By Bernie Schneider, USF '59

At the West Regional in Corvallis, Oregon, in March of 1957, the University of San Francisco Dons eked out a 50-46 win over the University of California Bears that sent the Dons to a third straight appearance in the NCAA Championship, now referred to as the "Final Four." The following season, after an early-season traditional game between the two schools, these Bay Area rivals would battle other opponents for three long months hoping for a rematch in the championship game of the 1958 West Regional, which, for the first time ever, would be played in San Francisco at the Cow Palace.

The coaches of these two teams, Phil Woolpert of the USF Dons and Pete Newell of the Cal Bears, had much in common. In the late 1930s, they both attended Loyola University (now Loyola-Marymount), a Jesuit school in Los Angeles where they were basketball teammates. They played for legendary coach Jimmy Needles, who had the task of starting an intercollegiate team at Loyola. Ironically, earlier in Needles' career, in the 1920's, he had been USF's first basketball coach. Needles, in fact, was remarkably good at being the first to do things. In 1936, he was the coach of the first basketball team to represent the United States of America in the Olympics. His team finished in first place, winning the first of seven consecutive gold medals for the U.S.A. in basketball.

Phil Woolpert and Pete Newell both were in the armed forces during World War II. Following the war, they started coaching at Jesuit schools in San Francisco. The ubiquitous Jimmy Needles, then the Director of Athletics at the University of San Francisco, hired Pete Newell as the basketball, baseball, and golf coach for the Dons. Coincidentally, St. Ignatius High School, across the street from USF, hired Phil Woolpert as varsity basketball coach. He also served as a part-time assistant coach for the Dons.

As coaches, both believed in and imparted the man-to-man defensive fundamentals taught by Needles, and they ran "Reverse Action" on offense, a continuity pattern designed by Doc Meanwell of the University of Wisconsin twenty years earlier in order to keep the floor balanced at all times and to minimize the effectiveness of an opponent's fast-break. But they were also innovators. Pete Newell was the first coach to redefine the player positions. Before Newell, forwards played out front and guards defended the basket. That's why guards were called guards. Newell had the guards play out front at both ends of the court. This made it possible for "the little man" to have a place in the modern game as a pesky defender, and since smaller players were usually better dribblers and passers, they would be responsible for initiating the offense and making plays on the fast break. Woolpert took this flipping of positions a step further with the installation of the game-long, 2-2-1 fullcourt press with quick guards extending the defense even farther and harassing the opposition, often creating double-teams that led to errant passes and a variety of other turnovers.

Woolpert and Newell were both competitive and loved to win, but not at all costs. They treated their players as young adults worthy of respect, and they, in turn, won the respect of their players for their knowledge, understanding, and integrity. The result: both coaches often saw their players and their teams maximize their potential.

Assistant coaches were helpful too. In these days there were no full-time varsity assistant coaches. Nevertheless, Woolpert and Newell had high quality assistants, Ross Giudice and Rene Herrerias, both of whom had been star performers on the 1949 USF N.I.T. championship team. Because freshmen weren't eligible for the varsity team, the one assistant coach's main job was to coach the freshman team that usually played a limited local schedule as preliminary games to the main attraction against other freshmen or junior college teams. Following his own game, he would sit next to the head coach on the varsity bench and assist the varsity coach during his game. During the week, when the assistant coach had time, he worked individually with the varsity players he had once coached on the freshman team. Ross Giudice, specialized in that, spending countless hours, for example, with Bill Russell. The assistant coach might also do some scouting of future opponents. Rene Herrerias was often praised for his contributions in this area over the years. Strange as it might seem today, assistant coaches in this era were often too busy coaching and scouting to get very involved in recruiting. That might even be said of the varsity coaches.

