87% winning record. Among the milestones were 22 consecutive wins from November 20, 1971 to March 18, 1972 and 52 consecutive home wins beginning February 17, 1969 that would not end until January 29, 1973. Pretty impressive numbers and not the kind of record you can run up without the key ingredient to any team: players. The most notable player among those ORU teams was Richard Fuqua. Fuqua was a 6-foot 3-inch shooting guard from Chattanooga, Tennessee that bought into ORU’s mission and came to the predominantly white town and private, Methodist school in Tulsa. Before Fuqua was through at ORU he was inducted into the ORU Hall Of Fame and compiled the following milestones in his career:

--All-America in 1972 & 1973.
--Scored Over 50 points per game 4x's in career.
--All-Time School Leader in Points Scored in a Season with 1,006 in 1971/72.
--Second All-Time School Leader in Career Points Scored with 3,004 from 1970 to 1974.
--Second All-Time Career Scoring Average with 27.1 points per game.
--Led School in Scoring all Four Years of College from 1969/70 to 1972/73 (18.1/31.8/35.9/23.5—the 35.9 is still the all-time school record.)
--Scored 60 points against University of the South in 1971. 

The team highlight during Fuqua’s career came on the night of February 24, 1972 during the final game in the old Titan Field House when ORU established the school record for points scored in a 155-113 win over Union of Tennessee. ORU scored 84 points in the first half. Fuqua could not have accomplished all of those records by himself and didn’t. Players of note included Sam McCants, Al Boswell, David Vaughn, Eddie Woods, Eldon Lawyer, Sam McCamey and Haywood Hill. However, the glue that held this unit together was the head coach.

Ken Trickey’s up tempo, run-and-gun offense left opposing teams ragged after playing ORU. In fact Trickey had labeled his free-wheeling style "WRAG (We Run And Gun) Offense." They simply ran from the opening tip-off and never stopped until the final buzzer. It seemed like the main strategy was the first person across half court shot the ball and most of the times it was Fuqua and the shots went in. These games were wild and raucous and the crowds were left buzzing after every game. The gymnasium that hosted the Titans simply added to the mystique. The arena was very small and looked like an igloo from the outside. In reality, the building had a dual-purpose as it also featured the schools swimming pool. You could actually watch the basketball game and see the pool behind the large divider located behind one of the baskets. ORU at the time only had 1,800 students and most were more interested in the “Mind. Spirit. Body” philosophy than the basketball team. The first season averaged about 300 fans, so the local community supported the games with a small student body of supporters. However, the students soon discovered the exciting Titans and the crowds overflowed the small gymnasium/nadatorium. 

In 1972, Oral Roberts outgrew the “igloo” and its’ swimming pool companion and workers finished building a new $11-million state-of-the art basketball arena to match the Titans’ success. The Mabee Center was opened just in time for the 1972-73 basketball season on December 2, 1972 before a star-studded crowd which would fittingly be Richard Fuqua’s last year. Fuqua would score the first points in the new arena and Trickey and his talented group did not disappoint by compiling a 21-6 record, another NIT appearance and for six weeks a ranking in the AP Top 20. In fact the 1972-73 squad was ranked #18 in the pre-season AP poll and on December 12, 1972 reached their highest ranking at 10th in the country. The Titans were led by the dynamic duo of Fuqua and 7’ Sophomore center David Vaughn who would average 19 points and 14 rebounds per game. How good were these two? Fuqua was drafted by the Boston Celtics and Vaughn by the ABA’s Virginia Cavaliers following the 72’-73’ season. 

However, the greatest season was still to come. In 1973/74, ORU led by rebounder-extraordinaire Eddie Woods and high-scorer Sam McCants, was 23-6 and for five weeks ranked in the AP Top 20 (they would reach as high as 18th) and qualified for the big dance—the NCAA Tournament. Now this is not the NCAA “March Madness” mega-monolithic version that captivates the nation’s attention now. This NCAA tournament was smaller and more colloquial. In fact, in 1973 the NCAA tournament field consisted of only 25 teams. It was much harder to qualify back then and the top seeds all received first round byes. Not that the byes mattered much to the rest of the teams as one west coast school dominated the tournament. 

The 1974 NCAA tournament was supposed to be a coronation for John Wooden’s defending champion UCLA Bruins. In fact, the Bruins had won the last seven NCAA tournaments dating back to the Lew Alcindor-led 1967 bunch (he would later be influenced by Muhammad Ali and changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar.) Bill Walton had taken up just where Alcindor had left off and UCLA was heavily favored to win their eighth consecutive title. Other notable teams were Digger Phelps’ Notre Dame Fighting Irish (who had upset UCLA during the season ending their 88-game consecutive win streak,) Ted Owen’s Kansas Jayhawks, Frank McGuire’s South Carolina Gamecocks and Norm Sloan’s North Carolina State Wolfpack featuring Player of the Year David Thompson.

