Tag: WVU Mountaineers

February 10, 2010: Former WVU Coach & AD Fred Schaus Died

Former West Virginia University basketball coach Fred Schaus died in Morgantown on February 10, 2010, at age 84.

Before entering the coaching ranks, he was a star basketball player at WVU—being the first Mountaineer to score 1000 points in his career.

After five years in the NBA, he returned to WVU in 1954 to coach the most successful teams in school history. Led first by “Hot Rod” Hundley, then Jerry West, WVU made it to six straight NCAA Tournaments and lost the 1959 national title game by only a point.

In 1960, Schaus moved back to the NBA. In seven years as the Los Angeles Lakers’ head coach, he won four conference titles but lost in the finals each time to Boston. In 1967, he became the Lakers’ general manager and built the team that won the 1972 NBA title.

Schaus then went back to the college ranks and coached Purdue for six years. In 1981, he returned to his alma mater to serve as WVU’s athletic director. He retired in 1989. Schaus still holds the best winning percentage of any men’s basketball coach in WVU history.

February 3, 1923: The Voice of the Mountaineers, Jack Fleming Born

Broadcaster Jack Fleming was born in Morgantown on February 3, 1923. After serving in World War II as a navigator on a B-17, he enrolled in West Virginia University through the GI Bill.

In 1947, as a 24-year-old undergrad, Fleming became the “Voice of the Mountaineers” on radio.

For much of the next half-century, he was a fixture at WVU, announcing football and basketball games. And for 25 of those years, he also was the lead play-by-play announcer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, broadcasting four Super Bowls and perhaps the most famous call of his career: Franco Harris’s “immaculate reception.”

He took a three-year break in the early ’70s to call games for the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. But, he was lured back to his main love: WVU. Despite his longtime association with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he didn’t hold the same affinity for WVU’s leading rival, the Pitt Panthers. In the days leading up to the annual Backyard Brawl, he could be found in downtown Morgantown, waving a “Beat Pitt” sign at passing motorists.

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