Consequently, as young coaches, both Phil Woolpert and Pete Newell were a bit fortunate to end up with the players they did. Their best players -- Bill Russell and K.C. Jones for Woolpert and Don Lofgran and Daryl Imhoff for Newell - were Californians who came their way with little or no recruiting, and with these players in starring roles, both coaches had won national championships. Pete Newell, while at USF and a youthful 33 years old, led the Dons to a National Invitational Tournament title in 1949 when that tournament, usually referred to as the N.I.T., had more luster than the NCAA tournament. Phil Woolpert, who succeeded Newell after he left the Bay Area to coach at Michigan State for four years, led the Dons at the age of 39 to the NCAA title in 1955 and duplicated the feat in 1956. In the process his teams established a record-setting 55-game winning streak that would top out during the 1956-57 season at 60 straight wins. It should be noted that Phil Woolpert was the youngest coach up to that time to win the NCAA tournament, and by the mid-1950s, owing to the point-shaving scandal that rocked college basketball in the early 1950s , seemingly centered in New York, the NCAA had become the more illustrious of the two post-season events.

The two coaches both started African-American players before most of their peers did. Phil Woolpert has the distinction of being the first coach to start three African-Americans - Russell, Jones, and Hal Perry one year and Russell, Perry, and Eugene Brown the next- and win national titles, and Pete Newell played Ricky Ayala, the first African-American player at Michigan State. He also recruited Johnny Green to Michigan State and Earl Robinson to Cal. Newell has been known to say, however, that Phil Woolpert, in this regard, was "way ahead of the rest of us coaches."

Newell's statement points to a significant difference between the two men. Phil Woolpert was an idealistic intellectual and an agnostic. His perspective on society and life had been honed by his upbringing in the racially-mixed heart of Los Angeles and was furthered by his work as a prison guard in California before World War II and then at the notorious Schofield Barracks in Hawaii during the war, a prison made famous by James Jones's 1951 novel From Here to Eternity and the 1953 movie of the same name. Consequently, Phil Woolpert had a keen sense of the inequities that existed in society at large. While he won championships, basketball was merely the means for him to attain more lasting significant ends by helping people and changing the world. Elitism rankled him. One might even say that Phil Woolpert would have been more ideally suited to coach at the egalitarian University of California. Pete Newell's values were more traditional, conservative, and Catholic. If not for more rewarding salaries at MSU and Cal, he might have continued coaching very comfortably for many years at the University of San Francisco. Interestingly, while Pete also grew up in Los Angeles, his family, culturally, if not geographically, was close to the glitter of Hollywood. As a child Pete was an "extra" in films and nearly won the part as the kid in Charlie Chaplin's film The Kid that went to Jackie Coogan. Pete never became a Hollywood star, but from the very beginning of his coaching career he was a star. He exuded charm and confidence. Cap Lavin, who played for both coaches, describes Newell's demeanor as "a kind of natural perfection both in his personality and in his coaching style." Cap continues, "He had the aura associated with Cary Grant," the leading man in so many great Hollywood romantic comedies of the mid 20th century. As a result, Pete Newell seemed to glide effortlessly from one university to another with never a doubt that he would be a success. Phil Woolpert, on the other hand, had a tough act to follow at USF when he replaced Newell, and his success was somewhat slow in coming. Then, when it did, there were detractors who said it was more the players (Russell and Jones) who were responsible for his success. No one ever said anyone other than Pete Newell was the reason for his success wherever he coached. Going into the 1957-58 season, however, Pete Newell's teams had yet to defeat Phil Woolpert's in four matchups.

