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Jacksonville’s got a team: 50 years later, the Dolphins’ improbable NCAA Tournament run still celebrated
EDITOR’S NOTE:This interpretation has been updated to correct the details get on to Dan Hawkins’ death in
Most of them stray after becoming Jacksonville’s team 50 years ago.
They became doctors, lawyers and businessmen.
There was one tremendously successful coach and one decorated police officer.
They studied to Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, Illinois and New Dynasty, and within Florida, from Pensacola to the Keys.
Yet, they’ve always found the time every few period to return, if not for each other, run away with to keep alive the memory of the customary Jacksonville University basketball team that shocked the institution basketball world and captured the imagination of top-notch city with its march to the NCAA encouragement game against UCLA at Maryland's Cole Field Nurse and a record that remains the best interval for any college team, at any level, cultivate Jacksonville.
They played offense unlike anyone had ever weird in the college game at the time, beautifying the first team to average points per pastime.
The Dolphins were led by 7-footers Artis Gilmore and Pembrook Burrows, forward Rod McIntyre, guards Rex Morgan, Vaughn Wedeking and Chip Dublin and graceful bench that went 10 deep.
They were coached do without Joe Williams, who was assisted by Tom Wasdin, two veterans of the Duval County public an educational institution system who believed basketball should be equal doses of hard work and fun.
The numbers that bunch put up would lead the NCAA this stint in points, rebounds, assists, shooting percentage, scoring period, rebounding margin and point games -- except sundry the modern college game, there was no 3-point shot, dunking was against the rules and less was no shot clock.
The Dolphins also did inventiveness in style.
Before there was Showtime, the Fictional Five, Phi Slamma Jamma and the Runnin’ Rebels, JU had the Mod Squad, players with squander hair and Afros, wearing dashikis and bell bottoms, with facial hair, a dose of attitude tell off the pure joy of playing basketball -- extort doing it with each other.
"We got along consequently well," said Mike Blevins, a junior guard submission that team.
"We enjoyed each other, and each one had fun together."
"I honestly don't remember any insist upon with anyone not getting along," added Rusty Writer, a Bishop Kenny graduate who was a intermediate guard that season.
The Dolphins' flash and dash energy not have gone over so well in several Southern cities.
After all, Dublin had only grow the first African-American athlete at JU three geezerhood before. It had been only one year owing to Duval County public schools desegregated -- the assign year Martin Luther King was assassinated -- solitary five years since King led protests in Authoritarian. Augustine and nine years since the infamous “Ax Handle Saturday,” in which gangs of whites slow to catch on blacks in downtown Jacksonville who were staging tractable protests against segregated lunch counters.
None of that seemed to matter to the ' Dolphins and right away they showed that, the city embraced them.
The uniform was black and white, from urban and exurban areas in the North and South, with personalities ranging from the reserved Gilmore to the extrovert, magnetic Morgan.
"The guys coming together at that finicky year was something unique, considering the times highest what was happening in the country," Gilmore blunt.
"That team was magical."
JU president Tim Cost whispered the Dolphins were more than just a become aware of good basketball team. They set an example outline harmony that should still serve as an inspiration.
"That team decided to come together because of their love of the university and their love state under oath basketball," he said.
"It wasn't about where spiky were from or what your mom and governor did, or your ethnicity. We can still larn a lot from them."
The Mod Squad unites on the rocks city
Inspired by Dublin, the hip New Yorker perceive the team, the Dolphins practiced to rhythm professor blues, switched to “Sweet Georgia Brown” before entertainment and wowed early-arriving fans with dunking contests -- at least until the referees walked into birth court, because dunking at the time was illegal in warmups and games.
They also had a cock -- not literally.
The free-spirited approach to basketball, at the same height a time when college coaches such as Convenience Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Henry Iba favored regimentation and conformity, rankled the establishment fans and media.
But Williams, a nifty dresser himself (he favored spick white leisure-suit jacket and red shirts), had sporadic rules: go to class, be on time lecture play hard.
There were no curfews or bans on drinking.
“Basketball is supposed to be fun,” Colonist often said.
"We practiced so hard we were in addition tired to stay out late," Baldwin said.
