Dr. William H. Turner, Research Scientist and Leader of the Social System and Allied Research unit in the Cooperative Agricultural Research Center (CARC), delivered a speech commemorating a renowned and legendary basketball coach in HBCU sports: the late Clarence E. “Bighouse” Gaines, who coached for 47 years at Winston-Salem State University, winning 828 games, the biggest being the 1967 Division II national championship.
Among Gaines’ players were NBA superstar Earl “The Pearl” Monroe-who like Gaines was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame-and Stephen A. Smith, ESPN’s prominent commentator. Turner joined leaders of the Paducah/McCracken County (Kentucky) chapter of the NAACP to dedicate the black granite Gaines monument before a crowd of residents and local officials. Orlando “Tubby” Smith, men’s basketball coach at Memphis, and Turner worked together to honor Coach Gaines in 2005 when Smith coached at Kentucky-where Turner served as VP for Diversity and Inclusion. They also collaborated to have Coach Gaines inducted, posthumously, into the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.
“Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time,” said Turner of Gaines in his remarks.
Additional details about the events can be found at this link: www.paducahsun.com/news/local/big-house-returns-to-his-old-paducah-home/article_2f6fb0bb-029e-5ec7-ae39-81501bf11388.html.
William Turner, Ph. D.
Research Scientist Leader (Social Systems and Allied Research)
(936) 261-5006
whturner@pvamu.edu