Top Cats: A Golden Era for College Basketball

By Tom Jones

Top Cats

Stockton, California experienced a high-voltage jolt of enthusiasm during the 1960s when a young basketball coach named Dick Edwards brought a city together. Hired by the University of the Pacific to coach its team, Edwards had an ability to go “outside the campus gates” and capture the support of the city of Stockton and the outlying community.

He built a rabid fan base that became honorary Pacific alumni and they all turned an old opera house in downtown Stockton into a “capitol” of basketball. The enthusiasm of the city helped Edwards develop a nationally-ranked program that the University of the Pacific, the city of Stockton, the county of San Joaquin, and the core of California’s great Central Valley would grow to give unconditional support and interest.

Read how a fiery coach and a small group of dedicated assistants used a hardscrabble approach with a bunch of driven athletes to make Stockton and the University of the Pacific shine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645315575

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Top Cats

A Golden Era for College Basketball

Tom Jones

Copyright © 2019 Tom Jones

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64531-556-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64531-557-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Touchdown Heroes

If They Built It, Would They Come?

No Time on the Clock

From Van to the Man

The Head Man

Cleared for Takeoff

A Capitol of Basketball

Round 2

The Stairway to Heaven

Upward

Frosh Ball

Higher

The Country Club

Recruitment

A Season on the Brink

Assistants’ Assistance

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Thursday Night Fights

Resurrection

The Pit

Rejoice

A South Bend

Gone and Gone

From Here to Eternity

It was high times in Stockton, California, during the 1960s. A young basketball coach named Dick Edwards brought a city together as he built a high-powered program. Hired by the University of the Pacific (UOP) to coach its team, Edwards had an ability to go outside the campus gates and capture the support of the city of Stockton and the outlying community.

He built a rabid fan base that became honorary Pacific alumni, and they all turned an old opera house in downtown Stockton into a capitol of basketball. The enthusiasm of the city helped Edwards develop a nationally ranked program that the University of the Pacific, the city of Stockton, the county of San Joaquin, and the core of California’s great Central Valley would grow to give unconditional support and interest.

In nine years, he defied some very steep odds and led his teams to national prominence. One hundred and sixty-eight victories, seventy-two losses, four West Coast Athletic Conference (WCAC) championships, and three appearances in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament (now called March Madness) were part of the statistical analysis; but more importantly almost all who played for Edwards earned a college diploma.

Top Cats will take the reader back to a time when Stockton and the University of the Pacific were part of a big change in college basketball—a change where the game became an even stronger amusement, an entertainment diversion for the public. Already established roots were strengthened to drive it further into a business venture, far removed from its origins as part of the academic setting. This is also a story about why sports are offered in school and how they do fit into the academic mission. The story is a lesson for all. A lot of talk and big ideas are good, and when that vision is combined with great effort, much is possible.

Read how a fiery coach and a small group of dedicated assistants used a hardscrabble approach with a bunch of driven athletes to make Stockton and the University of the Pacific shine.

Prologue

In the Beginning

In 1928, I enrolled as a freshman student. I have seen the institution and campus grow in those forty-nine years from an enrollment of less than five hundred students to nearly six thousand students and from an alfalfa-covered campus of small, newly planted trees and poorly paved or graveled streets and sidewalks to the beautiful tree-shaded campus of today. It was an unfinished campus of fields and new buildings.

—R. Coke Wood, 1957

Senior editor and director emeritus,

Pacific Center for Western Studies

They started with meager resources but lofty goals. They faced tremendous competition and strong obstacles. In both cases, an institution and a human being shared daunting challenges.

To help understand what Dick Edwards accomplished as a basketball coach at the University of the Pacific, it is important to understand some of the school’s history from its beginning to Edwards’s hiring.

Both Pacific and Edwards persevered through a hardscrabble approach of endless toil and the determination that they would excel. The university’s great early leaders and Dick Edwards possessed a pioneering attitude. The school had a leadership that valued athletics not only for their educational value but also as a potential unifier of a campus. The city of Stockton had a fan base that ardently followed a campus team and had been willing to take a huge step to do so. Edwards’s hiring was a good fit. Both the school and their basketball coach shared a similar path to the top.