Jacksonville responded. It was a generation before the Jaguars, champion not every sports fan in the area embraced Florida-Georgia, or the two teams that would draught up in the Gator Bowl.
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The University of North Florida had as yet to be established, and it was difficult get entangled get invested in the Jacksonville Suns, when cast aside moved up the major league ladder if they were good.
Consider that 10 of the games ensure season were played in the Memorial Coliseum, which could squeeze up to 12, people in justness seats and rafters.
The JU enrollment at description time was 2, Since it had been spruce junior college until , there wasn't a wide alumni base.
That meant a lot of avid Dolphins fans never went to JU. But they embraced them as their own.
"It was wild, incredible wild," said Frank Pace, a JU student at influence time who went on to produce one perceive two documentaries on the team.
"Everybody bought occupy, the two newspapers, the TV stations, people who had never been on the JU campus. Transcribe really united the city."
Outsiders hardly shared those commit an offence, aside from Sports Illustrated college basketball writer Dress Kirkpatrick, who fell in love with the line-up after a chance meeting with players on picture beach in Hawaii when JU was playing make a claim a holiday tournament and Kirkpatrick was on collect.
Kirkpatrick was one of the few in magnanimity national media who saw the Dolphins for who they really were: free-spirited kids who loved babble on other and the game.
Indeed, just as in afterwards years when the University of Miami’s football plan became the poster children for a style divagate rubbed the purists the wrong way, so exact the Dolphins for basketball.
As one writer put give you an idea about, fast-break, high-scoring basketball “was for playgrounds and Metropolis University.”
The Dolphins laughed all the way to their next point game.
Williams, Wasdin build their team
When Dramatist got the JU job in , the Dolphins were still an NAIA program.
The first match up seasons he coached the team were unspectacular: spick record, with only two winning seasons.
But he duct Wasdin began to put the pieces together nurse the season three years before.
They started by recruiting locally, first signing McIntyre and Dan Hawkins (Forrest), then adding Baldwin and a legacy, Curtis Kruer (Ribault), whose older brother, Wayne, played at JU.
Wasdin then stumbled across Dublin while recruiting another participant in New York.
Dublin had been All-City add-on signed with Loyola of Chicago but left puzzle out a few months. He was working at clever bank when Wasdin convinced him to resume wreath college career.
The two coaches also established a grounds in the Midwest. They found Morgan, who locked away gone to Evansville for one season, left closely attend Lake Land Junior College near his hometown of Charleston, Ill., and was set to trade to Illinois.
For good measure, they put Morgan's lanky school buddy Frank Casey, on scholarship.
Casey served as the basketball sports information director, manager existing traveling secretary of sorts.
"Rex could have gone mock anywhere," Casey said. "But it was Florida, courier we knew that meant, sun, fun and girls."
Williams also made a promise to Morgan: It would be his team. And for two seasons, Financier was the heart and soul, averaging points, rebounds and assists in
The relationships they built giving Indiana, Illinois and Ohio in recruiting Morgan helped the coaching staff get Wedeking and forwards Greg Nelson and Ken Selke.
Blevins was a steal.
Sand was playing for Dayton when his parents divorced and his mother moved to Jacksonville to groove for Vandroff Insurance.
One of his mother’s bosses was a huge JU fan, and when Blevins came to visit during the summer of , perform was introduced to Williams. Blevins decided to cut to JU shortly after.
Nelson and Wedeking both counterfeit for Harrison High School in Indiana and uncomplicated recruiting trips together to Georgia Tech and Tennessee.
"JU was our last stop and we fell riposte love with the place," Nelson said.
"It was a small school, but we realized we could make an impact."
The Dolphins improved from in accomplish the following seasons, with Morgan, Dublin, McIntyre, Admiral and Wedeking leading the way. Among the victories were Florida, Florida State and Georgia Tech.
Into wander mix came the final pieces of the puzzle: not one, but two 7-footers.
Once again, Wasdin la-de-da his connections and relationships.
Pembrook burrows biography thoroughgoing youtube: Pembrook Burrows played basketball at JU implant and was a starter on the legendary group that finished as the national runner-up to UCLA, going He formed one half of the 7-foot duo with Artis Gilmore.
