'His impact on a storied program is profound': How a bus ride changed Billy Tubbs' life and ignited OU basketball

In 1953, Billy Tubbs boarded a bus with $15 and a letter.

Three years earlier, Billy, whose father died when he was three, watched as his mother suffered from a fatal heart attack, and just days after his 15th birthday, he became an orphan.

Now, on a 320-mile trip from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Jacksonville, Texas, the recent high school graduate held the contents of a note that would change his life.

“He wrote the coach and said, ‘I don’t have money to come to the college, but if you give me a scholarship, I’ll come,” Billy’s son Tommy said, recalling what was in the letter. “The Lon Morris junior college head coach said, ‘I don’t have a scholarship for you, but if you come and make the starting five, I’ll find you one.”

That would be the first time Billy would take a chance and make something happen.

It wouldn’t be the last.

After Billy got off the bus, he became a starter and eventually led Lon Morris to the National Junior College semifinals in 1955, and his journey was just beginning.

Billy went from an orphan to the OU men’s basketball all-time winningest coach, but it took a few stops along the way for him to put the pieces together. Over 67 years, he would become the things that defined him: a husband, a father, a competitor and a true supporter of the University of Oklahoma.

“With my dad, you had to buy in; you had to have both feet in,” Tommy said. “It’s just amazing how it carries you through basketball and carries you through your life. It was just great times and great memories.”

Billy led the Sooners to 13 consecutive winning seasons and finished with a 333-132 record. However, after building one of the most notable careers in OU’s history, the head coach left the university with one regret.

Immediately after his hiring, on April 1, 1980, he made five promises at his inaugural press conference.

“My dad goes up there and told them, 'I am thrilled to be your next coach, and our fans better buy their tickets now,'” Tommy said. “'Because, we’re getting ready to win the Big Eight conference, and we’re going to win the Big Eight tournament, be on the national stage, go to the Final Four, and we are going to play for a National Championship.'”

And Billy Tubbs was a man of his word.

During his time with the Sooners, the head coach would lead OU to five Big Eight championships, two conference tournament titles and a Final Four appearance. He would also take OU to a national championship game against Kansas in 1988, where it fell short 83-79.

“His only regret, he said, ‘you know when I was at that press conference on April 1, 1980, I wish I didn’t say we were going to play for a national championship,” Tommy said when talking about his father. “I should have said we’re going to win it.”

‘I’ve never been around a guy that competed like Coach Tubbs did’

It was the hottest summer in a century, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees 50 times, and the heat waves on then-OU President George Lynn Cross’ tennis court seemed to spell out ‘Welcome to Norman, Coach Tubbs.’

Cross’ son Braden and Tommy were neighbors and had made a deal upon the Tubbs’ arrival in 1980, giving the family unlimited access to the Cross’ tennis court.

Tommy and Billy played every day that summer, and there they would expose the roots of what would change the trajectory of OU’s basketball program.

“It’s amazing how tennis and basketball are similar in your lateral movement, footwork and speed,” Tommy said. “That was something my dad and I did. We played tennis every day, and it was competitive.”

Billy’s cutthroat, competitive nature echoed from the Cross’ backyard to the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, and players, coaches, opponents and community members could feel it ripple through the arena during his 14-year stint with the Sooners.

His tenacity for the game made everything make sense, and as Billy’s teams dropped 100-plus points on opponents, earned wins against top 10 teams and defined the game in their own way, it was evident that his passion is what morphed everything together.

“He was a fierce competitor,” Billy’s former assistant coach, Conley Phipps said. “I’ve never been around a guy that competed like Coach Tubbs did and wanted to win as badly as he did. I learned what it looked like to compete as a player and as a coach.”

Phipps not only played for Billy from 1985-1987, but later coached with him for two seasons after Tubbs left OU and went to Texas Christian University.

There, from a new perspective, Phipps witnessed Billy’s relentless pursuit to win games and his ability to think creatively and break the mold. From famous moments on the microphone to defining the fast-paced style of play that would be coined as “Billy ball,” he conducted life and basketball in the only way he knew how.

“He was a huge personality, and I was blessed to be around him, ” Phipps said. “I learned so much working for him, playing for him, being around him. I mean there’s just so many memories of the things that he did, that nobody else would dare do.

“He was just an amazing person, and I was so lucky to watch all of that unfold as a young person trying to make my mark on college basketball.”

Summers spent on the Cross’ tennis court faded, but Billy’s competitive spirit and drive never did, and even beyond his coaching career, it was felt in a round of 18 at the golf course or in a hand of blackjack, and most of all, in the people who knew him best.