Looking back, each of the four games was momentous in one way or another. In the first meeting of these two great coaches, Phil Woolpert's team, with Bill Russell and K.C. Jones as juniors, jumped out to a 20-0 lead at the Cow Palace; it prompted the USF rooting section to chant, "We want a shutout." That didn't happen, but the one-sided result, 84-67, might have prompted the controversial strategy Pete Newell employed a year later in the next game between the two coaches. In the second half of a close game in which Woolpert's Dons were attempting to set a new intercollegiate winning streak at 40 consecutive games, Newell had his center hold onto the ball out near the sideline toward halfcourt, once for a minute and a half, and once for eight minutes. His friend on the opposing bench must have wondered: "We're ahead; what does Pete think he's doing?" With no shot clock to force a shot, his friend was attempting to shrink the game to a mere five-minute battle royal at the end. The strategy backfired. It was a ferocious finish, but USF won the game by the old-fashioned score of 33-24 and established the new record. In the next meeting, in December 1956, USF won 70-56 to build the winning streak up to 57, but the win proved costly when K.C. Jones's successor, Gene Brown, broke his hand late in the game. While the Dons pulled together to win another three games (one against Seattle University with Elgin Baylor), the 60-game winning streak came to an abrupt end with Brown still out of the lineup against the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois on December 17, 1956, two years to the day after it started. The Dons regained momentum when Brown returned to form in January, leading up to Phil Woolpert's fourth consecutive win over Pete Newell in the final game of the 1957 West Regional in Corvallis. As mentioned earlier, that victory propelled the Dons into the Final Four for the third straight year.

With those games and those seasons behind them, both coaches had something to prove during the 1957-58 season. Phil Woolpert needed to show once again that he could lead a Russell-less team to national prominence, and Pete Newell needed to continue building Cal into a team that could compete with the nation's best teams. The stress associated with these goals would manifest itself in different ways. One of the coaches would occasionally and uncontrollably have facial twitches; the other, in an effort to control his emotions during games, would continually chew on a wet white towel.

The season started auspiciously for both teams. Cal handled its alums in a low-key opener, 63-49. Next the Bears bested San Jose State 70-62 before outlasting a very talented St. Mary's club in double overtime, 67-57. St. Mary's forged a comfortable lead at the half 30-19, but Earl Robinson, Cal's ultra-talented veteran guard (he also was a star shortstop on Cal's 1957 NCAA champion baseball team), led the comeback during regulation time with 16 second-half points. Bob Dalton, an undersized, but fundamentally sound and tough-minded forward, starred in the OTs as his three baskets and four free throws provided the margin of victory.

USF, meanwhile, blasted Chico State 74-31 and West Texas State 73-45 despite the fact that heralded sophomore Fred LaCour had yet to assert himself and All-American candidate Mike Farmer had seen limited action because of a bone chip in his ankle.

As a result of their previous year's third-place finish in the NCAA Tournament, and with a number of outstanding veteran players, in particular senior forward Mike Farmer and senior guard Gene Brown, at the outset of the 1957-58 season the Dons were ranked sixth in the country. Cal, after getting to the regional final the previous year, and, after a good start this year, was also recognized nationally with the twentieth spot. On tap was the traditional game between these two top-ranked teams. The game site was the Cow Palace before an anticipated crowd of 10,000.

USF, looking every bit a top-ten team, jumped out to a 21-7 lead, led 38-20 at the half, and won, 66-54. It was Phil Woolpert's fifth straight win over his old college teammate and good friend Pete Newell.

The pre-season wasn't going to get any easier for the Bears. The next two teams on the schedule were #3 Kansas State and #2 Kansas with Wilt Chamberlain, now a junior and averaging over thirty points a game. In addition, Cal had to travel to Lawrence, Kansas, home of the University of Kansas, the site for both games. Cal's first-night opponent, Kansas State, coached by the now legendary Tex Winter (the creator of the Triangle Offense later made famous by NBA coach Phil Jackson), featured an All-American, 6'8" Bob Boozer. With eight minutes remaining in the game, the score was 39-38. From that point on, Boozer dominated, ending up with 22 points, and K-State had a 58-44 win. In the other game, Chamberlain scored 37 points to lead Kansas over Washington, 77-50.

The following night Cal had to play essentially the same Kansas team that had demolished Phil Woolpert's Dons 80-56 in the semi-finals of the 1957 NCAA championship. Pete Newell's Bears had also played Kansas the previous season. The Bears lost that game by just ten points, and it had been close until the end. Significantly, although Chamberlain had scored 23 points, he had only two blocked shots. Consequently, the Bears were confident going into the game. They played an inspired game against the Jayhawks, and once again it was a tight, hard-fought battle. With six minutes remaining, the score was tied 44-44. Pete Newell chewed away on his wet towel, but, unfortunately, Cal faltered down the stretch. Although holding Wilt to a season-low nineteen points, the Bears fell, 58-52.