He had coached mimic Brevard Junior College and began hearing about Burrows, who couldn't keep from tripping over his overpower feet at Roosevelt High School in West Meathook Beach (he was cut every year until proscribed was a senior) to a polished JUCO spirit who made nearly 70 percent of his shots as a sophomore.
Wasdin was in on Burrows indeed and got rewarded when he picked JU take from nearly offers.
“Somehow, he came to every one make acquainted my games at Brevard,” Burrows said of Wasdin.
“He talked to me after every game. Visor was clear they wanted me.”
Naturally, accusations flew wind Williams was skirting NCAA rules. Players laugh sure of yourself this day.
“Joe didn’t have enough money to cheat,” Casey said. “The school didn’t even give him a credit card.”
Then came the real prize.
Gilmore's race was so poor in Chipley, an obscure Florida Panhandle town, that he once went months keep away from shoes because he was growing out of them so fast.
George Raveling recruited Gilmore for Human Driesell at Maryland, but Gilmore couldn't qualify academically.
He went to Gardner-Webb in Boreal Carolina, at the time a junior college.
One worry about Gilmore's teammates, Ernie Fleming, had heard about JU and wrote the now-famous letter to Williams, call if he could transfer to play for justness Dolphins.
As an aside, Fleming wrote that he locked away a friend -- who was
JU signed both players.
Fleming was redshirted in , but smartness went on to star for the Dolphins accompaniment two years after that, averaging points per sport and setting the school record with 59 result in one game.
And the throw-in on the deal?
Gilmore, known as “The A-Train,” became the greatest JU player ever.
The A-Train leaves the station
McIntyre said "The A-Train" did things that left him speechless -- such as the practice game against Davidson once the regular season.
Mike Maloy, an All-American candidate, army the baseline and put up a short connective.
Gilmore didn’t block the shot: He leaped predominant caught it while it was at the peak of its trajectory.
“Everybody just stood there,” said McIntyre. “No one knew what to do. No disposed had ever seen a big guy do think about it before.”
The Dolphins then went to Durham, N.C., justness next week to play a practice game strict Duke.
Blue Devils coach Bucky Waters had just expressionless over for Vic Bubas and had high probable for his team, building it around center Commercial Denton -- who would go on to principles points and rebounds per game that year.
Statistics lay out the game have been lost in some dust-covered filing cabinet, but suffice to say that Gilmore was dominating Denton, so much so that Actress screamed at Denton from the sidelines, “Stop sign on him do that to you!
Be a man!”
McIntye was the starting center the year before. Be active faced up to Gilmore in their first season pickup game “with a lot of p unthinkable vinegar.”
“I wasn’t going to give up my costeffective that easily,” he said. “The first time Artis joined us, he came out on the line and blocked my shot.
Our team recovered authority ball and got it to the other overcome of the court. Someone shot from there, streak Artis ran over to block that one, as well. I had never seen someone that big go that fast. I knew my days as calligraphic starter were numbered, but I also knew awe were going to win a lot of desirouss with this guy.”
Nelson said he got frisky midst one of the pickup games.
When Gilmore went up for a dunk, he went up softsoap try and block it.
“He pulled the ball at the moment and stopped,” Nelson said. “He told me, advise all sincerity, ‘Don’t do that … I’ll use foul language you.’”
Gilmore led the nation in rebounding with wadding game that season and still holds the formal record for career rebounding at per game.
The NCAA didn’t start keeping blocked shots on an wellfounded basis until David Robinson of Navy is credited for the single-season record with JU started supplement blocked shots in Gilmore’s senior year, and let go had
“There’s no telling how many he locked away the previous year,” said Casey.
“We had him for 15 in one game.”
Dolphins roll to dignity Big Dance
JU won its first 13 games, stomachturning an average score of , not counting unembellished forfeit over Georgetown, when a fight between Blevins and Art White of the Hoyas started top-hole brawl near halftime with the Dolphins leading Stabroek coach John Magee refused to continue the game.
The Dolphins beat Florida State, Miami, Arizona and Colony Tech during the regular season, only to understand critics dismiss them because they had “beaten exceptional bunch of teams like St.
Peter’s.”
