Bill Blakeley footage

[Marty]

Pretty cool to see!

[GrayEagle]

Thanks, Marty.  Bill Blakeley was my favorite coach and even more so my favorite person.  I was privileged on several occasions to sit for as much as an hour listening to Blakeley stories.  Bill was entertaining, witty and had a real gift for gab.  He and Dan Spika have been our best basketball coaches but we may have a new challenger on the horizon.

[aztecskin]

Those are some sweet ass uniforms. 

 

[Green Lantern]

Spread collar for Coach was on point!

[southsideguy]

i always remember the mottos he put on the back of his chair on the court.

[Marty]

Those were fun teams to watch!

Blakeley referenced Randy Galloway, anybody remember what Ol’ Randy wrote back then?

[oldguystudent]

From Blakeley's wiki page.  Man, that's a familiar story.

 

Quote

North Texas had difficultly scheduling games with conference schools that did, including teams from the Southwest Conference, particularly nearby rival SMU, which, separated by 35 miles, offered strong attendance possibilities on a home-and-home basis. In 1976, Ken Wilson, then a sports writer for the Denton Record-Chronicle, surveyed schools from the Southwest, Big 8, Big Ten, and Southeastern Conferences and major independents. Most schools were not interested in scheduling North Texas basketball. They, according to Wilson, wanted giveaway games. North Texas, for the 1976 and 1977 seasons, was not a giveaway school. Wilson also inferred that SMU and TCU felt that they would gain little by beating North Texas, but might suffer in recruiting if they lost.

 

[FirefightnRick]

Wished I had been old enough to have seen him coach.  The stories over the years are awesome.  And of course, I love this uni's.  But that footage of Texas Hall mades my skin crawl.  Sorriest place on earth to have to play in but we always took a nice crowd.

 

Rick

[greenjoe]

I remember the first time I went to see a game at UTA's Texas Hall.  I couldn't understand why so many "good" seats were available in the theater section to sit near the court.  I sat down and quickly understood why.  The first 10 or 15 rows were BELOW the court.  I would have had to sit on 10 phone books to even see the court.  I moved to the other side of the court with about 15 rows of bleachers very similar to my junior high gym.

I have somewhere the cover to the game day program from a NT-Baylor game.  The game I have since referred to as the "John Horrocks All-World" game.  This particular program features a photo of Coach Blakely pulling on his tie in a chocking manner as to signal to the referee that the ref had "choked" on that last call.   Years later I mailed it to Coach Blakely and he signed it and sent it back. 

My wife's all time favorite.  She went to see him.  I don't know if she realized there was also a game or not.

GO MEAN GREEN

[drex]

Bill Blakeley was not just a good coach, he was a good showman.  His James Brown routine of having an assistant take his coat after he threw it off was classic. Also, his praying when we shot free throws was also great.  By the way, Lee Corso, now with ESPN, used to pray for field goals on his hands and knees when he coached at Louisville.  Corso and Blakeley knew the games were more than football or basketball...they were about entertaining the crowd.

[GrayEagle]

On 2/14/2018 at 9:43 AM, southsideguy said:

i always remember the mottos he put on the back of his chair on the court.

Yes, I remember "Expect Miracles" and "Miracles Never Cease".

My favorite Blakeley antics were when he'd grab his nose and tilt his head back to indicate a referee's call that stunk and grabbing his tie (if he was wearing one) and pulling it up in hangman's fashion to indicate that the referees choked.