Game changer
50 years ago this weekend, Astrodome classic transformed college sports.
Fifty years ago, Houston impressed the world with two high-profile accomplishments.
We sent men to the moon. And our team played “The Game of the Century.”
On Jan. 20, 1968, the Astrodome hosted one of the most important sporting events in U.S. history. Just as astronauts photographing the Earth while they orbited the moon literally changed the way we look at the world, one spectacular Saturday night in Houston changed the way the world looks at college basketball.
Since then, the Astros won a World Series, the Rockets celebrated two NBA championships and the Comets collected four consecutive WNBA trophies. But no sporting event in our city’s history had a more lasting impact than a basketball game played in the Astrodome a half century ago this Saturday night. What was touted as “The Game of the Century” vaulted the University of Houston into the national spotlight and transformed college basketball into a televised sensation. At the same time, it’s important to remember the civil rights breakthrough that made the game possible.
Give the credit to Guy V. Lewis, the legendary coach of the University of Houston Cougars, whose inspiration helped turn college basketball into blockbuster entertainment. Lewis was one of the first college basketball coaches in the South to embrace integration, recruiting Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney, the first African-Americans to play for the Cougars. Today it’s difficult to remember how the searing racism of that era made that a controversial decision. But Hayes certainly hasn’t forgotten it. Nor will he ever forget a telling detail about the day Lewis and his daughter drove to Louisiana to give Hayes a ride to Houston.
“(Coach Lewis) didn’t realize how scared I was,” Hayes remembered, “because in Louisiana at that time you weren’t allowed to sit around, and especially next, to a white girl. I was so happy when we crossed the Texas state line.”
Under Lewis’ leadership, Hayes blossomed into one of the nation’s greatest college basketball talents. And in 1968, UH was ranked the second-best team in the country. Only the UCLA Bruins ranked higher, because they had won every single game they played for more than two years. The prospect of playing undefeated UCLA gave Lewis an inspiration.
Never before had a national television audience watched a college basketball game during the regular season. Lewis dreamed up the idea of challenging UCLA to a prime-time duel in the Astrodome. The stars of the show would be Hayes and Lew Alcindor, the gifted center for the Bruins who would later change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. A television syndicator bought the broadcast rights for $27,000.
As it turned out, it wasn’t only a game, it was a phenomenon. Houston’s new domed stadium was packed with 52,693 roaring fans, an attendance record the flashy scoreboard declared the “largest paid crowd to see a basketball game anywhere in the world … ever!” The television broadcast was such a smash hit, sponsors phoned in during the first half to buy commercial time in the second. What the audience witnessed was a classic. Hayes scored 39 points, leading UH to a 71-69 upset over the seemingly invincible Bruins.
Lewis’ instincts were right. “The Game of the Century” proved that television viewers were eager to watch college basketball. The following year, NBC paid more than $500,000 to broadcast the NCAA championship game. In 1991, CBS signed a seven-year deal to air the NCAA tournament for $1 billion.
That game in the Dome 50 years ago this weekend paved the road to March Madness. Today, Lewis, Hayes and Abdul-Jabbar are all memorialized in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The University of Houston is building a new basketball arena to carry on Lewis’ legacy.
And the Astrodome? It may have seen better days, but few of them were more important to sports history than the night they played “The Game of the Century.”
Never before had a national television audience watched a college basketball game during the regular season. Lewis dreamed up the idea of challenging UCLA to a prime-time duel in the Astrodome.