University of North Texas Athletics
Green Gang: Blakeley's Legend Will Live On
10/27/2010 12:00:00 AM | Return to Play
By Steven Bartolotta, October 27, 2010, 3:36 p.m.
I've have quite a collection of different pictures, souvenirs, bobbleheads, and other random stuff surrounding me in my office. My favorite picture always gets the biggest reaction to someone who sees it for the first time.
It's a picture of a guy holding his nose as he storms away from an official as he emphatically tells him what he thought of a call. Most of the time the first reaction is, "that's a fake right." That picture is of Bill Blakeley. It's one of many images and memories he provided so many fans of North Texas basketball.
I had only met Coach Blakeley once. It was a few years ago at a Hall of Fame breakfast, but the stories I heard about him were legendary.
I never saw his teams play once, but from reading and hearing about his style, he was my kinda coach.
A mad scientist and basketball genius sitting on the bench. A risk-taker, a man never afraid to speak his mind or his heart. His teams played hard and played fast. According to a Sports Illustrated story, he declared that there was no player on his 1976 team that couldn't dunk.
His flair for the moment was legendary. Be it from his outlandish suits all the way down to his courtside messages scribbled out on some cloth that read "Don't expect miracles."
But despite his antics that might make you think he should have been a character in the Dukes of Hazzard, Blakeley was a coach, and a darn good one.
His teams won 20-games three straight years in the 70's. He took North Texas to new heights when they received the school's only national ranking in 1976. He recruited and coached to this day some of the best players ever to pay at North Texas.
Kenneth Lyons, Fred Mitchell, Melvin Davis, and Jon Manning. There are so many others. The only thing missing from Coach Blakeley's resume was an NCAA Tournament bid.
And unfortunately he was a prisoner of his own school's doing. When North Texas left the Missouri Valley, all of its teams were without homes. Football and men's basketball paid the price the hardest. Football was experiencing unprecedented success, but never got that elusive Bowl Berth. Same went for men's hoops.
Blakeley's teams were widely respected, but as an indy, getting an NCAA bid is as just as hard today as it was back then. Next to impossible.
Despite never going to the NCAA Tournament, his teams to this day considered some of the best in school history.
His mark on the program lives on today. One of his top assistant coaches was Jimmy Gales, who at long last got North Texas that NCAA Tournament bid in 1988.
Johnny Jones and Coach Blakeley were great friends. Everyone associated with North Texas men's basketball at some point in time, knows of, has heard of, or has seen a picture of Coach Blakeley.
A great legend has passed on, but his shadow on the North Texas basketball program will last forever
