Via Kansas Athletics
LAWRENCE, Kan. ā Former Kansas men’s basketball coach Ted Owens will receive the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in a black-tie banquet to be held Monday, August 4, at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Formerly called the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award, Owens will be just the 11th recipient of the prestigious award since the hall originated in 1989. The Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest award presented by the association and recognizes a lifetime of achievement by people who set examples that influence others to strive for the highest goals and who blaze the trails which leave behind the pathways for others to follow.
The award is not an annual honor and past lifetime achievement award recipients include Johnny Bench, Lynne Draper, Abe Lemons, George Nigh, Samuel Lloyd Noble, Tom Osborne, Steve Owens, Allie Reynolds, Chris Schenkel, and Barry Switzer. A native of Hollis, Oklahoma, Owens was a Class of 2009 inductee into the Oklahoma Sport Hall of Fame.
Owens was a three-year basketball letterman at the University of Oklahoma (1949-51). He honed his coaching skills as head coach at Cameron State Junior College, now Cameron University, in Lawton, Oklahoma. In four seasons, his teams never won fewer than 20 games, and Cameron advanced to the national junior college tournament semifinals three times. At Cameron, Owens amassed a 93-24 record and boasted four junior college All-Americans. In 1958, he coached the Cameron baseball team to the NJCAA national championship.
Owens then accepted an assistant coach position under Kansas head coach Dick Harp in 1960 and was promoted to head coach when Harp resigned following the 1963-64 season.
Kansas basketball is rich in tradition, having only eight head coaches in its 126 seasons. Owens roamed the KU sidelines as head coach for 19 seasons from 1964-65 through 1982-83, where he compiled a 348-182 (65.7%) record. Coach Owens’ 348 wins rank as the fourth-winningest coach in Kansas basketball history behind Bill Self, Phog Allen and Roy Williams.
Under Owens, Kansas won six Big Eight Conference regular-season titles, eight Big Eight Holiday Tournaments and one Big Eight postseason tournament. Under Owens, KU advanced to NCAA postseason play seven times. His 1971 and 1974 teams made it to the Final Four, and in 1968 the Jayhawks made the finals of the National Invitation Tournament.
Owens was named Big Eight Coach of the Year five times and was 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 Walter Wesley, all of whom have had their jerseys retired at Kansas.
