Bob Hamilton

Toke69

Since there has been so many posts about Coach Hamilton lately, I thought it would be a nice idea to have a whole discussion about him. In a recent post about the Home Stretch abridge noted that Ham once had three Ts called on him in a game when he was upset about an opponent undercutting the Aggie players. That was in response to my post in which i did not recall seeing Ham ever get "T"ed by a ref. It's likely that it was in his first season, 1967-68, my first one at UC Davis, and the only one in six years that I missed more than one home game.

What I do remember is the game mentioned by BlueGoldAg when Ham stomped up into the bleachers and sat chewing his towel. He was a colorful character and a good coach. Not afraid to schedule top level opponents like Ohio State, Oregon, and Santa Clara (when they #2 in the nation), he still had a lifetime winning percentage of .508, winning 301 games in 22 seasons.Small wonder they namesd the court after him.

movielover

↪Toke69

Great idea.

Wikipedia says his conference record was 178–96 (.650).

Same source says his teams reached the NCAA playoffs 5 times. Five first place finishes, and two times tied for first. It seems like Hickey was better for the win-loss record.

I recall running around the track at Rec Hall, and you could watch practice live. Beginning of the year, Ham would have the hoop lowered over his largest player to demonstrate how large the hoop was. He was a fixture getting coffee in the Coffee House. Friendly, funny, intense, great man.

Toke69

In his first three years, UC Davis won the at least a share of the Far Western Conference title for three years in a row. Each yer they lost in the first round to UNLV which was also a division 2 team in those days. We were still excited though because the Ags had never been to the post-season before then.

Far Western Conference in those days was:

UC Davis
Sacramento State
Nevada
Sonoma State
Chico State
Cal State Hayward
San Francisco State
Humboldt State

movielover

↪Toke69

I've heard about Joe Carlson from other coaches, he had a 21 win season the year before Ham took over & also went to the playoffs that year.

Toke69

Thanks for the correction. I get all askew with basketball seasons since they overlap two years. I wasn't at Davis when Carlson won, but I know he had two great forwards in Al Budde and John Frost, who were no doubt instrumental in getting the Ags their first playoff berth. They were both seniors in Ham's first season. Frost had as sweet a jump shot as anyone I ever saw and Budde was a monster on the boards. I took a basketball Phys Ed class from "Smoky Joe" Carlson who simply told us on the first day, just go out and play, no teaching. I did ask him about my free throw shot and he told me that my form was fine as it was.

Bob Hamilton

Welcome to Aggie Sports Talk!

Categories

More Discussions