USF was playing a little farther east in the Blue Grass Tournament in Louisville, Kentucky. The Dons' first-night opponent in this four-team tournament was Seattle University with Elgin Baylor. Host Louisville would play Army in the other game. The Dons fell behind early against the Chieftains. Trailing 49-41 deep in the second half, this USF team, reminiscent of Woolpert's championship teams, ran off sixteen straight points, with point guard Dave Lillevand's long set shot breaking the tie at 49-49. USF won convincingly, 60-51. (The Dons were now 2-0 over two years in games against this Baylor-led team.) The next night the Dons defeated the host team, Louisville, 62-55. In the consolation game Seattle defeated Army, 80-51. Baylor had 29 points and was awarded the Tourney MVP.

USF then traveled west to the All-College Tournament in Oklahoma City, a tournament the Dons had won previously in the Bill Russell era. With outstanding performances from Mike Farmer, Eugene Brown, and Fred LaCour, the Dons easily won this highly-regarded tournament, the closest game an eleven-point victory over Niagara. Each of these USF stars scored in double figures in the three wins, and they were joined in double figures by the 6'9" Arthur Day in the championship game. At this point in the season, while other teams had bigger names, it was hard to imagine another team with better balance than Phil Woolpert's. The team was so well balanced that Boo Ellis of third-place Niagara received the tournament MVP award.

It was still early in what would become a memorable season with future all-time greats -- Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, and Oscar Robertson -- leading their teams. Only one, though, would make it to the Final Four.

Meanwhile, Pete Newell had taken his Cal team to New York City's Madison Square Garden, the scene of his great N.I.T. triumph with USF in 1949. Similar to Newell's USF team almost a decade earlier, Cal, with a record of two wins and three losses coming into this Holiday Basketball Festival Tournament, was considered by most fans just a Cinderella team, an underdog, a team not given much of a chance to win the tournament. That is, if the fans didn't know that the Bears' three losses had been on the road to high-ranking USF, Kansas, and Kansas State.

In the opener, in a run-and-gun game uncharacteristic of Pete Newell's teams, Cal destroyed NYU, 96-65. The next night the Bears came from behind to tie Dayton in regulation and win in overtime, 60-55, with some balanced scoring of their own: Don McIntosh had 14 points, Jack Grout 12, Al Buch 11, and Bob Dalton 10. The surprising Cal Bears would play Temple for the championship.

Considered by many observers the best team in the East, Temple was led by one of the great point guards in the history of the game, Guy Rodgers, later an NBA star with both the Philadelphia and San Francisco Warriors. Behind Rodgers' brilliant play, the Owls had defeated Seattle in their semi-final game, 91-73. Elgin Baylor had been held to eighteen points, in part because he had to leave the game for a short time with a cut above an eye. In the championship game against Cal, with Guy Rodgers continuing to steal the show, Temple cruised to a 43-23 halftime lead. Cal closed the twenty-point lead to nine points, 52-43, with ten minutes to play, but the Bears could get no closer, losing 69-59. Rodgers scored 21 points and earned the MVP award for the Tournament.

In the Midwest, Kansas claimed intrastate bragging rights with a 79-65 win over Kansas State. Wilt scored 38 points in that game, but, shockingly, he was only the second leading scorer in the country. Oscar Robertson was averaging 32.43 to Chamberlain's 32.42. Elgin Baylor trailed at 30.23.

Returning to the West Coast, it was time for conference play. There was no clear favorite in the Pacific Coast Conference. Three PCC teams started conference play with a national ranking. Cal, by virtue of its fine showing in the Big Apple, was now ranked 17th in the country, but Oregon State was ranked 11th and UCLA had moved into the 20th spot.