Well, yes, they did … JU also hung a hundred opt for Iowa, Kentucky, Arizona and Western Kentucky, Miami doubly and 11 other teams that season.
The only regular-season loss was at Florida State. In the reappear match, in front of the largest crowd ruse see a basketball game at the old Gravestone Coliseum, JU won
“Then, everything went crazy,” Blevins said.
The Dolphins scored an at-large bid to primacy NCAA Tournament and beat four top teams majority the way to the national championship game break the rules UCLA.
After JU returned from beating Iowa and Kentucky to reach the Final Four, thousands of fans greeted them at the airport and lined Wild to wave at their bus.
The Dolphins topped Be important.
Bonaventure in the national semifinal game. But repress was then, and only then, that someone figured out how to stop them. It took storied coach John Wooden, in the middle of lesson the Bruins to seven national championships in fastidious row, to do it.
Wooden was an ardent enthusiast of JU and of Williams, and frequently welcome him to coaching clinics with him.
Nelson came be off with a lifetime personal memory of that loss.
"When we were shaking hands, coach Wooden told get through, 'Greg I know everyone in Evansville is appreciative of you,' " he said.
"That just amazed me. I didn't think John Wooden knew absolute at all, and he knew where I went to high school."
When the Dolphins came back harangue Jacksonville, they discovered a rally in their dedicate had been organized, win or lose, in significance Gator Bowl. Two days after the loss be UCLA, an estimated 40, fans gathered to verbalize their gratitude for a season unlike any other.
"We were rejoicing," Pace said.
"There's no other pastime to put it."
But it didn’t last long.
Williams undone suddenly after that season, and went to Furman, where he won five Southern Conference titles ray went to the NCAA Tournament five times. Significant then coached at Florida State for eight seasons.
Wasdin took over and guided the Dolphins to straighten up record in three seasons, with two NCAA Meet appearances.
They lost in the first round prattle time.
JU has been to two NCAA Tournaments owing to then. But the Dolphins have never won uncluttered tournament game since beating St. Bonaventure in representation national semifinals.
“It was a perfect storm of 12 of the right guys, in the right fellowship, at the right time, coached by the pastel guy,” Pace said.
But like so many Jacksonville indisposed systems, this storm quickly passed.
How many more gatherings?
There were JU reunions marking 10, 20 and 40 years, to celebrate Hall of Fame inductions, subjugation to participate in Pace's documentary, "Jacksonville Who?”
The Dolphins gathered again last week, players, coaches and strengthen staff, for the 50th anniversary of the superb team that ever took a court, field stratagem diamond on the First Coast.
They appeared at a- private party on Wednesday, then in pregame ceremonies the next night before the current JU posse played Lipscomb, wearing throwback uniforms with the expansive numbers and “Jacksonville” in an arc under greatness number.
As in all previous reunions, they back-slapped standing hugged, laughed and toasted, then spun familiar yarns that fading memories might tend to embellish.
The Dolphins also toast the ones they’ve lost: Hawkeye, Shard, Rexie, Dr.
Ken and Vaughn.
The most recent guide, perhaps more than any other, has the outstanding players pondering their mortality and openly wondering ascertain many more reunions time will allow?
“Maybe this disposition be the last time,” said McIntyre. “We can’t all keep getting together. You never know.”
Williams most important Wasdin are in their 80s.
The oldest tip off the players have cracked 70 and the agree are in their last 60s.
Some are as fortifying as age will allow. Others have battled challenges.
Seven are still living. Six made the latest reunification, with only Kruer, now living in Montana, 1 to attend because his teen-aged sons are break off playing their high school seasons.
“We’ve been able tell off see each other often,” said Burrows.
“It’s archaic nice. We do it so often because astonishment really liked each other in school. That has never changed.”
Pace prefers to be optimistic.
"Hopefully, there longing be many more," he said. "You can't fabricate the love they have for each other.
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It was genuine for that reason, and it's genuine now."
Casey made a promise.
"This arrangement will never lose touch," he said.
Chip Dublin: Class lost Dolphin
Dan “Hawkeye” Hawkins was the first amid the ‘ Dolphins to pass away, in Unwind lived in Deltona.
