University of Houston basketball legend Guy Vernon Lewis II was laid to rest today. Lewis passed away on Thanksgiving, November 26, 2015, in Kyle, TX at the age of 93. To say Houston Cougar basketball is indebted to Coach Lewis is to tiptoe around a libelous understatement. From when he first laced up his sneakers for the Red and White in 1946, through his retirement from coaching in 1986, and into his enduring presence and counsel in his later years, Cougar basketball, athletics, and the University itself were forever changed by his decades of service and devotion. Inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, Lewis saw his teams lay claim to two Southwest Conference championships, four SWC tournament championships, five Final Four appearances, and tally 592 wins under his tenure as head coach of the Cougars.
A snapshot history of Guy V. Lewis and the University of Houston
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- 1946: Fresh from his service in World War II, Lewis (#37) begins his playing career with the 1946 Lone Star Conference champion Houston Cougar basketball team. (Houstonian)
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- 1953: Lewis (back row, far right) joins the Cougars as an assistant coach. (Houstonian, 1954)
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- 1956: Coach Alden Pasche announces his retirement and the University of Houston names Guy V. Lewis as the program’s new head coach. He would serve in that role for the next thirty years. (Houstonian, 1957)
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- 1966: While Warren McVea was turning heads for Coach Bill Yeoman’s gridiron Coogs, Lewis (back row, far right) recruits Don Chaney (#24) and Elvin Hayes (#44) were integrating Houston Cougar basketball (Houstonian). For more on UH and Lewis’s role in integrating intercollegiate athletics in the South, see the new book from Robert Jacobus, Houston Cougars in the 1960s: Death Threats, the Veer Offense, and the Game of the Century.
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- 1968: Coach Lewis victorious following the Game of the Century (Houstonian). In front of more than 52,000 fans in the Astrodome and millions more on national television (a first for a regular season college basketball game), the #2 Houston Cougars remain undefeated, ending the 47 game winning streak of Coach John Wooden, Lew Alcindor, and the #1 UCLA Bruins. Coach Lewis would call it the greatest thrill of his career.
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- 1969: Coach Lewis enjoys the post-tournament ceremonies in the wake of a Cougar victory in the Bluebonnet Classic. (Houstonian, 1970)
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- 1977: Coach Guy Lewis shakes hands with President Philip G. Hoffman (right) following victory in the NIT semi-finals. (UH Photographs Collection, Madison Square Garden, NY)
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- 1984: Coach Lewis and Hakeem Olajuwon talk strategy. (Houstonian). In the early 1980s Texas’ Tallest Fraternity is born as “Akeem” Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Michael Young, and the rest of Phi Slama Jama help propel the Cougars to three straight Final Four appearances from 1982 to 1984. Lewis championed their up-tempo, above-the-rim style noting that slam dunks (once outlawed in college basketball) are “high-percentage shots.”
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- 1986: Four decades after his playing days started here, Guy V. Lewis announces his retirement from coaching at the University of Houston. On being asked what he would like to be remembered for, Lewis said, “Not for the wins and losses, but that every team that we put out on the floor was a hustling, aggressive outfit. If there was ever a trademark I thought Guy Lewis teams had it was that they hustled all the way.” (Houstonian)