Cal had to go to the Northwest to open league play against Oregon State. The Bears found out in a hurry that this 9-1 Oregon State team, led by Dave Gambee, was formidable. Cal trailed, 26-15, at the half, cut the lead to six points on the outside shooting of a new contributor, 6'5" sophomore Earle Schneider, but fell quickly behind again and lost, 55-43. The next night Cal thumped Washington 57-45 with more accustomed scoring: Earl Robinson tallied 16 points and Don McIntosh and Al Buch 14 apiece.

On the following weekend, both Washington and Washington State traveled down to Berkeley, for Cal's first home games in a month. In a couple of particularly low scoring games, even for Pete Newell's aggressive defensive style and ball-control tactics, the Bears upped their PCC record to 3-1 by defeating the Huskies 49-42 and the Cougars 47-32.

Back across San Francisco Bay, USF, with a #5 ranking nationally, was clearly the favorite in its conference, now named the West Coast Athletic Conference. The Dons, going after a fourth straight title, also opened on the road, but considerably closer to home than did the Bears, down in the South Bay in San Jose. The San Jose State Spartans gave USF a good game for a half, trailing by just three points at 26-23, but then the Dons exploded with a barrage of baskets to win handily, 66-44. Farmer, LaCour, Brown, and Day all scored in double figures. The Dons' next opponent would be perennial rival Santa Clara, sporting a very respectable 6-2 record. Anticipating a huge crowd, too large for Kezar, the closer but smaller arena (6,000 capacity) of the Dons' two homes away from home, administrators switched the game to the Cow Palace (15,000 capacity). Nearly 10,000 fans saw USF fall behind, 6-5. Then, as fans had come to expect from a Woolpert-coached team, the Dons blitzed the Broncos with 13 straight points to take a 27-16 lead into the locker room. The blitz continued at the start of the second half as the Dons scored the first nine points to open up an insurmountable 36-16 lead. The final score was 65-42. Amazingly, no Santa Clara player scored in double figures, and this was a team that ranked seventh nationally in shooting percentage. Basketball experts in the Bay Area now wondered, since Santa Clara didn't provide a test for the Dons, if any team in the WCAC could give the nationally ranked Dons, now #2, a close game. St. Mary's seemed to have the best chance, but no one would find out for a while as the Dons took a break for final exams. Besides, USF wasn't scheduled to play St. Mary's for three weeks.

Cal, with a different exam schedule, was busy playing basketball. George Sterling, who had pitched Cal to the NCAA baseball championship the previous spring, led the way against traditional rival Stanford with double-figure scoring and rebounding. The Bears broke open a 35-33 contest to win going away, 60-45. The next night the Bears had a rematch with the Oregon State Beavers, who had not played since the opening weekend, and so came into the game at 2-0. They left 2-1 as the Kid from Brooklyn, Al Buch, with six steals and five straight points late in the game, led the Bears from a 40-39 deficit to a 61-51 victory and a 5-1 league record that tied Cal for first place with UCLA. The Bruins, this same weekend, had eked out two wins over cross-town rival USC, 52-51 and 80-75. The second game was marred by ejections from both teams. Things were heating up.

Returning to action following their exams, the Bears tuned up for their southland road-trip with a 54-46 win over Santa Clara. Assistant Coach Rene Herrerias, who had been the point guard for Newell's 1949 USF team, and who later succeeded Newell as head coach of the Bears in 1960, handled the team that night as Pete attended his brother's funeral.

In the first game that weekend, USC upset Cal, 58-48. The Bears now stood at 5-2, a game behind UCLA's 6-1. The next night, in what arguably could be called the biggest win to date in Pete Newell's tenure at Cal, his team edged John Wooden's Bruins, 61-58, to regain a tie for first place. Cal led the whole way, leading 48-34 with ten minutes to go. UCLA's great decathlon champion, Rafer Johnson, who also played basketball, spearheaded a comeback that cut the lead to three-points with 23 seconds to go, but Cal held on for the crucial win.