“He was a tremendous competitor,” Tommy said. “It didn’t matter if we were playing basketball, playing golf, playing tennis or playing cards; he wanted to beat you. It was just fun to be on his team.”

‘We had more people at our scrimmages than the teams have now’

The University of Oklahoma gave Barry Switzer a raise the day that Billy Tubbs was hired.

“When my dad was hired in 1980, they told him ‘we’re going to have to give Coach Switzer a raise, because at Oklahoma we will never pay our basketball coach more than our football coach,’” Tommy said. “So Coach Switzer got a raise to match my dad’s $38,000 salary.”

It was symbolic, and Billy understood how important the two programs were, not only to each other, but to the university. For the head coach, it was evident that winning games and buying into the culture were necessary to change the OU basketball landscape.

Before the four time Big Eight Coach of the Year arrived, the Sooners had only made the trip to the NCAA Tournament four times over forty seasons. However, Billy’s “run and gun” and “drop one hundred on them” type of play revitalized a lifeless program.

As Switzer won games and filled Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, Billy did the same at Lloyd Noble, making OU basketball's current attendance issue seem like a myth — especially to former players like Shawn Clark.

“I remember starting out and practicing, and it was just a few people in the stands,” Clark said. “But then I remember intrasquad scrimmages, where the place was sold out. I mean we had more people at our scrimmages than the teams have now.”

Billy could bring people together, and Clark, who was Tommy’s roommate at OU and a shooting guard from 1981-1985, saw that on the court and in his own life after he graduated.

Clark now coaches high school basketball and can still hear his head coach saying, ‘the hay is in the barn, circle the wagon,’ while he prepares for pregame. However, Clark knows that Billy not only left a lingering mark on him, but also on OU and the basketball program.

“The University of Oklahoma and the city of Norman are definitely blessed to have him as a head basketball coach,” Clark said. “He revolutionized Oklahoma basketball, and you don’t get the Buddy Hields, you don’t get the Blake Griffins and you don’t get the Trae Youngs if it weren’t for Billy Tubbs.”

For the university, and for players like Clark, it was a time of cohesion, and their salary was not the only thing that Billy and Switzer shared.

“You had Switzer who wanted to hang half a hundred on them,” Clark said. “Then you also had Billy who wanted to hang a hundred on people, and with those two dynamics it was just a great time in Norman.”

‘Billy Tubbs is synonymous with Oklahoma basketball’

Tommy Tubbs was heartbroken when his father got the job at Oklahoma.

As a senior in high school, he had watched his dad take Lamar University to the Sweet 16, and after graduation, Tommy dreamed of winning a national championship for the Cardinals with his father.

“It was a dream for my dad, but it was so sad for me because I wanted to play for him at Lamar,” Tommy said. “So, instead, he went to Oklahoma, and I went to junior college in Jacksonville, Texas.”

After playing at his father’s alma mater, Lon Morris, the two eventually met in the middle, in more ways than one.

Billy looked to make up for lost time. After missing out on parts of Tommy’s life in high school and junior college because of his coaching schedule, he asked his son to play for him at OU.

Tommy hoped to show his dad what kind of player he had become, but over time the relationship evolved. Billy went from a great basketball coach to a man that impacted thousands of people and made a positive difference in their lives, but most importantly, in his son’s.

Billy died on November 1, 2020, after a five-year battle with leukemia, but the perseverance and grit, which he developed as a child and carried with him throughout his life, is forever imprinted upon the program he once led.

“I got to know him coaching against him, and he is a for sure hall of famer,” OU head coach Porter Moser said. “His impact on a storied program is profound.

Billy Tubbs is synonymous with Oklahoma basketball.”

When OU plays Kansas on Saturday, it is a full circle moment for the Tubbs’, as the loss to the Jayhawks in 1988 is still, 36 years later, a vivid one.

As Billy’s friends, former players and coaches gather to honor his legacy, it is Tommy who believes it was the Norman community that made an indelible mark on his family's life.

However, it is certain that Billy Tubbs' presence remains on the bus route from Tulsa to Jacksonville, at the tennis court at the Cross’ house in the 1980s, and sitting next to his wife Pat at the Lloyd Noble Center during OU basketball games.

“When he passed, I saw that my dad affected all those people, but I also learned how all of those former players, coaches and administrators affected our family,” Tommy said. “My family has been a direct part of OU basketball for 44 years, and my dad and my family have loved the University of Oklahoma for all of it.”