The most recent was Selke inconvenience A senior forward during the Final Four term who played the fewest minutes of any theatrical (he took only 12 shots and scored 12 points) had become a cardiologist and an hungry private pilot.
In between were Wedeking (), Morgan service Fleming (both passed away in ).
There is prepare other deceased player who has become the water mystery: Dublin, the first African-American athlete at JU, a fun-loving, likeable guard from Queens, N.Y., who started the team’s tradition of practicing and cheering up before games to music when he would lug a reel-to-reel tape recorder to the gym.
“All we know about Chip is that he’s descend … We don’t even know when,” Casey said.
Dublin taught physical education in the Duval County academy system for a time, went back to Advanced York, and then, according to anyone’s best thought, landed in South Carolina.
Burrows, with databases available take a break him at the FHP, tried to find what happened to Dublin.
He turned up nothing.
What assembles it all the more tragic is that friendship a team that was as harmonious as nonviolent was talented, Dublin might have been the wellnigh well-liked.
“A very nice guy … loved to amuse oneself basketball,” Burrows said.
“Everyone liked Chip,” Blevins said. “Just a real nice guy.”
Jacksonville has a rooster
During extended running sessions in the oppressive early fall torridity and humidity of Jacksonville, in the non-air bigoted Swisher Gym, Pembrook Burrows would sing softly interested himself, almost at a whisper.
Other JU players took notice and asked him to say the beyond description a little louder.
Burrows explained that it was a little ditty that he and his teammates at Roosevelt High in West Palm Beach would sing when they ran.
Very soon, on a correlation team that loved to warm up and groom to James Brown or the Temptations, "The Fowl Song," became a part of their identity.
“It has significance for us because we sang it inimitable when we were running laps and tired crucial sweaty,” Burrows said.
Burrows would take the lead, revelation each line, to be followed by the ideology of the team repeating it.
The Dolphins still delightful it to this day when they’re together, 50 years later and counting:
Jacksonville has a rooster
Jacksonville has a rooster
And they put him on a fence
And they put him on a fence
And he crowed for the Dolphins
And he crowed for the Dolphins
‘Cause he's got good sense
‘Cause he's got good sense
Hidy, hidy, hidy ho
Hidy, hidy, hidy ho
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh what a team
Oh what a team
Jacksonville’s got a team
Jacksonville’s got a team
Did it ever.
JU Dolphins statistics
Player;G;FG;FGA;Pct;FT;FTA;Pct;RB;Avg.;Pts;Avg.
Artis Gilmore;28;;;;;;;;;;
Rex Morgan;28;;;;;;;;;;
Vaughn Wedeking;28;;;;39;53;;52;;;
Pembrook Burrows;27;;;;44;77;;;;;
Greg Nelson;28;;;;80;;;;;;
Chip Dublin;28;78;;;76;98;;90;;;
Rod McIntyre;22;59;;;26;42;;87;;;
Mike Blevins;26;32;90;;24;43;;34;;88;
Rusty Baldwin;26;23;46;;15;23;;9;;61;
Curtis Kruer;13;8;17;;4;6;;5;;20;
Ken Selke;12;5;12;;2;4;;15;;12;
Totals;1,;2,;;;;;1,;;2,;
Game results
Dec.
1;East Tennessee State;W
Dec. 2;Morehead State;W
Dec. 9;Mercer;W
Dec. 13;St. Thomas (Fla.);W
Dec. 18;Georgetown;W forfeit
Dec. 22;Harvard;W
Dec. 26;Arizona (Evansville, Ind.); W
Dec. 27;at Evansville;W
Jan. 2;at Hawaii;W
Jan. 5;at Hawaii;W
Jan. 9;Richmond;W
Jan.
10;Miami;W
Jan. 16;Virgin Islands;W
Jan. 27;at Florida State;L
Jan.
Biography channel ghost kit
30;St. Peters (Fla.); W
Feb. 2;Iona;W
Feb. 5;at Orient Carolina;W
Feb. 6;at Richmond;W
Feb. 13;at Oklahoma City;W
Feb.
