In Memory of Guy Lewis 1922-2015

​ Guy Lewis is one of the greatest American college basketball coaches to ever coach the game. After courageously serving in World War II, Lewis played collegiate basketball at the University of Houston until he graduated in 1947. He returned to the Houston Cougars basketball program in 1953 as an assistant and by 1956 was named head coach of the Cougars. Lewis served as the head coach at Houston for the next 30 years until he retired in 1986. During his tenure at Houston, Lewis led the Cougars to 27 consecutive winning seasons, 14 seasons with 20 or more wins and 14 trips to the NCAA Tournament. His Houston teams advanced to the Final Four five times (1967, 1968, 1982, 1983 and 1984) and twice advanced to the NCAA Championship Game (1983 and 1984). He coached future NBA Hall of Famers such as: Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. The 1967 and 1968 Final Four teams coached by Lewis with star African-American player Elvin Hayes caused teams to realize they would need to begin recruiting African-American players if they wanted to be successful against integrated teams. Lewis coached the Cougars during its famous “Phi Slama Jama” teams of the 1980s that was known for its up-tempo, above the rim style of play led players Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Perhaps the greatest memory of Lewis’s coaching career came in the underdog Cougars’ upset victory over legendary coach John Wooden’s No. 1 UCLA Bruins in January 1968. It was a thrilling 71-69 Houston victory in front of 52, 693 fans as the Houston Astrodome and the first nationally televised regular season college basketball game. It has since been named the “Game of the Century”. Lewis retired from college basketball 20th on the all-time wins list with a career record of 592-279. In 1995, the University of Houston renamed its basketball arena after Lewis as the "Guy V. Lewis Court at Hofheinz Pavilion”. He was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1994, the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.