Today, it is the University of the Pacific, boasting three impressive campuses. The main campus is in Stockton, California, with the school of dentistry in San Francisco and the law school in Sacramento. That has not always been the case as the school has gone through many struggles and many changes on the way to being headquartered in Stockton.

Celebrating itself as the oldest chartered university in California, the institution was proudly granted its charter on July 10, 1851. California had joined the Union as a state in 1850. Many of the people who lived in California then were not interested in education. The search for gold was a prime interest. California also offered boundless opportunities to profit in some way, off a land overflowing with tremendous resources and possibilities.

As a Methodist church-led venture, the school was appropriately named the California Wesleyan College. The word college was a technical glitch of sorts as the state of California legislature was authorized to incorporate only colleges. The school’s Board of Trustees wanted a something bigger name. They pushed for it and got their way. In late March of 1852, the California legislature adjusted its powers to also charter universities. With that situation altered to their liking, the Board of Trustees wanted the school to be known as the University of the Pacific. Talk about thinking large! A little school with a handful of students was thinking on a grand scale. Add to that, there was no ocean in sight.

By May of 1852, classes began. The grand name did not fit well with the reality of it all. A small physical campus was created in Santa Clara. Also, small in number, a handful of young men made up the first student body. There was a separate women’s division as well. Over the next twenty years, the university struggled mightily with low enrollment numbers and a very poorly funded financial situation. It did truly become coed, and the campus was relocated to San Jose where it stayed for over fifty years. During that span, the struggle to stay financially solvent was always a challenge. In 1896, the university merged with another Methodist institution, Napa College. The merge with a competitor did not improve the stability of the school. By 1911, the Pacific president, William Guth, decided that with the type of coursework being offered, with the lack of adequate resources and an underfunded endowment, and with Stanford University and the University of California (UC) casting ever-growing shadows, Pacific had to realize that it was a college and not a university. Though there still was no ocean in sight, the school held on with the grand name of the College of the Pacific (COP).

In a twenty-eight-year span from the late 1800s through the first two decades of the 1900s, the school would have seven different presidents. When the governing board of the college met in 1919, they asked Tully Cleon Knoles to be the next president. Supposedly Knoles was being groomed as the president-to-be for the growing University of Southern California (USC). To Pacific’s good fortune, he accepted the COP offering. He would be the president for the next twenty-seven years. From much written about Dr. Knoles, one could conclude that he was one of those larger-than-life individuals. His vision and direction would lead Pacific to permanence in the California educational scene. He was a tireless worker, a man of many interests, and a person who would be respected by most who fell under his leadership.

Immediately Knoles realized that the campus was in a very bad physical position. At the San Jose location, it faced tremendous competition for potential students. The great public University of California was at Berkeley, while the great private Stanford University sat in Palo Alto. There were other private religious schools as well. All of them were competing for increased enrollment. Knoles had researched that there might be an untapped customer base. The San Joaquin Valley had one of the largest amounts of high school graduates with no local access to higher education.

Stockton was a bustling city from its origin. It was a key location for the gold seekers of 1849 who were heading to the mother lode of the Sierras. Agricultural business in the valley prospered. Flour milling and farm machinery production saw industrial growth there. There was an active boat building industry. An improved academic presence would be a nice addition to the growth and refinement of the populace. One mover and shaker of this idea was the president of the Bank of Stockton. Eugene L. Wilhoit was a graduate of COP when the school was located in San Jose. In 1922, he joined the college’s Board of Trustees. He probably saw the benefits for Stockton in having an institution of higher learning. He supported Tully Knoles’s idea of a move. It might have been one of the best ideas to enhance further stimulation in a growing city and a developing part of California.

Wilhoit, Knoles, and other significant players organized a committee to raise some badly needed funding to get their ideas put into motion. A site of forty acres, just north of the city proper, was offered by the J.C. Smith Company. A fund drive was started with a goal to raise one-and-a-quarter million dollars. Many citizens of Stockton came forth with donations. That money would be provided for relocation, and still more was available to call in the moving vans and get a new campus established in Stockton. In 1924, the college, its school of education, and its conservatory of music re-rooted in the broad, low valley. In addition to the financial assistance, there would be a lot of open space in the vast San Joaquin Valley.

