Celebrating Montevallo’s First Champions 50 Years Ago

Basketball teams in the Alabama Collegiate Conference had things going pretty well in the mid-1960s.

Programs from Troy to Florence, from Livingston to Jacksonville, and at several other in-state campuses were fielding competitive teams, playing quality ball on the hardcourt.

But in Montevallo, the school known then as Alabama College, they not only didn’t have a team … they didn’t even have a ball.

That’s how Leon Davis remembers it.

It was 1963 and Davis, who had been captain of the Troy team in 1952-53, was a graduate student at the University of Alabama. He had served in the U.S. Army and had coached high school basketball in Tuskegee (Ala.), Bainbridge (Ga.) and Talladega (Ala.), but had never coached at the college level.

He was offered an unexpected, and some would have said ‘unwise,’ opportunity.

“I was offered the job to start a basketball program in Montevallo and be the program’s first head coach,” the retired 92-year old Montevallo resident recalled. “We not only didn’t have a gym and didn’t have players. We didn’t even have a ball.

“But, I came here on the promise that we would build a gym and that happened during my first year here. Of course, we had to do some quick scrambling. I was the coach, the scout, the recruiter, the trainer. We didn’t have any assistant coaches when we started.”

Davis acknowledges that those first few years weren’t too successful in terms of wins and losses.

“I realized pretty quickly that I was one of the most popular college coaches in the state,” he remembered. “Seems like every coach called wanting to play us. And, if I told him we already had a game scheduled that day, he would say, ‘then come for Homecoming’. We were playing against teams that had already been winning 20 game a season. That’s what we were going up against.”

But, Davis went about it the right way. The Falcons primarily went after in-state players. In the summer of 1965, after the program’s first full season, the head coach started an annual clinic for in-state coaches, raising awareness of the Montevallo program and building relationships. He stressed to his student-athletes what was expected.

“I told our players that the image of the university should be enhanced by the conduct and the accomplishments of the team,” Davis said.

It didn’t take long for Montevallo to begin reaping the rewards of Davis’ work. By the end of that decade, Davis had hired Bill Jones, who had served as basketball coach at Marion Institute, to be the Falcons’ assistant head coach. In 1969, Davis, who had also served as Montevallo’s tennis coach and golf coach, became the full-time Men’s Athletic Director

“I am the only head coach to ever coach Alabama College basketball,” Davis pointed out.

In that same year, the school’s name was changed to the University of Montevallo and Jones replaced Davis as basketball head coach.

Jones first campaign ended with a 13-12 record, the program’s first-ever winning season. The next team, 1970-71, posted an 18-9 mark. Next up was the historic 1971-1972 season.

With the previous squad having won 18 games, a lot was expected by Montevallo fans, alumni and players. Those players remember that season vividly and fondly.

“We won the conference tournament championship and the regular season title,” recalled Billy Cannon, a point guard, one of many players who contributed significantly the team’s success. “Our team was built primarily with players from the state of Alabama for the most part.”

The team was an offensive juggernaut. Playing without a shot clock and without a three-point line, the Falcons averaged 88 points per game, scoring over 90 points 10 times.

Gene Meadows, a junior forward led the team in scoring, averaging 18 points per game and was second in rebounding with 9.3 per contest. Owen Butts, another junior forward, was second in scoring (16.5 ppg.), while shooting 78 percent on free throws, over 60 percent from the field and was third on the team in rebounding with seven per game.

Freshman Gerald Douglass scored 14 points per game with a team-leading 9.8 rebounds per game. Before his career ended, Douglass had become the program’s all-time leading scorer (now still ranking third 50 years after his last Falcons game) and still holds the all-time career rebounding mark.

Senior Mike Newell, a shooting guard who had been on Auburn’s basketball team, became the program’s first-ever Division I transfer when he joined the team during the season. He also averaged 14 points per game, hitting 51 percent from the field and 75 percent from the charity stripe.

Meadows, Butts and Newell were named to the Montevallo All-Tournament team and to the All-Magic City Classic team. Meadows and Butts were also on the Alabama Collegiate Conference All-Tournament team, while Meadows was on the All-District 27 team.

In addition to point guard Cannon, contributing players included fellow point guard Ott Knight (who averaged almost 11 assists per game during that season), freshman Charles Averhart, Dale Hughey, Eddie Freeze, David Conway, Joe Harrington, Larry Lough, Mike Marshall, James Newman and others.

The team set the program record with 19 wins, the most in school history. By winning the ACC tournament, the team was the school’s first to play in the NAIA Division 27 Tournament in Kansas City.

In early February of this year, the entire 1971-1972 team was inducted into the Montevallo Sports Hall of Fame, including trainer Mike Sellers and manager Robby Tibbs. Several team members had previously been inducted for their individual performance and that honor could be given for others in the future.

Not forgotten at the induction ceremony was 1971-1972 head coach Bill Jones, the winningest coach in Montevallo history in terms of winning percentage. After coaching the Falcons, Jones coached at North Alabama where his team won the NCAA Division II national championship in 1979 and whose teams played in six NCAA national tournaments.

“This year’s inductee class features several firsts and trailblazers in Montevallo athletics” said director of athletics Mark Richard. “Women’s Track and field received its first Hall of Famer, just the second golfer that has been inducted.

“Going back to the early years, even before Montevallo earned its current name, the remaining of these inductees helped lay the foundation for what Montevallo Athletics is today – including the first team to win a championship.”

Much has changed in Montevallo and in the world of college basketball since that first Montevallo team almost 60 years ago and that first championship a few years later.

“It’s pretty amazing where Montevallo basketball has developed since that first team,” Davis said. “We wanted to leave a legacy, to lay a solid foundation. Our program has had really good people. I think that I did well in hiring good people and we’ve had good people throughout the years. I did expect us to do well and I think we have.”