All-time great Owl

Greg Williams grew up in Portland, living what he describes as a “Hoosiers”-like existence playing basketball in Indiana.
After high school, he found a second home in Texas.
On Friday, that second home will give him the highest honor it can bestow on a former athlete.
Williams, a 1965 Portland High School graduate, will be inducted into the Rice University Athletic Hall of Fame.
“It’s something that when you go off to play in college … you dream about — maybe someday I’ll be good enough to be in the Hall of Fame,” Williams, who now coaches the Rice women’s basketball team, said in a recent phone interview. “But you don’t ever think it’s a reality situation.”
Williams remains one of the best players in Rice history, and still holds the school’s career records for single-season free throw percentage (72-of-81 for .889 in 1967) and career free-throw percentage (289-of-337 for .858).
Over his three-year career (in those days freshmen were not eligible to play) he averaged 15.3 points per game for 1,101 career points and was the team’s scoring leader twice.
He averaged 21.2 points per game as a senior and became the first player in school history to win the Southwest Conference Player of the Year Award.
“I was totally stunned by that, because we finished fourth (in the conference),” said Williams. “Usually the conference player of the year is almost always going to come from the team that won the championship, or finished higher than fourth. I was totally caught off guard by winning that honor. And of course I was thrilled by it. That was about as unexpected as being named for the Hall of Fame honestly.”
Only two Owls have won such awards since then — Ricky Pierce (Southwest Conference – 1982), who went on to a 16-year NBA career including an All-Star selection in 1991, and Morris Almond (Conference USA – 2007), who played briefly for the Utah Jazz.
Williams also won the 1969 Billy Wohn Award, which goes to the Rice player who best exemplifies the qualities of basketball ability, scholarship and leadership.
“Greg was just one heck of a player. Inch-for-inch, there wasn’t a better basketball player in the country,” said Don Knodel, who coached Williams during his sophomore through senior seasons at Rice and is now a member of the “R” Association board that selects Hall of Fame inductees. “He played on not a good team, and he was the Southwest Conference Player of the Year and leading scorer.
“Offensively, defensively, he could do it all. He was a player that I would always use as a standard to other players for what they needed to do if they really wanted to be a good player.
“I think he exemplified what an athlete would possess to get into the Hall of Fame. It’s been kind of long overdue for him.”
Williams served as a student assistant under Knodel after his playing career, helping coach the Owls to the 1970 Southwest Conference title. He later joined Knodel as an assistant with the Houston Angels in the inaugural season of the Women’s Professional Basketball League, starting a long career in coaching the women’s game.
He got his first head-coaching job with the WPBL’s Dallas Diamonds in 1981 and won the league’s Coach of the Year award a year later. He later won the Women’s American Basketball Association championship as coach of the Dallas Diamonds and took both the University of Houston and Colorado State University women’s programs to the NCAA Tournament.
Williams took over as the coach and director of personnel for the Detroit Shock of the WNBA in 2000 before returning to Rice as coach of the women’s team in 2005.
“Coaching here now is just almost going full circle for me,” said Williams, who said his goal is to get the Owls into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2000. “When I came out of Portland High I had one Division I offer, and that was Rice. …
“So Rice has always had a very special place in my heart, just because they gave me the opportunity to compete in the sport I love at the highest level. Had they not rolled the dice on me I would not have played Division I basketball more than likely.”
Despite all of his success as a college player and coach, Williams still looks back fondly on his days as a Portland Panther when recalling his favorite basketball memory — the 1964 sectional championship. Portland, which had not won a sectional title since 1950, went on to fall to eventual state runner-up Huntington in the regional tournament.
He was named to the all-sectional and all–regional teams in 1964, and earned all-sectional honors again during his senior season. He shattered the Portland scoring record in 1965, scoring 44 points in a 67-61 victory over Adams Central.
Williams said his coaches, starting with Allen Souder in the seventh grade, all made a major impact on his life. He later played under Don Oswalt and then for three seasons at PHS under Harold Schutz, who later became Jay County High School’s first athletics director.
“He was quick and he knew what to do with the ball,” said Souder, who went on to coach Fort Recovery to the 1971 state title. “He knew the game. He knew what his job was. He was quick. He could get the ball to the player that would help win the ball game. He was very unselfish.
“It was my pleasure to coach him.”
Williams, the son of Portland graduates Bob and Miriam (Midge), will be a member of Rice’s 34th Hall of Fame Class, selected by the 12-member “R” Association Board.
He joins former Rice linebacker Rodrigo Barnes, who was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys and won a Super Bowl with the Oakland Raiders, pitcher Kenny Baugh, runners Bryan Bronson and Candace Leissmeister and swimmer Mandy Mularz in the 2011 hall of fame class.
They will be inducted Friday in a ceremony that begins at 5:30 p.m. and will also be honored at halftime of Saturday’s football game against Tulsa.
“I’m really thrilled,” said Williams, whose mother is a resident of Crowne Point, Portland. “It’s a tremendous honor to be inducted into your alma mater’s hall of fame. I’m very aware of that.”
“It was a wonderful experience for me to grow up in Portland and play basketball there. I’m just very humbled and honored.”[[In-content Ad]]