Billy Tubbs Dies at 85; Made Oklahoma a Basketball Power

Billy Duaine Tubbs was born on March 5, 1935, in St. Louis to Oscar and Bessie (Marchbanks) Tubbs and grew up in Tulsa, Okla. He was a three-year basketball letterman at Tulsa Central High School. Both parents died before he graduated, in 1953.

Tubbs’s college years were spent entirely in Texas. He attended Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville, where he led the Bearcats to the National Junior College semifinals in 1955, then earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education at what is now Lamar University in Beaumont. He received a master of education degree at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches.

Early in his career, Tubbs was an assistant coach at Lamar and then North Texas State before being named head coach at Southwestern University, north of Austin. He had two head-coaching stints at Lamar — 1976-80 and 2003-6 — and was Southland Conference coach of the year in 1978 and 1980. He led the Cardinals to their first two N.C.A.A. tournaments, reaching the Sweet 16 in 1980.

Tubbs was Lamar’s athletic director from 2002 to 2011, the year the university dedicated the basketball floor at the Montagne Event Center as Billy Pat Tubbs Court, named in honor of him and his wife.

He also coached at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, from 1995 to 2002, and led its previously struggling program to the N.C.A.A. tournament in 1998.

Over all, Tubbs had a 609-317 (.658) record as a Division I head coach. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

In recent years he would attend Oklahoma basketball games at the Lloyd Noble Center and go to the media room at halftime to chat with reporters. The night before he died, he wore a “Cheer Like a Champion” shirt while watching the Sooners football team beat Texas Tech on television.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/sports/ncaabasketball/billy-tubbs-dead.html