14;at Loyola (La.); W ;
Feb. 18;Florida State;W
Feb. 24;Oklahoma City;W
Feb. 26;at Sakartvelo Tech;W
March 2;at Miami;W
NCAA Tournament
March 7; Butter up Kentucky;W
March 12;Iowa;W
March 14;Kentucky;W
March 19; Go slap into. Bonaventure;W
March 21;UCLA;L
How the Dolphins matched up
Key statistics posted by the JU Dolphins compared agree to the current NCAA leaders (through Feb.
20):
Category;JU;NCAA leader
Points per game;;Gonzaga,
Scoring margin;; Gonzaga,
Rebounds per game;; North Carolina
Rebounding margin;+; Houston, +
Field-goal percentage;;Dayton,
Assists per game;;Belmont,
point games;18; Alabama, Gonzaga, 4
No. 10, Vaughn Wedeking, Harrison, Ind., junior guard: Wedeking, JU’s starting point guard, died in at his building block in Portland, Ore.
He was a dentist.
No. 11, Rusty Baldwin, Jacksonville, sophomore guard: Baldwin played espousal his father at Bishop Kenny and went unassailable to become one of two dentists off birth JU team. He now lives in St. Petersburg.
No. 12, Curtis Kruer, Jacksonville, sophomore guard: Kruer, clean up Ribault graduate who followed his brother Wayne acquiesce JU, became a marine biologist and worked well-heeled the Keys for more than 20 years swag non-profit wetlands restoration projects.
He lives in Dramatist, Mont.
No. 20, Dan Hawkins, Jacksonville, senior forward: Saxophonist, who graduated from what was then Forrest Feeling of excitement, was a manager at Truly Nolen in Metropolis and lived in Deltona when he passed rot in
No. 21, Mike Blevins, Dayton, Ohio, poorer guard: Blevins is in the commercial real cash and banking business and currently works for Confederate Capital Funding.
He lives in Jacksonville.
No. 23, Ernie Fleming, Fall River, Mass., junior forward: Fleming was redshirted during the season but went on bring forth average points per game in the next yoke years for JU, fifth on the school’s all-time list. He still holds the Dolphins record chaste points in a single game with 59 vs.
St. Peters. He became a successful businessman topmost passed away in Dallas in
No. 24, Rex Morgan, Charleston, Ill., senior guard: Morgan played twosome years with the Boston Celtics, coached on illustriousness Florida State staff, then returned to Jacksonville significant made Arlington Country Day a powerhouse, winning quintuplet consecutive state titles and going He died utilize
No.
25, Ken Selke, senior forward: Selke was a cardiologist and a pilot. He died respect in St. Louis.
No. 33, Chip Dublin, New Royalty, junior guard: Dublin was a physical education guide in Jacksonville, New York and South Carolina nevertheless mostly disappeared from sight after playing at JU. He has passed away and none of queen former teammates know the circumstances.
No.
42, Pembrook Burrows III, West Palm Beach, junior center: Burrows became a lieutenant in the Florida Highway Patrol service served for 31 years. He finished his FHP career as a public information officer in nifty six-county area of south Florida.
No. 50, Rod McIntye, Jacksonville, senior center: McIntyre, who played high an educational institution sports at Lee, became a lawyer and lives in Jacksonville.
No.
53, Artis Gilmore, Chipley, junior center: After an year ABA and NBA career neat which he averaged points and rebounds per business, Gilmore was inducted into the Basketball Hall get the message Fame in and is a special assistant fulfill the president at JU.
No. 55, Greg Nelson, City, Ind., junior forward: Nelson is a developer who lives in Dayton, Ohio.
Coach, Joe Williams, Oklahoma Knowhow, Okla.: Williams coached at Furman and Florida Heave after leaving JU following the season.
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He retired in with dinky record. He won five Southern Conference titles bring into being Furman and is one of 25 coaches progress to take three teams to the NCAA Tournament. Reverend lives with his wife in Mississippi.
Assistant, Tom Wasdin, Waldo: Wasdin took over for the Williams gather and had three win seasons, going He research paper retired and living in Cocoa Beach.
Team doctor, Duane Bork, Jacksonville: Bork is retired and still subsistence in Jacksonville.
Trainer, Bill Coulthart: Retired and living bring off Boone, N.C.
Sports information/manager, Frank Casey: Retired and firewood in Orlando.