Hoops Hoopla

Long before UCLA, Duke and North Carolina rose up to rule the NCAA hoops nation, there were the roaring Bears of Coach Bill Henderson. Half a century later, the players' memories of those glory days have not faded.
In 1948 and 1950, the men's team went to what now is known as the Final Four, going all the way to the national championship in 1948 -- still the only Texas Big 12 team to advance that far. The Bears lost that game to Kentucky but captured two Southwest Conference titles and shared two others over a five-year period. Along the way, they captured a spot in the 1948 Olympic basketball trials and the rapt attention of a sports-savvy nation and basketball-crazy city and campus. That span of conference domination from the fall of 1945 to the spring of 1950, combined with postseason play, represents an accomplishment few Big 12 schools have replicated.
"We did our part to spread our green and gold afar. Most of the people on the East Coast had never heard of Baylor, but they did after we played there," said point guard Jackie Robinson, who captured All-America honors and a spot on the 1948 U.S. Olympic team. 
The Bears' squad was coached by Henderson, known as Mr. Bill to students, players and faculty. Midway through the 1945 season, he took over from Van Sweet and didn't waste any time turning the Bears into consistent winners. Henderson's son, retired Waco surgeon Ronald E. Henderson, served as the team's manager. "My dad always recruited players who could play good defense and work together," he said.
Robinson, a semiretired Baptist preacher now living in Augusta, Ga., attended high school with teammates Ralph Pulley and Bill Johnson in Fort Worth. After winning the Texas state high school basketball title in 1945, all three signed with Baylor to play for Henderson. The team also included Bill DeWitt, Don Heathington, Red Owens, Odell Preston, Bill Hickman and Bill Strack. Five on the team were 6 feet or taller.
"We had good players and good people, and Mr. Bill could really coach them," DeWitt said. 
Henderson's Bears began their historic 1947-48 season with a 10-day train trip to California, which included a Rose Bowl basketball tournament championship and an early season victory over a pre-John Wooden UCLA team. That year, Baylor cruised through Southwest Conference play with an 11-1 record and advanced to the NCAA Division Six playoffs against the University of Arizona, a team that had defeated the Bears earlier in the year. 
In a best-of-three playoff series in Dallas, Baylor easily handled the Wildcats twice and advanced to the NCAA Western Regional in Kansas City. Baylor's opponent in the first round was the University of Washington, which took a 19-point first-half lead on the Bears before Baylor fought back for a thrilling 64-62 win.
"They had us down early with their big men, but Mr. Bill was always able to keep us in the motion offense, and we could come back on anyone," Pulley said.
DeWitt recalled that Henderson had a nervous habit of tying and untying his shoelaces at critical points in the game so he wouldn't have to watch a play unfold. "Mr. Bill tied the heck out of his shoes in that game and many others," DeWitt said.
Baylor's opponent in the Western Finals was a heavily favored Kansas State squad, thought by many to be the best in the nation, especially playing on what amounted to a home court in Kansas City. Once again, Baylor trailed by double digits in the first half but fought back, this time for a 60-52 win. In the final moments of the Bears' first trip to a national championship, the game was secure enough that Robinson dribbled past Henderson, sitting nervously on the bench, and told him to relax, Robinson recalled.
The players left immediately for New York City, dashing to the station for a waiting train to carry them to their national title bid against Kentucky and its legendary coach Adolph Rupp.
"There was no ceremony or anything; we just had to run for the train," Pulley said. "I don't even know if there was a trophy or who got it."
For many of the players, it was their first trip to famous Madison Square Garden, and some weren't prepared for what they found. "It seemed like there were 19,000 fans and they were all smoking," Robinson said. "We could barely see the other end of the court, and at halftime our lungs were hurting with all that smoke."
Unfortunately, Kentucky's team, known as the Fabulous Five, proved to be too much for Baylor, which lost 58-42. Returning to Waco, the team was greeted by thousands of fans who paraded the players around the city in open cars. Longtime Waco Tribune-Herald sports editor Dave Campbell recently voted the Bears' remarkable NCAA run the greatest moment in Baylor sports history.
"It seemed like an impossible task for a small, Baptist, private school to play all those big, rich, state schools," Robinson said, "but we did it."
 

Stricklin, BA '83, is a Dallas-based freelance writer.