Champions Club 1/28/2015 11:42:00 AM

Sports Spectacular highlights Tubbs

Sports Spectacular benefiting OCU athletics set for April 2

Billy Tubbs will be the recipient of the 2015 Abe Lemons/Paul Hansen Award for Sports Excellence.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Billy Tubbs will be recognized as Oklahoma City University's 2014-15 recipient of the Abe Lemons/Paul Hansen Award for Sports Excellence at the annual OCU Sports Spectacular dinner and auction 6 p.m. Thursday, April 2 at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
The Abe Lemons/Paul Hansen Award honors an individual who significantly contributes to the growth of sports in the state. Last year's recipient was Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione.
Past award winners are Ron Norick, Clay Bennett, Lee Allan Smith, Dr. William Grana, Stanley Draper Jr., Bob Funk, Barry Switzer, Mick Cornett, Bobby Murcer, Bart Conner, Bill Self, Tom J. McDaniel, Sherri Coale, Mike Knopp and Sam Presti.
The OCU Sports Spectacular includes a dinner, entertainment and live and silent auctions. Proceeds benefit OCU's 21 varsity intercollegiate sports programs and the Paul Hansen Memorial Scholarship and the Abe Lemons Endowed Athletic Scholarship. Those scholarships provide funding to OCU student-athletes who have completed their eligibility and are within one year of graduation.
The auction typically features a variety of items. The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is located on 1700 NE 63rd Street in Oklahoma City. Individual tickets are $100, and tables for eight are $750. Please RSVP by March 25. For ticket or sponsorship information or to donate auction items, call (405) 208-5660 or (405) 208-5309.
"This event is critical to the success of our athletic department in that we depend on the funds the event raises to support our teams," Oklahoma City University athletic director Jim Abbott said.
Billy Tubbs, considered the "man who builds college basketball programs," has had a distinguished career as a head basketball coach. His up-tempo brand of basketball, introduced during his coaching days at the University of Oklahoma and affectionately referred to as "Billyball", was the style of the future for the Big Eight. Soon, Tubbs' brand of basketball was being played on courts across the country. Tubbs demonstrated that by using a somewhat visionary approach, he could coach – and out-coach – the best of them.
Tubbs' coaching resume includes records of 333-132 (.716 percentage) at Oklahoma, 156-95 (.622) at TCU, 121-89 (.576) at Lamar and 31-24 (.564) at Southwestern University. Eighteen times his teams posted 20-victory seasons, and they made 12 NCAA appearances and six NIT appearances, while winning eight conference championships and three conference tournament championships.
Tubbs achieved many coaching milestones during his coaching career, including becoming the ninth coach in NCAA history to record 100 wins at three different schools (Oklahoma 333, TCU 156 and Lamar 121). He became the 28th coach in NCAA Division I history to record 600 wins in Lamar's 79-67 win over Texas Southern during the 2003-04 season.
Billy was always working the crowd, the officials and the press. His zany sense of humor was out front as he ribbed the press and aggravated officials. He may hold the national record for "can't comment, gotta catch a plane" postgame press conferences, even when there wasn't a plane to catch. He always had a perky or pithy comment to say about the latest newspaper story, and wasn't shy about giving his opinion. The unpredictability, volatility and excitement of Billyball and Tubbs-talk made Billy Tubbs one of the most loved, most hated, and most entertaining college basketball coaches of his time.
Tubbs was a three-year basketball letterman at Tulsa's Central High. He was a two-year letterman at Lamar for coach Jack Martin and began his coaching career as Martin's assistant coach from 1960-71. Beginning his head coaching career at Southwestern University in Texas in 1971, Tubbs posted a 31-24 record over two years. Returning to Lamar as head coach from 1976-79, he guided the Cardinals out of the shadows and into the national spotlight to a 75-46 record and the school's first two NCAA Tournament appearances. His Cardinals won three straight Southland Conference titles, and Tubbs was named SLC Coach of the Year following both the 1978 and 1980 campaigns.
Taking the reins at the University of Oklahoma in 1980, he was faced with the challenge of rebuilding a program that had been to the NCAA Tournament only once in the 33 previous seasons. Tubbs led the Sooners to the national championship game in 1988. He took OU to nine NCAA and four NIT tournaments, including a streak of six straight Sweet 16 appearances from 1985-90. His OU teams had 13 winning seasons and won five conference championships. Tubbs was four-time Big Eight Coach of the Year and was named Basketball Weekly National Coach of the Year in 1983 and 1985. His fast-paced style of play on offense and high-pressure defense changed the way people looked at Oklahoma basketball.
Tubbs wasted little time in turning around the Texas Christian University basketball program, which he took over in the spring of 1994. In his first season, he took a team that had won just 13 games the previous two seasons and turned it into a Southwest Conference contender. He took TCU to one NCAA Tournament and two NIT appearances, and earned Southwest Conference and Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors.
Tubbs returned to his alma mater Lamar in 2002 as athletic director, adding duties as head basketball coach in May 2003. Keeping true to his reputation, he turned around the Cardinals' program in just his second year back on the sidelines. In each of his final two seasons at Lamar, he was honored as Coach of the Year by the Texas Basketball Coaches Association.
An avid jogger and golfer, he recorded his first hole-in-one in July 1995. The president and CEO of B.T., Inc., Tubbs is a supporter of many charitable causes.
Sports Spectacular Invitation
Donation Form

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