A diamond in the rough
UH basketball coach Sampson’s passion for the sport he played in college remains strong
UH basketball coach Kelvin Sampson’s first love was baseball.
Kelvin Sampson begins to laugh when asked about his baseball career.
“I love baseball,” Sampson said. “I’ll just leave my talking about my career at that.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re still talking baseball.
About the time he and his father, John Willie “Ned” Sampson, got in the family station wagon and made the 45-minute drive to Fayetteville, N.C., for a tryout with the New York Mets.
“I went up there and did good,” Sampson said.
How Robeson County — home to the Lumbee Nation in the southern part of North Carolina — has produced its share of baseball talent, among them major leaguers Gene Locklear (a member of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine”) and Dwight Lowry (a backup catcher on the Detroit Tigers’ 1984 World Series team).
“Our area was known for baseball more than any other sport,” Sampson said. “We had a lot of good baseball players — and I was not one of them.”
How, as basketball coach at Oklahoma, he joined football coach Bob Stoops in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field.
The time, while head coach at Washington State, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Kingdome in Seattle.
But if you want to know more about Sampson’s baseball career, well, he balks.
“I’m not going to talk about me as a player, but (Ronnie Chavis) probably would,” Sampson joked.
Ronnie Chavis is Sampson’s former baseball coach at Pembroke (N.C.) High School. Now 70 years old, his memory is still as sharp and vivid as a 95-mph fastball down the middle.
His scouting report of Sampson: “He could hit home runs but was more of a line-drive hitter. He did not strike out a lot. Made contact.
Smooth swing.”
Back in the early 1970s, Chavis would write the left-handed hitting Sampson’s name in the No. 3 spot in the batting order because “that’s where you put your best hitter.”
A multi-sport star
Before he became one of the most successful coaches in college basketball, Sampson was a multisport star in high school: quarterback in football, point guard in basketball and catcher/outfielder in baseball. He played basketball and baseball at NAIA Pembroke State, now known as UNC-Pembroke.
“I would tell people that I thought Kelvin was a better baseball player than he was anything,” Chavis said in a telephone interview. “That’s hard to argue when he was an all-conference football player, all-conference basketball player and all-conference baseball player.”
Sampson, who just completed his 31st season as a college basketball coach, including the last six at the University of Houston, has always kept close his love for baseball.
Once during a news conference before facing Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament, Sampson described himself as a “baseball nut” as he compared John Calipari to Baltimore Orioles shortstop Mark Belanger. He often mixes baseball analogies during interviews and sessions and with his team. As a 25year-old head coach at Montana Tech, Sampson said, “half the time I didn’t know if I was pitching or catching.”
Even as Sampson left Pembroke decades ago, Chavis has followed his career at every stop, attending some of the biggest moments, most recently the opening of UH’s Fertitta Center in December 2018.
“He’s one of my biggest fans,” Sampson said.
Sampson began as a catcher in high school but moved to the outfield as a senior when Lowry arrived at the school. That was no knock against Sampson; Lowry went on to star at North Carolina before reaching the big leagues.
Sampson could hit for occasional power. Mostly, Chavis recalls, Sampson was a steady bat at the top of the order. Usually made contact. Rarely ever struck out. Good glove in the outfield.
“A natural baseball player,” Chavis said.
Years later, Chavis invited Sampson back to Pembroke to speak to a group of area high school athletic directors. He began the introduction with a baseball story.
“This is a young man,” Chavis told the group, “that you can wake up at 3 in the morning, put a bat in his hand and he can hit a line drive.”
Sampson stayed home and attended UNC-Pembroke, where he played basketball and baseball and was inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 1998. Playing for legendary baseball coach Harold Ellen from 1975-78, Sampson’s best season was as a sophomore when he hit .292 with two doubles, triple, 11 runs scored and 10 RBI.
But everybody knew Sampson was destined for coaching. After all, Ned Sampson was a Hall of Fame high school coach in North Carolina.
“Kelvin wanted to follow his dad,” Chavis said. “From day one he wanted to be a coach.”
Said Sampson: “Baseball has always been my passion. I love basketball. My dad was a basketball player. As a player, I was probably a little better at baseball than I was basketball. But I love basketball.”
Braves fan growing up
After graduating college, Sampson became a graduate assistant at Michigan State for one season before taking an assistant job at Montana Tech. He eventually became the head coach at Montana Tech, beginning a 31-year journey that includes 639 wins and 15 NCAA Tournament appearances at Washington State, Oklahoma, Indiana and Houston.
At every stop, a baseball stadium was close by. Growing up, Sampson was a Braves fan, specifically Hank Aaron and Dusty Baker, and the family lived close enough to make the 5½-hour drive to Atlanta. When Sampson had his own family, he would take daughter Lauren and son Kellen to watch the Mariners and Rangers. It was during a trip to Seattle that Sampson got back to his hotel to find out Oklahoma was interested in hiring him.
Once, while an assistant coach with the Rockets, Sampson was checking into the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia when he bumped into Joe Morgan.
“He wanted to talk college basketball,” Sampson said.
There was the time Pete Rose came to Pembroke for an autograph session. The ball now sits in Sampson’s home.
Along the way, Sampson coached Mark Hendrickson (Washington State) and Ryan Minor (Oklahoma), both selected in the NBA and Major League Baseball drafts.
“That don’t happen often,”
Sampson said.
Minor was an All-American forward for Sampson’s squad and a power-hitting third baseman/relief pitcher for the Sooners’ baseball team.
“He’s the answer to a great trivia question,” Sampson said of Minor being the replacement after Cal Ripken Jr. ended his Iron Man streak of consecutive games played.
Later in life, Sampson changed positions.
While living in Pullman, Wash., in the early ’90s, he spent several years as the “ultimate pitcher” for the neighborhood children. The catcher? Idaho football coach John L. Smith.
As Sampson would arrive home from work, neighborhood children would ring the doorbell.
“Can Coach come out and play?” Lauren Sampson recalled. “We need him to be our pitcher.”
The Sampsons’ home was on the top of a hill.
“If you could crank it, it was a home run,” Lauren said. “As you got better, he knew who could handle and who couldn’t. We always got the heat.”