Former KU coach Ted Owens to be inducted into College Basketball Hall of Fame
Ted Owens, one of eight head coaches in Kansas’ storied men’s basketball history, recently received an early birthday present from Craig Robinson, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Just a few days ahead of Owens’ 97th birthday celebration, Robinson in a call, informed Owens he’d been accorded one of the sport’s greatest honors.
That is induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
In October he’ll be enshrined with fellow coaches Jay Wright and Tubby Smith as well as players Danny Ainge, Glen Rice and the late Walt Hazzard.
“My immediate thought was, ‘I sure wish my mother and dad were here,’” Owens, who turns 97 on Thursday, said of deceased parents Homer and Annie Owens. He was speaking in an interview with The Star about his impending induction.
“My dad put up the goal in the backyard where I learned to shoot the ball. We were cotton farmers (in southwest Oklahoma) and he’d get off his plow at the end of the day and shoot baskets with us (Ted and his older brothers Quentin and Freddy). In baseball, he would hit us fly balls. He called ground balls skinners. He’d say, ‘OK, boys, I want to hit you some skinners.’
“You regret that some of the people that meant so much to you are no longer here,” added Owens, whose first job was milking and feeding cows, picking up manure and pulling cotton from sunup until sundown in the 1930s and 40s on his mom and dad’s land in Hollis, Oklahoma.
“I had some time to dream while I was hoeing cotton back on that farm,” explained Owens, a high school basketball star who went on to play for Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame coach Bruce Drake at Oklahoma where Owens was a three-time letter winner (from 1949-51) and team captain his senior season. “But my dreams were never so great as to imagine what I have been privileged to do during my lifetime.”
Outside of basketball, Owens, who survived the Great Depression and Dust Bowl eras, served proudly as a field officer for the U.S. Army in 1953 in the Korean War.
After playing pro basketball in the National Industrial League, Owens was hired as head basketball and baseball coach at Cameron State Junior College (now Cameron University) in Lawton, Oklahoma. In four seasons the basketball team went 93-24 and reached the national junior college tourney semifinals three times. He coached four junior college All-Americans as his teams never won fewer than 20 games. In an incredible story that still may be a movie someday, he directed Cameron to the national baseball title in 1958 despite the team having no home field.
Moving up to major college basketball, Owens worked as an assistant coach on Dick Harp’s KU coaching staff for four years (1960-64). Owens became the Jayhawks’ head coach for the 1964-65 season and went on to compile a 348-182 record in 19 seasons (1964-83).
He guided KU to six Big Eight Conference championships, nine conference tournament titles and seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
The five-time Big Eight coach of the year and 1978 national coach of the year led KU to the Sweet 16 five times, the Elite Eight three times and Final Four twice.
His 1971 Final Four team was the first undefeated team in Big Eight history, winning both conference and tournament titles. That squad went 27-3 overall and 14-0 in the league. KU also made the Final Four in 1974.
After leaving KU he served as head coach at Oral Roberts from 1985-87.
He has always recognized others for his success on the bench.
“Nothing good has ever happened to me that there wasn’t someone there to support me,” Owens said. “It’s family. It’s friends. It’s fellow coaches. It’s assistant coaches. It’s my mentors that I’ve had, and most of all, I’ve had an incredible honor of coaching some wonderful young men.
“Throughout my life,” he continued, “I have learned that even though you have done much yourself to achieve success, you must have the help of others along the way. I am very grateful to so many.”
He indeed thought of many other individuals upon getting that call from Robinson.
“I’m thrilled for a number of reasons,” Owens said. “Your players and your coaches and all who worked together … whatever we accomplished we did together, and so it’s a recognition of their accomplishments too. As Darrell Royal, the old football coach at Texas once said … one of his players pranced into the end zone and started beating on his own chest.
“And Darrell said to him, ‘Son, why don’t you wait until your teammates get there to celebrate with you? You didn’t get there all by yourself.’
“I’m reminded of that, that so many people have helped me along the way I just want to share this with them.”
Owens’ contributions to basketball have been recognized with inductions into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame (2009) and Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame (2009). In August 2025 he became just the 11th individual to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Other such honorees include Johnny Bench, Abe Lemons and Barry Switzer.
“The Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award (formerly called the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award) is the highest award presented by the association and recognizes a lifetime of achievement by people who set the examples that influence others to strive for the highest goals and who blaze the trails which leave behind the pathways for others to follow,” a Hall official said in a news release. “This award is not an annual honor and is presented with much thought and value toward a recipient’s overall life of goodwill.”
Owens stated that, “It helps you to be successful when you’re at a place like Kansas with its great tradition. The opportunity to be successful is so much greater. I’ve been very lucky. I played for one of the great coaches in basketball, Bruce Drake, who is a Naismith Hall of Famer, and then at Kansas … to coach where Dr. (Phog) Allen and Dr. (James) Naismith and coach (Dick) Harp and Mr. (W.O.) Hamilton (coached) … I was the fifth coach in history at that time. To coach there before what most of us regard as the best fans in America in the St. Andrews of basketball (Allen Fieldhouse) was a blessing. The people and fans there are fantastic.”
Owens coached five All-Americans in his 19 seasons: Jo Jo White, Darnell Valentine, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walt Wesley. They all have had their jerseys retired at Kansas.
“I loved teaching. That’s what made it special for me,” Owens said. “Going over the fundamentals of the game, working with a young player on various aspects, those things brought me the most joy. Wonderful memories and great players.”
Naismith Hall of Fame KU coach Bill Self, who considers Owens a good friend, says Owens is a Hall of Famer on and off the court.
“He comes back (to Lawrence and KU) all the time,” Self said in a past interview. “We take golf trips together every summer. We bunked together in Scotland (in 2009) for a week. I’ve gotten to know coach real well. He’s been really good to myself and my family. When you coached here 19 years … he’s kind of the coach that sometimes get lost, but he went to two Final Fours and won an awful lot of games.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been around a coach that takes more pride in what his ex-players are doing than what he does. He loved his time at Kansas and takes great pride in being the coach here. He’s an amazing guy,” Self added.
Hall of Fame Kentucky coach John Calipari received his first coaching job under Owens as a graduate assistant at KU in 1982.
“He gave me an opportunity to coach at one of the greatest programs,” Calipari told freelance writer David Garfield of Hoop Heaven. “Coach Owens has always handled himself with class. Whether we won or lost, he was just a classy, upstanding gentleman and he did it at a hard place to coach but a great place to coach. I will always be indebted to him and coach Owens knows that.”
Another Hall of Famer, former KU guard Jo Jo White told celtic-nation.com: “He was a very astute coach, and a great teacher of the fundamentals. He was also politically involved within the college basketball community and well-versed when it came to the issues surrounding the game. Coach Owens contributed greatly to my growth as a basketball player. I enjoyed playing for him and I learned a lot from being a part of his program.
“To me, he was a great coach — always sincere, honest and open with all of us. I absolutely adored the man,” White added.
Former KU and NBA guard Darnell Valentine told reporter Garfield: “Every day we played so hard, we practiced so hard. That was just so much fun knowing that everyone had the same agenda, same motive to improve. Coach Owens and his direction and guidance, he just kept us growing as players. I just tried to do it all and coach provided me the platform to do it.”
About to turn 97, Owens, who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said his health remains outstanding following a recent procedure to place a stent in one of his coronary arteries. His plans are to attend the Hall ceremony in October in Kansas City.
“This is better,” Owens told The Star, asked if entering the Hall would have been even more a thrill if the honor had come several years ago. The Hall inducted its first class in 2006. “As you age and as you get into the last part of your life it’s even more special.”
This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 1:01 PM.