Although not intentional, the Pacific name might cause additional confusion. With still no ocean-view or beachfront property, the school leaders moved the campus even further inland to the great Central Valley of California. Stockton would become the new home, and Pacific could proudly claim that it was a pioneer as an institution of higher learning in Central California.

The new administration building, the music conservatory, a science classroom building, men’s and women’s dormitories, a president’s residence, a heating plant, a gymnasium, and a stadium bowl would make up the first wave of construction. An infirmary and a dining hall along with fraternity and sorority houses would shortly follow. It all must have looked very strange, sticking out of the bare, un-landscaped space that would be the heart of the school. In what were grain and alfalfa fields, a campus took shape. It would be hard to imagine that the bare buildings, tiny trees, gravel streets, and the very land that was still trying to reclaim itself as farmland would grow into the beautiful site that it is today. Stockton itself was slowly spreading out from its original chartered grid. The campus location just north of the city was almost a small island of buildings in a sea of wide-open agricultural land. Bordered roughly by the now recognizable landmarks of Pacific Avenue (formerly Thornton Road), Dave Brubeck Way (formerly Stadium Drive), Pershing Avenue, and the Calaveras River, this was the new home sweet home for the College of the Pacific.

President Knoles had a huge task convincing the faculty to join in with the move. Part of the enticement to faculty members to even think about such a move was their confidence in his leadership. Another lure was the area east of the campus across Pacific Avenue. It was plotted out as Pacific Manor. The development was where professors and their families would build homes and have close access to the campus and its students. Lots would be offered to the faculty at less than Bay Area prices. It was exciting times for the little school and all involved.

The next big wave of change for Pacific came during World War II. The United States Navy was training medical and engineering candidates on the campus. The V-12 program would utilize campus facilities for most of the war. In fact, Stockton itself became a training ground for all kinds of military personnel. That entire infusion of interest and energy would expand even more after the war. The G. I. Bill of Rights and other postwar opportunities led to a huge wave of customers. The young men who fought for the nation were able to trade in their rifles for textbooks. Education would be their new priority. Pacific would benefit from the situation. Enrollment would grow as many of the students from the war training days would return to complete their graduation requirements for college degrees. The financial situation of the college would start to improve, and there would be a lot of fit and enthusiastic young men to help supplement and fortify the rosters of teams directed by the athletic department.

Two of Pacific’s Greatest Pioneers

President Robert Burns (standing) and Chancellor Tully C. Knoles, in 1947

University Archives, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

The next mover and shaker at COP was to be a graduate from the Stockton campus. Robert Burns would be a man who wore many hats for the college, but one of the most important was that as the assistant for Dr. Knoles. In 1946, Dr. Knoles had suggested that it was time for him to retire. Knoles had always made it clear that he was not strong in the financial leadership areas. Someone else needed to step in and take charge. This announcement was not well received. The Board of Trustees did find a solution to their displeasure. They appointed Knoles as the chancellor of the college. Pacific would benefit from a dynamic duo of leadership. But from 1947 to 1971, Robert Burns would be President Burns. He would be the leader of all things Pacific. He loved the college and really shifted things into an even higher gear. He was a man of vision who constantly thought of ways for Pacific to expand its educational and social reach.

From much written about Burns, his life’s work was dedicated to the continual growth and development of the school. There were not too many ideas that he did not like. His mind was open to a constant expansion of what Pacific could grow to offer. Under his leadership professional schools were added. A pharmacy school was added in 1955, a graduate school in 1956, and a school of engineering in 1957. The combination of the professional schools along with the school of education, the music conservatory, and the liberal arts education offered to the core of the student body made Pacific a true university. Burns’s efforts had built something that the Methodist founders had visualized. On January 6, 1961, the University of the Pacific was announced. Yes, there was still no beachfront real estate, but that bold dream of a major university was becoming real.

Burns pushed more energy into the school with bold and innovative moves in the early 1960s, the cluster colleges. An Oxford-type concept called for schools within the school. In 1962, Raymond College was established. It would feature a three-semester, three-year concept to earn a liberal arts degree. A year later Elbert Covell College offered its entire curriculum to be taught in Spanish. Students from Latin American countries were recruited as a part of the enrollment. A third school, Callison College, was started in 1967. It offered a study of non-Western cultures including a year spent overseas in an Asian campus, by the sophomore class.

