The NBA Finals date back to 1947 (when they were known as the Basketball Association of America Finals) and the very 1st NCAA tourney was held in 1939. Olympic basketball competition is even older: it debuted as a demonstration event in 1904 and the men’s version became a medal sport in 1936, with the women finally getting their chance to go for the gold in 1976. The United States has dominated Olympic basketball competition from the start: the men have won 15 gold medals in the 18 tournaments they have participated in during the past 84 years, while the women have won 8 gold medals in the 10 tournaments in which they have competed during the past 44 years. Those of you who were looking forward to the 2020 Olympics opening ceremonies in Tokyo on July 24, 2020 will have to wait an extra 364 days, as the coronavirus caused a postponement until July 23, 2021. Due to the absence of college basketball since mid-March, HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel decided to fill the void by trying to interview as many prior Olympic players/coaches as possible so that you have something to read this summer while not watching the Summer Games. We continue our coverage by chatting with Ted Owens, former player at Oklahoma, about his coach Bruce Drake winning a gold medal in 1956.
In 1929 Drake was named a Helms All-American at Oklahoma: how good a player was he back in the day, and what did it mean to him to receive such an outstanding honor? He was not only an outstanding basketball player but a great athlete: he played QB and was the conference pole vault champ. Even when I played for him in the 1950s he could still do handstands and was a great racquetball player. The school only had 1 court at the time and he was the best on the campus. I never saw film of him playing but he was so athletic. Quarterbacks back then did a lot of handoffs/blocking and the poles he vaulted with did not compare to those of today. Helms was the authority back then.
He became head coach at his alma mater in 1938 and won 6 conference titles during an 11-year span from 1939-1949: why did he take the job, and how was he able to have so much success over such a long period of time? He had a brilliant mind offensively and was very sound on defense. Long before other coaches used America’s “screen the screener” play he was doing that himself in the 1940s. Having that 2nd screen allowed the 1st screener to get open if the defense dropped off. He had a great rapport with his players and treated them as men while motivating them to do their very best. When I arrived in Norman out of high school I had to compete against 25-year old war veterans while treating them in a mature way. It was a great time in our lives but I am sure that it was difficult to be a coach.
He also founded the golf/swimming teams at Oklahoma: which sport was he the best coach of, and which sport did he enjoy the most? You would laugh if you saw the pool: it was not much! He loved to play/coach golf and his portrait is at the school’s course clubhouse. 1 of his best players was Charlie Coe (who is considered to be 1 of the greatest American amateur golfers ever).
In the 1939 NCAA tourney he led the Sooners to the Final 4 before losing to eventual champ Oregon: how close did he come to winning the 1st-ever NCAA tourney? Oregon was head and shoulders above everyone else. We had to win our conference just to qualify, then we had to play the MVC winner to see who would go to the NCAA Western Regional in Kansas City (the Eastern Regional was held at Madison Square Garden). There were only 8 teams in the NCAA tourney so it was very competitive. The team that won in Kansas City would then have to hop on a train to head to NYC for the Finals, and the Regional runner-up would also head east for the 3rd-place game.
In the 1947 NCAA tourney title game Gerald Tucker scored 22 PTS in a loss to Holy Cross: where does that rank among the most devastating losses of his career? I was a high school senior in Oklahoma at the time and that team was very good. Henry Iba’s Oklahoma A&M team was the 2-time defending national champ but was in a different conference. The 2 schools played each other that spring for the chance to go to the Regional and it was a barnburner of a game. Coach Drake used a “Double Zero” play as part of his delay offense that helped win the game and gained him a lot of attention. Most people thought that Texas was the best team in the country with future Hall of Famer Slater Martin. Oklahoma beat Oregon State on a Friday and then Texas the very next day thanks to a jumper from Kenny Pryor, then caught a Sunday train to NYC for the final on Monday while Holy Cross was able to rest on Sunday. It was a great disappointment but Holy Cross had some great players like Bob Cousy/George Kaftan. OU has still never won an NCAA basketball title.
You enrolled at OU soon afterward and spent 3 years playing for Drake: what made him such a great coach, and what was the most important thing that you ever learned from him? I had a wonderful high school coach but he was an old school tough disciplinarian. Coach Drake was more of a great encourager so I tried to copy his style in terms of the way you treat your players. I was a good player and he gave me confidence in my ability. We were competing against guys 5 years older than us who were good players so I did not break into the starting lineup until my senior year. It was a great education for me. Our freshman coach was a great teacher of fundamentals so I had a great balance of coaches. I always liked to run things by him to see what he thought and he was like family to me.
In the 1950s he created the “Shuffle Offense”, which provide scoring opportunities for undersized teams such as his own “Roundball Runts” by promoting team play/offensive movement/ball control: how did he come up with it, and what made it so effective? I think that I was 1 of the 1st people to run the Drake Shuffle as a freshman. It was based on continuity: there was no shot clock so we could run it several times during 1 possession. In later years there was an SEC team who ran what they called the “Auburn Shuffle” but it was really our shuffle. Some newspaper folks just called it “the play”.
He served as Chairman of the NCAA Rules Committee from 1951-1955: how did he like the job, and why did he hate goaltending? I think that he hated it because Coach Iba was winning games with it in Stillwater! Iba did not like it either but used the rule to benefit his team, as he should have. 1 year when they came to Norman to play Coach Drake built a platform that extended out near the basket for Chairman James Sinclair to get a good view of the basket. The final score was 15-11 and Bob Kurland helped win the game by goaltending about 7-8 shots. The Saturday Evening Post wrote an article about it in 1944 called “7-Foot Trouble”…and the rule was changed before the start of the following season.
He was an assistant to his former player Tucker with team USA at the 1956 Olympics: what did it mean to him to represent his country, and what did it mean to him to win a gold medal? He was thrilled! His last year at OU was in 1955 and then Air Force asked him to coach its All-Stars in the 4-team Olympic Trials tourney. Tucker was coaching the Phillips 66ers and there were a couple of other teams as well. Phillips won the tourney so Tucker became head coach and had the added pleasure of having his former coach as his assistant: it was a great honor.
He was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1973 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006: when people look back on his career, how do you think that he should be remembered the most? We loved him and had such great admiration for him: I had a lifelong friendship with him. The OU practice court is named in his honor: I was on the committee and helped Coach Kelvin Sampson support it. He played in Oklahoma and lived the rest of his life in Norman. His wife was known as “Mama Drake”: a lovely woman who knew a lot about basketball. They had 2 daughters named Donna/Deonne, the latter of whom married 1 of my high school friends named Monte Moore. Donna would sit in the bleachers and watch practice every day, then she would come down to the court and walk home with her dad hand-in-hand. All of us were very close and have remained great friends over the years. His granddaughter was a cheerleader at Kansas when the Jayhawks won the NCAA title in 1988.