However, there was no team that seemed capable of dethroning UCLA. ORU qualified for the Midwest Sub-regional in Denton, Texas as an "at large" selection. They were matched against Syracuse from the East. This was not Hiram Scott, Sul Ross State, University of the South, Athletes in Action, Union of Tennessee or any of the other “softies” found on earlier Titan schedules. However, ORU proved themselves worthy adversaries. ORU defeated the Orangemen 86-82 in overtime to advance to the Midwest Region Final to be held in all places--at the Mabee Center in Tulsa. A late substitution for host Wichita State who dropped the basketball program earlier in the season, the historical significance of hosting an NCAA tournament in Tulsa cannot go unnoticed. The only other time an NCAA basketball tournament regional had been held in the state of Oklahoma was in 1958 in Henry Iba’s Stillwater! There ORU would meet nationally ranked Louisville led by Wooden-acolyte Denny Crum. Again, ORU surprised the basketball establishment by rallying from an 11-point deficit to finish off the Cardinals 96-93 behind the play of guards Sam McCants and Al Boswell who combined for 53 points. Now the Titans were in the elite Final 8 and were one win away from college basketballs “Holy Grail”-- the Final Four. 

Other than Oral Roberts and God himself, who would have imagined that the ORU Titans would go from small college competition to the NCAA’s “Elite 8” in 10 short years? But alas, it was not to be. Although ORU led by as many as nine points late in the game, the Titans eventually lost at home to a tournament-tested Kansas Jayhawk team that was making its second Final Four appearance in three years, 93 to 90 in overtime (Ironically, Jayhawks coach Ted Owens, a native of Hollis, Oklahoma and OU Sooner graduate, would return to Mabee Center in the mid-80’s as Titans coach.) The game was a bitter defeat for the Titans during their first appearance on the national stage and was marked by controversy. Perhaps reeling from the pressure associated with his accomplishments on the court, Trickey was arrested for drunken driving following the Louisville game on Thursday night. Oral Roberts immediately suspended Trickey; however, soon saw the light and reinstated his beleaquered coach after a prayer session in which "Ken told me he thought God wanted him to coach." Although, Trickey would stumble he did recover to coach the Titans to within an overtime victory of a Final Four appearance. How significant was this accomplishment you might ask? Well, in 42 years of basketball competition, ORU has only been to the NCAA tournament four times in school history—the most recent this season.

Although Sloan’s Wolfpack would stun Wooden’s UCLA Bruins 80-72 in double overtime in the National Semifinal and go on to defeat Al McQuire’s Marquette Warriors 64-51 to win the national championship, for many Tulsans the 1974 NCAA tournament will be remembered as the year ORU finally gained national credibility. In fact, the NCAA tournament appearance capped a remarkable five year run for ORU which saw the Titans recording more victories than any other NCAA school except for perennial champ UCLA. The role of tradition with UCLA and Kansas left an indelible impression on the ORU coach. Trickey had this to say following the Kansas loss:

"It's because of tradition. Even North Carolina State and UCLA can't touch the

tradition of Kansas. You don't have to believe this, but it affects their players. They don't 

have better players than us, but they've got tradition."

As with all things, this chapter in ORU history would end. Trickey, who had actually resigned in mid-season after bickering with Oral Roberts over basketball doctrine, would leave following the season to accept the Iowa State head coaching job. 

And although ORU would have success without Ken Trickey with a slew of top coaches (Jerry Hale, Ted Owens, Ken Hayes, and Bill Self) and players (Anthony Roberts, Mark Acres, and Greg Sutton,) the basketball would never be the same. 

Nor could it have been. 

Trickey would return in the mid-80’s to lead ORU through some difficult transitions but would never match his earlier success. 

In 1989, after school finances had been drained on building the City of Faith hospital that local leaders told Oral Roberts was not needed, ORU dropped NCAA classification to the more affordable NAIA level. The move reportedly saved the school $750,000 but the stain of moving from the big-time could not be erased. Trickey would have one final winning season but the thrill was gone and he soon departed after the 1993 season. 

Today, Tulsa is a growing metropolis with nearly one million residents. Many citizens have moved there in corporate relocations and most assuredly are not aware of the origins of the ORU Titans (the name was changed to Golden Eagles in 1993) or the basketball legacy of Oral Roberts, Ken Trickey and Richard Fuqua. 

However, to a small group of fans who weathered the early years in the cramped “igloo” playing the likes of Hiram Scott, Sul Ross State and University of the South and saw the meteoric rise to the 1974 NCAA Final Eight, the ORU legacy lives on in the memory banks. 

And, Ken Trickey's legacy would have far-reaching influence in Tulsa and the Sooner state as well as the national stage. 

In 1981, Nolan Richardson would have the University of Tulsa "Rollin' with Nolan" as they would win the N.I.T. in New York. 

And, a young coach at Lamar University in Texas would soon emulate Trickey's "WRAG Offense" in Norman, Oklahoma with another Tulsa basketball legend. Billy Tubbs, a Tulsa native, and Wayman Tisdale, a Tulsa Booker T. Washington graduate, would rewrite the Oklahoma Sooner record books in the 1980's. The pair would reach the NCAA Midwest Regional Final 11 years later losing to Memphis State in Dallas. 

And in the NBA, long before Magic Johnson's "Showtime" in Los Angeles and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan resurrected professional basketball into the phenomenally popular sport it is today in the 1980’s, there were Titans in our midst in Tulsa soaring above the clouds with the basketball gods.

Originally posted on January 1, 2008 on OklahomaSportsMemories.blogspot.com