Under Burns, the school community started to take on a different flavor. As the faculty grew it had fewer connections with the Methodist church. Budgets grew by huge leaps. The student body grew in numbers and diversity. While still serving the population of the valley and of California, Pacific started to seek a more global student body. One could possibly have a roommate from town, from Turlock, from Tehachapi, from Tijuana, or from Tegucigalpa.

With all of the exciting changes, one thing was very clear. The tower in front of the school that honored his name indicated the direction that Robert Burns wanted his beloved school to go. From such a humble start, the school became a launching pad for alumni of all talents to make their mark.

This was the face of the campus in the 1960s, a school of dynamic growth, with a leader who was constantly looking for more and for better. He sought people who would join in his vision of constantly pushing upward.

Touchdown Heroes

After much thought and prayer, I feel decided that my life can best be used for my master’s service in the position you have offered. In the same spirit, I will come to Pacific.

—Amos Alonzo Stagg, 1933

(After being forced to retire from coaching at the University of Chicago)

To further help understand the accomplishments of Dick Edwards, the growth of athletics at Pacific further set a stage for a grand vision.

For many colleges and universities in the United States, athletic teams have been a part of their identities. Pacific was and is a part of that.

Baxter Stadium was one of the early structures built on the Stockton campus. The miniature Yale Bowl would serve as a football and track venue. A gymnasium, tennis courts, and a swimming pool were built as well. Intercollegiate athletics in Stockton was a part of the game plan for the College of the Pacific.

Because of that interest in athletics, what happened in 1933 was stunning. Amos Alonzo Stagg was coming to Stockton to be the Tigers’s football coach. Mr. Stagg was one of the leading coaches in college football. He was forced into retirement by the University of Chicago, due to his age. The Maroons played for forty-one years under Stagg’s leadership in the mighty Western Conference, later to be named the Big Ten Conference. He was one of the great innovators of the game. Numbers on players’ uniforms, the use of the huddle, the quick kick, the unbalanced line, the man in motion, the varsity letter as an award—the list of contributions made by him was substantial. But he was not ready to be put out to pasture, and he was not a happy man. Tully Knoles was urged to meet with Coach Stagg in Chicago. At that meeting, Knoles convinced Stagg to move to Stockton and coach the Pacific team. The challenges would be great, but the purpose could fit with Stagg’s beliefs about life and sports. He liked what Pacific was about. All of a sudden a little college in the center of California’s Central Valley had the greatest college football coach in the United States as its coach. Wow!

It was a nice mix as Stagg was a deeply Christian man. Although he coached to win, he truly saw that there was much more to sports than the win notches. He coached with a strong ethical purpose. Profanity and poor sportsmanship were discouraged. Sticking together as a team was the continual sermon message. Dedication and hard work were encouraged. There was a way to win, but it had to be the right way to win. He saw the many lessons about life that could be learned through athletic training and teamwork. He made sure his players got those lessons. Also, because of his stature in the sport, his teams played against the biggest names in the college ranks. An improved program, an improved schedule, and improved revenue were all tremendous plusses. The fact that the whole package came along with such an exemplary human being was extraordinary good fortune for COP. It was a good fit for the tiny Methodist school. The coach of good substance would lead athletes into the right direction. Stagg’s presence put the school onto a national stage.

Men like Amos Alonzo Stagg did not come along very often. In 1946, he had turned eighty-four, and he was still coaching the football team. But Pacific officials decided that his age was now a factor in his coaching abilities. He was offered a new role as an advisor. He turned down that advisory role and left the college. This was a year after World War II had been declared over. As mentioned, at the end of the war, the student body had a lot of veterans returning to the campus.

The G. I. Bill of Rights was a government program that attempted to reward those who offered their service to the military. One of the rewards was a package of benefits for higher education. Many young men returned to the Stockton area where prewar training programs had taken place. Here they took advantage of those benefits, and Pacific’s enrollment doubled. Many of these students were a little older and more physically mature than the average college male student. They were also a more serious bunch, hardened by the horrors of war and the discipline of the military. These young men were not your typical freshman enrollees. They offered a base of athletic potential for school teams. Another big change happened at this time. Coach Stagg’s players had been awarded tuition scholarships. Following his tenure, football players were offered room and board as well as tuition. Amos Alonzo Stagg’s presence and the G. I. Bill of Rights were two giant steps for mankind and two giant steps for College of the Pacific sports ventures.

