Second-year University of Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds signaled his determination to change the culture of the basketball program….which he did after firing Head Coach Abe Lemons….who had a brought a very successful program to The Forty Acres….with a 5 year record of 110 wins to 63 losses for a .638 winning percentage along with 58 wins and 38 losses in Southwest Conference play over his career at Texas….which was significantly better than his predecessor, Leon Black, who coached the Horns for nine years and finished with 106 wins and 121 losses for a .467 winning percentage….plus a 63 – 65 SWC record for a .492 winning….so, Leon Black, who was original from Kansas, not Texas….comes in as AD and decides that the next Texas head coach would be expected to oversee significant improvements in players’ academic progress and off-court discipline….and the near-total elimination of contact between players and boosters. So he replaces a college basketball coaching legend with Kaiser Bob Weltlich….a 37-year-old former assistant coach under Bob Knight at Army and Indiana…who agreed to a five-year contract worth $95,000 per year, and Weltlich was introduced as head coach on April 2, 1982…..who at his first press conference as Texas head coach remarked that….a statement many took to be a swipe at the way Lemons had run the program.
Kaiser Bob would lead the newly retooled men’s basketball program to a 77 wins and 98 losses record for a .440 winning percentage during his six seasons as the head coach at Texas…..with none of his six teams managing an appearance in the NCAA Tournament….and only the 1985-86 team participated in postseason competition….while losing 71 – 65 to Ohio State in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament.
For all of those ardent Texas Longhorn basketball fans that Abe Lemons brought to the Frank Erwin Center in six straight seasons….we consider DeLoss Dodds to be the biggest mistake in the history of Texas sports….as we can only wonder what kind of program Lemons would have built over the years Dodds gave to Kaiser Bob.
