I remember 1969

I remember 1969.

I was a senior at North high school and looking forward to going to Drake University after graduation. We didn’t have any money, but my mother had taken a job at Drake so I could go to college. It was the greatest job benefit in the world; if you had a parent employed at Drake, you got to go there tuition-free.

The San Francisco ‘Summer of Love’ had occurred a couple years earlier, and every kid in Iowa wanted some of that. There were rumors about a big music festival coming to Woodstock, New York and we were all packing our bags getting ready to hitch-hike to the east coast. Rolling Stone was the hot new magazine and we talked about living in communes, growing our own food and saving Mother Earth.

The Viet Nam War was raging on endlessly and anti-war protests were everywhere. Minds were still stinging from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Nixon was in the throes of his paranoia; he hated war-protesters, and invented the ‘War on Drugs’ to deflect public opinion away from his bad habit of erasing White House tapes. John and Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt started to wear black arm bands to school. That infuriated the Des Moines school administration and the kids were suspended. The U.S. Supreme Court soon gave the school administrators a lesson on the First Amendment and the meaning of free speech.

Women were burning their bras and men were burning their draft cards. My generation was rejecting everything and just having a tantrum and a screaming fit against American society.

Then seemingly from out of nowhere came the Drake University basketball team, tromping on everybody in the Missouri Valley Conference and almost every team in the NCAA Tournament. They made it to the Final Four that year, barely losing to UCLA by three points in a semi-final game. While they lost, they completely shut down legendary player Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabber. Purdue beat North Carolina in the other semi-final and then Drake clobbered Carolina by 20 points in the consolation game to finish third. We couldn’t say we were number one, but we always felt that we were number one and one-half.

That team had some great ones - Al Williams, Dolph Pulliam, Willie McCarter, Don Draper, Gary Zeller, Willie Wise, Garry Odom, Rick Wanamaker and Ron Gwin. They were so fast and so much fun and exciting to watch! Coach Maury John was the very definition of basketball defense; it became known as the ‘belly-button’ defense. Several of the players were drafted by the NBA and McCarter and Wise went on to great careers. Dolph Pulliam is still a local hero after all these years, calling the Drake games and wearing that now famous blue leather jacket. The Drake program remained great for several years.

Many people attribute the demise of Drake basketball to the departure of Coach John, who left for Iowa State to coach his son John John. The Drake team had its last NCAA top-25 ranking 33 years ago, always lost to the Iowa state schools, and was a perpetual cellar-dweller in the MVC.


But this year was payback time. Drake beat down every Iowa team and every team in the MVC. After being picked to finish ninth out of ten teams, they won the MVC Conference and the Tournament. They had a 21-game winning streak, and set more records and firsts than any basketball team in Drake history.

These kids play with such skill and heart. And they are smart too! You don’t get to play sports at Drake and act like a bozo in the classroom. The combined GPA of the Drake team is one of the highest in the nation. Drake has higher ethical and academic standards for sports participation than most schools, and others would do well to emulate the Bulldogs in this area.

Dr. Tom Davis set this program back on a path to its old winning ways. Now Keno has taken it to new heights, named MVC Coach of the year in his first season, with a good shot to be the national NCAA Coach of the Year. I just loved watching Dr. Tom sitting in the stands this year, beaming with pride for his son and this team.

I never thought I’d see anything like this again in my life.

The Bulldogd lost in their first game in the NCAA tournament. A typical Drake game, they were down by 16 points in the second half, came back to force overtime, and lost by a devistating basket at the buzzer.


No matter what, this team has made all of us proud: Des Moines, the state of Iowa, and the whole Drake Nation. Here we go, Bulldogs, here we go!