The stage was further set for a grand opportunity in athletics. Larry Siemering was a talented football coach who led the Pacific program in 1947. Besides being able to offer a great educational opportunity, he had generous scholarship backing as well as the G. I. Bill possibilities. He had a gifted young quarterback from nearby Oakdale, named Eddie LeBaron, plus a roster brimming with ability. Combine all of that, and the situation was set for something big to happen. Siemering produced an exciting brand of football, and the Tigers rolled. In three years from 1947 to 1949, they won twenty-eight games, lost two, and tied two. The 1949 team was ranked tenth in the nation, yet shockingly they did not get to play in a coveted postseason bowl game. The city of Stockton fell big time for the Tigers, and the crowds started to increase to where Baxter Stadium could no longer accommodate all who wanted to see a game.

The COP athletic department was now administering to a program that would grow by leaps and bounds. The 1950s would feature a program that played a major schedule against many of the collegiate powers from coast to coast. Winning seasons became the norm. There were bowl appearances in the early 1950s. The 1958 team defeated a Cal team that went to the Rose Bowl.

There was a brief period of downsizing in the early 1960s. The football emphasis was to be cut back. But after that short, de-emphasis breather, the school decided to climb back into the big time. Boosters who were unhappy over the de-emphasis were elated. Students had protested in front of Robert Burns’s campus home. They wanted sex, beer, and football. They would be partially appeased. However, the elation of earlier times would never completely return. Some exciting teams were put onto the gridiron, but the program was never able to completely regain the glory times of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The rosters, coaching staffs, opponents, and opposing coaching staffs over those years had enough names to fill a collegiate and professional who’s who list, many times over. Yet, it all came to an end. The changing scene in the college game became too much for Pacific to bankroll. The football budget was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unbearable debt. In 1995, Pacific decided to stop the intercollegiate football program. The school has been undefeated and untied since then.

When the football program was officially closed, sportswriters noted that UOP had been a significant participant. Now USC, Stanford, and Brigham Young would be the only private universities west of the Rockies to offer a division 1 football program. One thing shown during this era of touchdown heroes was that the college could run with the big boys and do it very well. Pacific could compete athletically in the world of college football. An atmosphere of can do had been established and maintained.

An example was set and a possibility was offered that this could happen with other sports at the school.

If They Built It, Would They Come?

Football has become more than a spectacle: it has become a symbol… Actually if you want to look at it on a higher level, football has become the spiritual core of the modern campus.

—Robert E. Burns, COP president, 1954

An ambitious construction project on the campus might have been another indirect factor in setting the stage for Dick Edwards’s success. The project was a stunning example of the strong support that came to the school from the Stockton community. The Pacific Memorial Stadium might still be one of the greatest privately funded building efforts ever undertaken in the city of Stockton for an athletic site.

The football success of the late 1940s had the Stockton area in particular and the Central Valley area in general enthusiastic over the Pacific Tigers. The talented teams that played exciting games started to develop a real following. With the reports of their success starting to spill out of the valley and out of California, crowds to the home games grew rapidly. Baxter Stadium soon became too small, and some of the Tigers games were even played out of town. The large, all-wood-bleacher Grape Bowl in nearby Lodi started to be used for some games. The talk started to build for some type of larger playing venue in Stockton.

The 1949 football season had ended in frustration for supporters. The team won eleven games, lost none, and had outscored opponents 575 to 66. This impressive set of statistics did not impress any of the big-game honchos who directed the Cotton, Sugar, and Orange Bowls. The response to a possible Pacific invitation was Whom did they play? Someone who was impressed by the Pacific team was Board of Trustees member Lowell Berry. He decided that something needed to be done about recognizing the Pacific record. Berry suggested that a venue was needed that could allow valley fans a place to watch big-time football without having to travel great distances just to see a game. It was felt that a Valley Bowl, a stadium in Stockton, could be the answer. Berry spearheaded a campaign to raise funds and make the stadium idea really happen.

