Ted Owens (basketball)

Ted Owens (born July 16, 1929) is an American former college basketball coach, who was born in Hollis, Oklahoma. He is best-known as the coach of the University of Kansas men's basketball team from 1964 to 1983. He is the fourth-winningest coach in Jayhawks basketball history.

Ted Owens

Biographical details
Born	(1929-07-16) July 16, 1929 Hollis, Oklahoma, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Oklahoma
Playing career
1948–1951	Oklahoma
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1956–1960	Cameron Junior College
1960–1964	Kansas (assistant)
1964–1983	Kansas
1985–1987	Oral Roberts
1989–1990	Maccabi Tel Aviv
1990–1995	Metro Christian Academy HS
Administrative career (AD unless noted)
1995–1999	Saint Leo University
Head coaching record
Overall	369–218 (.628)
Tournaments	8–9 (NCAA Division I)
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
2× NCAA Regional – Final Four (1971, 1974) 6× Big Eight regular season (1966–1967, 1971, 1974–75,1978) Big Eight tournament (1981)
Awards
Basketball Weekly Coach of the Year (1978) 4x Big Eight Coach of the Year (1967, 1971, 1974, 1978)

Player and early coaching experience

Owens attended college at the University of Oklahoma (OU), where he was a three-year letterman under head coach Bruce Drake. He graduated with a BA degree in 1951. In 1956, he was hired to coach both baseball and basketball at Cameron Junior College (Lawton, Oklahoma), where he remained until 1960. His baseball team won the National JC Championship in 1958. The basketball team had a 93–24 record during his four years and appeared in three NJCAA Tournaments.

Owens' overall Kansas record was 348–182 (.657), and his Big Eight Conference record was 170–96 (.639). In Owens' tenure at KU, he won six Big Eight Conference titles and advanced to the NCAA tournament seven times. His 1971 and 1974 teams made it to the Final Four, and in 1968 the Jayhawks lost to Dayton in the finals of the National Invitation Tournament. Owens was named Big Eight Conference Coach of the Year five times and was Named National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly. He coached five All-Americans: Jo Jo White, Darnell Valentine, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walt Wesley. He was fired following the 1982–83 season after the Jayhawks posted back-to-back losing seasons. He is the only coach in the program's history to be fired. Kansas has not suffered a losing season since, and has only missed the NCAA tournament once since then, in 1988–89 when the program was on probation for recruiting violations committed by Owens' successor, Larry Brown.

A three-year letterman at the University of Oklahoma (1949–51), Owens honed his coaching skills as head coach at Cameron State Junior College in Lawton, Oklahoma. In four seasons his teams never won fewer than 20 games and three times advanced to the NJCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship semifinals. At Cameron, he amassed a 93–24 record and boasted four junior college All-Americans.

Owens then accepted an assistant's position under Dick Harp in 1960, and was promoted to head coach when Harp resigned following the 1963–64 season.

Other coaching activities

Owens had a brief stint of coaching at Oral Roberts University (1985–87), and then in Israel with Maccabi Tel Aviv during the 1989–90 season, before being fired in February 1990. He then went on to be the development director and basketball coach at Metro Christian Academy (high school) in Tulsa, Oklahoma for five years where his teams won the district championship five times, and went to the state tournament three times. Subsequently, he moved on to be athletic director at St. Leo University in Florida for four years.

Owens was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame on August 3, 2009. He was inducted into the Kansas Hall of Fame in the same year.

Retirement

After leaving St. Leo, a friend invited him to return to Tulsa and work as an investment adviser for First Capital Management, where he spent the next ten years. After retiring from this position, he decided to continue living in Tulsa in retirement. He returned to Lawrence to coach on September 24, 2011, for the "Legends of the Phog" exhibition match, opposite Larry Brown, in which various Kansas alumni played an exhibition game during the 2011 NBA lockout.

Head coaching record

Statistics overview

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Kansas Jayhawks (Big Eight Conference) (1964–1983)
1964–65	Kansas	17–8	9–5	2nd
1965–66	Kansas	23–4	13–1	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1966–67	Kansas	23–4	13–1	1st	NCAA 2nd Round/Midwest 3rd Place
1967–68	Kansas	22–8	10–4	2nd	NIT Final
1968–69	Kansas	20–7	9–5	T-2nd	NIT first round
1969–70	Kansas	17–9	8–6	2nd
1970–71	Kansas	27–3	14–0	1st	NCAA Final Four
1971–72	Kansas	11–15	7–7	T-4th
1972–73	Kansas	8–18	4–10	7th
1973–74	Kansas	23–7	13–1	1st	NCAA Final Four
1974–75	Kansas	19–8	11–3	1st	NCAA first round
1975–76	Kansas	13–13	6–8	T-4th
1976–77	Kansas	18–10	8–6	4th
1977–78	Kansas	24–5	13–1	1st	NCAA first round
1978–79	Kansas	18–11	8–6	T-2nd
1979–80	Kansas	15–14	7–7	T-4th
1980–81	Kansas	24–8	9–5	T-2nd	NCAA Sweet Sixteen
1981–82	Kansas	13–14	4–10	7th
1982–83	Kansas	13–16	4–10	T-6th
Kansas:		348–182 (.657)	170–96 (.639)
Oral Roberts Titans (Midwestern City Conference) (1985–1987)
1985–86	Oral Roberts	10–19	5–7	5th
1986–87	Oral Roberts	11–17	5–7	T-5th
Oral Roberts:		21–36 (.368)	10–14 (.417)
Total:		369–218 (.629)
National champion         Postseason invitational champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference tournament champion

See also

• List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach

External links

• Kansas Basketball Coaches
• Voices of Oklahoma interview. First person interview conducted on May 12, 2016, with Ted Owens.