Robert Burns was a solid supporter of athletics, especially football, but he had concerns about this emphasis on football. A first priority for the school was its educational mission, and a more than adequate library was badly needed. The current library was an embarrassment for an institution of higher learning. It was housed in a building that had been the boiler plant for the original days of the Stockton campus. Burns was keenly aware that the situation must change because the library need was an essential one. At the same time he was living in an era when many saw the growth of a college or university reputation based upon its gridiron performance. Pacific was now awarding room and board as well as tuition, in the form of an athletic scholarship. Cost increases were becoming a strong concern for the school’s administrators. The concern was valid, but a counter idea was that better teams and better facilities would bring even better games with better crowds. The revenues generated by this would pay for improved programs. In January of 1950, President Burns was on an eastern trip. On that trip he called a meeting of college presidents. The meeting was to talk about the expansion of college football programs. Burns was very supportive of college football, but he was hesitant about such a strong commitment. It was reported that many other school presidents encouraged Burns to take the plunge. A program with the legacy of A. A. Stagg, the history of COP, and the Stockton location were all assets.

The Pacific teams’ success under Coach Larry Siemering and the playing ability of the magical Eddie LeBaron had pushed the Tigers to lofty heights, but a growing fan base wanted more. At the time that Burns was in the east, citizens in Stockton were busy. After meetings and planning, a script drive was started in February of 1950. Supporters would donate money to the cause, and in return they would be guaranteed tickets for a ten-year period. The Quarterback Club, a booster group, the chamber of commerce, and members of the business community led a drive that covered the city of Stockton and San Joaquin County. A goal of raising $150,000 was set. By April 1, 1950, $165,000 had been raised. Pacific students raised over twenty thousand dollars in a ten-day period. With the fund-raising success, construction started. Berry had already contributed so much in so many ways, yet he did more. He brought in one of his top men from his Best Fertilizer Company. Daniel Garlock, from Baltimore, Maryland, would head the task of building such a stadium.

A Commitment to the Big Time

Pacific Memorial Stadium

Tom Jones

The story of the building of the Pacific Memorial Stadium was described in a seventy-page opening game program. Modeled after the great earthen bowl stadium at Stanford University, the entire project is worthy of a story of its own. World War II had ended five years prior. People of that generation had strong desires to acknowledge the sacrifices made by so many during the global conflict. A strong motivation for many was that the stadium would be a memorial for those who had given their life for freedom. A. A. Stagg had donated the land for the cause. Many contractors took on work at cost and sometimes at a loss. On a piece of river bottom land just west of the existing campus, work started in April of 1950. The stadium floor was dug ten feet below the earth’s surface. Infrastructure was laid. Then dirt from Knoles Field was brought in to build up the sides. Once the bowl was complete, carpenters began laying seats and steps. As one of the final touches, the Pacific student body got the call. Students such as Tigers basketball player Norm Harris rallied the cause. He and others got work crews from the campus dormitories organized to plant ice plant on the outer walls of the completed bowl. It was really a project that brought so many people together. The reality was seen as a proud accomplishment. On October 21, 1950, a crowd of ten thousand watched a two-hour parade that went down Pacific Avenue, celebrating the effort. That night the thirty-six-thousand-seat arena opened with a dedication game against Loyola University of Los Angeles. It was a fitting tribute to Pacific’s one hundred-year anniversary.

For the next few years, there would be huge crowds, big-time opponents, and exciting games. Rooter trains packed with visiting team backers were rolled up to the north edge of the bowl on a spur line that ran to the west. Marching bands covered the field. A live tiger mascot, bowl game appearances, coaches’ radio and television shows, and about anything else you could think about were part of the scene. The Pacific Memorial Stadium, the Valley Bowl, the lair of the Tigers, whatever it was called—it was a place to be in Stockton.

Although there have been many more structures built by business and government, this effort of ordinary citizens may have been the greatest privately funded building effort in the city of Stockton to this point. A vision of such a project was fueled by people who thought big and had a can do attitude. The city had a population of approximately seventy thousand in 1950. The population of San Joaquin County in 1950 was close to two hundred thousand. The Memorial Stadium was built to hold thirty-six thousand with plans to enlarge it to forty-one thousand. That was thinking on a large scale. The two-month fund-raising effort of $165,000 in 1950 would be equivalent to $1,653,670 today. That was the kind of place that Stockton was in the 1950s moving into the 1960s. The relationship between the school and the city was a very special one. Citizens supported the College of the Pacific. They were a type of an honorary community alumni group. They wanted to push for COP success and especially COP athletic success. They thought it, they expected it, and they pursued it.

In spite of their zest and enthusiasm, Stockton and the College of the Pacific did not have a crystal ball. The rapid advancement of television broadcasting was something that was difficult to anticipate. In a short time valley fans had choices. A great bowl was no longer needed to enjoy big-time football. Times change as they do, and professional football Sundays became the church of choice for many. The Tigers football program would run hot and cold for almost fifty years. It was finally brought to an end in 1995. The schedule of events hosted by the stadium became sporadic. The Memorial Stadium or, as it was rededicated in 1988, Amos Alonzo Stagg Memorial Stadium just became a burden to maintain. The giant earthen arena was removed in 2014, bleacher by bleacher and scoop of dirt by scoop of dirt. Today at the northeast corner of North Pershing Avenue and Larry Heller Drive, there is no evidence that this great effort of positive attitude and human energy ever existed—from dust to dust.

But the real story of the stadium was of a Stockton with the vision and energy to make something happen. Robert Burns saw the importance of an event that might bring the campus and the entire Stockton area together. At the time that event was a football game. There was a growth of people who became fans of a university athletic program. They followed its teams and connected with its wins and losses and its mascot and colors. But by the 1960s he saw that the connection might not be through a football program. Could the same type of vision and energy happen through another sport? Let’s face it. A basketball court was not going to be laid in the Memorial Stadium. But with the right coach, with the right direction, with the right athletes, and with the right fan support, might a story of success be played out again? Might there be a different type of spiritual core for the campus and community?

By 1963, the evolution of the university was ready for another phase. With a legacy of grit and determination, the school survived with the move to Stockton. Two dynamic leaders with visionary ambition kept the ship moving in a steady direction of growth. The intercollegiate athletic program had enjoyed some great degrees of success and had realized that the football team could play with the best. A community that enjoyed being entertained by sporting events also tasted that athletic glory and wanted more. There was a strong degree of support shown by them that a can do attitude existed, and that community exhibited a drive to get things done. In some ways these three qualities might have seemed separate, but in other ways they were connected in setting a stage for excellence. Someone being in the right place at the right time could produce something big.

No Time on the Clock

It ain’t over till it’s over.

—Yogi Berra

Baseball great of the New York Yankees

A cigarette smoldered. At breakfast he and Marian wondered how Jon had played against Cornell. They had seen a score in the Billings Gazette and planned to talk with him after his game tonight against Columbia University. Dartmouth College and the Ivy League were a long way from home, but they reflected proudly over the success their younger son was having in his basketball season. For this basketball family, life was grand. Soon, he said goodbye to Marian and headed out. It was a short drive to the campus of Eastern Montana College (now Montana State University Billings). A midmorning Saturday game day would anxiously lead to game night. An improving Eastern Montana team would be hosting Seattle Pacific University.

As always, there was nothing like a game for coaches and players. A mild nervous edge when rising after a fitful sleep would build through each ticking hour. Anticipation would grow by the minute. Dick Edwards lit another cigarette. His brain reviewed the scouting report on the opposing Falcons. Then he ran the game plan through his mind. The engine idled, he absentmindedly backed out of the driveway, and he was on his way.

The stress of anticipating the fast-approaching night could make daytime minutes drag. There was always a fine line between too much activity and distraction and too much rest and boredom. Edwards and many of his contemporaries had come up with a complementary activity, the shoot around. His team would assemble at the game site, usually at a late-morning hour. Twenty to thirty minutes was set aside for an unstructured shooting session. It was a great occupier of time. Players had to be accountable. They showed up. A change into practice gear, an acclimation to the court, another rehearsal of shots, a change out of practice gear, and a departure to home base could eat up a couple of hours yet keep a focus on the night’s game. That was just what Edwards liked.

On this last day of January 1980, the drive was easy. The clock was nearing 10:00 a.m. His Yellow Jacket team was playing well. They had already racked up a lot of wins this season, and Eastern was moving from a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) school to a National Collegiate Athletic Association D-II school. For some who followed that sort of thing, this step-up in growth was welcomed. The program was being viewed as heading in the right direction. The school was pleased that Dick and Marian, two people of such high quality, were now part of the community. A growing fan base was becoming more involved, and excitement was building in the small Montana city. Edwards was happy about that. It reminded him of another happy time spent in California a few years before.

The streets of Billings carried a light weekend traffic load. The usually busy King Avenue had fewer autos than on most days. After a few minutes, Dick Edwards began experiencing unfamiliar sensations. A growing ache in his left arm and an unusual clamminess alerted him that all was not well. He recognized the signs. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…

As he neared the school, the ache became stronger, and he was mildly disoriented. He dodged a passing car and swerved away from the light traffic flow. Immediately he avoided another vehicle. He needed to get out of the way of traffic. He left the street and pulled over to the side of the road. The Big Bear Sports Center was just ahead. A large sign in front of the store welcomed all. He fumbled to open his driver side door. The pain intensified. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…

As he opened his car door, a rush of cool air hit his face. He stumbled toward the sidewalk. Every step was crucial. Every step was agonizing. For every heavy step he frantically searched for help. Was anybody there to help him? Was a phone booth near? Drops of perspiration formed on his forehead. Lub-dub, lub-dub…

He begged passersby for help. One shocked pedestrian stood frozen, while another panicked. Should they go to his aid? Should they look for a phone? His knees buckled as he gasped for air. He sank to the cold concrete. Hurry! The pain intensified. His chest grew tight. Hurry! The pain got worse, and his chest grew tighter. Lub-dub…

An unprepared onlooker rushed to his side. What could be done? Another hurried into the Big Bear Sports Center. A rapid turning of thin phone book pages began. Fingers searched under A for ambulance. The call was made. A response was on the way. Lub…

An emergency unit from Deaconess Hospital got the call. But everything seemed so short and sudden. When the ambulance did arrive, Dick Edwards, the coach of one of the University of the Pacific’s greatest basketball eras, was dead. Now it was over.

From Van to the Man

A community of scholars is bound together by a dynamic idea. They either pioneer or perish. An institution becomes great by daring to dream and then bending every effort to make these dreams come true.

—Robert E. Burns, 1947

(From his inaugural College of the Pacific presidential address)

He would have had an easier time scaling Mt. Shasta or even Mt. Diablo with only a pair of walking sticks. At a time when the football program was heading to the mountaintop, a huge shadow was cast on all other sports offered by the College of the Pacific. In that shadow, Monroe Thomas (Van) Sweet was given an almost impossible mission, to build a winning basketball program. He took over for Chris Kjeldsen in 1952–1953. He was now the basketball coach. His resources were scarce, and the program was not funded well even for the times. Sweet had reminisced about his $250 budget and a landline telephone for use to recruit future players. That didn’t deter him from giving the good effort. His rosters reflected many players from out of the area and sometimes from out of the state. He worked the recruiting trails hard looking to find a way to make things happen.

The basketball budget did not allow for assistant coaches. Any help he got was from graduate students, themselves helped by fellowships. He had only two athletic scholarships to work with in his beginning years as the Tigers’s coach. That situation would slowly improve; but it never got to a full complement of support that was needed to power a program that was to compete with the big schools, big programs, and big conferences.

Van Sweet’s road to Stockton was like so many young men of his generation. As a Texan, he grew up near Waco and enrolled at Baylor University. He played basketball for the Bears and graduated from there. He would coach the Baylor team from 1943 to 1945 until World War II. He served his country during the all-consuming demands of the war effort. His military duty was in the United States Navy with the amphibious forces in the Pacific theater. But the winds of war took him and many others to opportunities far from home.

Following his discharge he took a job in California at Stockton College (now San Joaquin Delta College). Stockton College was a struggling and poorly funded institution. It had been the brainchild of Tully Knoles, designed to keep the College of the Pacific afloat during the hard financial times of the Great Depression. Pacific would create a lower-division program paid for through state of California funds. Classes were taught