In San Francisco, the build-up to the showdown with St. Mary's continued. Returning from exams, USF showed some rustiness in a lackluster 52-38 win over Loyola, but the next night, with starters making an astounding 23 of 25 shots, the Dons routed Pepperdine, 105-59. A locker room eavesdropper reports that Will Connolly of the SF Chronicle suggested to Phil Woolpert, because his team was so hot, that they must have consumed some carotene and paprika. The relaxed coach is said to have responded, "Never heard of that. Out here on the Hilltop we eat nineteen-cent hamburgers and chocolate bars on a stick. The players eat carrots only if forced down their throats. Paprika? Is that an ice cream flavor?"

St. Mary's, as it happened, faltered and had a loss going into the big game with USF. The Gaels would need to defeat the Dons to gain a share of first place. That didn't happen. Before a packed house at Kezar, the Dons jumped out to a 35-12 first half lead and won comfortably, 69-49.

USF would be challenged somewhat down the stretch in games that were settled by fewer than ten points, the closest a two-point win over St. Mary's in the Gaels' old band-box of a gym on the night Phil Woolpert's Dons clinched a fourth straight title. Much to the Gaels' chagrin, an errant Dons' pass late in the game that was heading out of bounds bounced off referee Bill Scollin (by rule a referee is considered part of the court) and resulted in an easy basket for the Dons. While it wasn't the Dons' final basket, the lucky shot nevertheless proved to be the final margin of victory.

Having won their conference championship, and now ranked anywhere from third to fifth nationally, depending on the poll, the Dons were definitely going to be playing in March across town at the Cow Palace on Geneva Avenue. Could the Bears join them? Who else would be there? Seattle with Elgin Baylor? Incidentally, by mid-February, Elgin had become the nation's leading scorer ahead of Wilt and Oscar.

The Bears showed their determination to get to the Cow Palace by blasting USC at home, 80-62, with ten different players contributing to their second highest point total of the year, and improving their record to 7-2. That same night UCLA lost to upstart Idaho, 73-67, as the league's leading scorer, Gary Simmons, poured in 37 points against the Bruins. UCLA was now 7-3; so, too, was Oregon State.

Cal maintained momentum with a 67-59 win over Stanford. McIntosh and Dalton both contributed 16 points, but it was Al Buch's four straight baskets to open the second half that gave the Bears a ten-point lead.

The Bears still had to face that upstart Idaho team, and on the road in Moscow. Many readers might be surprised to learn that Idaho was once in the Pacific Coast Conference. Indeed the Vandals were, and they were the highest scoring team in the conference with a 69.3 average with forward Gary Simmons averaging 22.8. Cal, on the other hand, under Pete Newell's direction, led the league in defense at 50.7.Within Newell's system, however, there existed some great individual defenders, none better than Earl Robinson. Robinson, had what Examiner reporter Bob Brachman called "lightning-like hands." In the Idaho game, Robinson, naturally, guarded Simmons, holding him to two points in the first half as Cal built a 32-20 advantage. Simmons finished with just 13 points, and the Bears won, 70-62. The next night Cal tacked on a 59-48 win over Washington State to post a 10-2 record with four games to go.

The closest pursuer was Oregon State. The Beavers, that same weekend, had posted victories over USC and UCLA. So, Oregon State was lurking at 9-3, and UCLA was in the picture at 9-4. Idaho and USC led the rest of the pack at 7-6.

In the first of the four games, Cal, after trailing the Oregon Ducks by six points with four minutes to go, cut the lead to one. With fourteen seconds remaining, Don McIntosh hit a baseline jump shot, giving him 21 points for the night, but more importantly giving the Bears a 61-60 win and improving their record to 11-2. Later in the week Cal defeated UCLA, 56-50. It was the first time Pete Newell's team had defeated John Wooden's team twice in the same season, and the win knocked the Bruins out of contention at 9-5. Earl Robinson was outstanding at the offensive end in this game, going 9 for 16 on an array of jump shots and hitting two clutch free throws in the final minute to clinch the game.

The next night, in the rematch against that upstart Idaho team, Earl Robinson couldn't start the game. He had injured his ankle in the win over UCLA and tweaked it warming up for Idaho. Having to return to the locker room for treatment, he missed the first ten minutes of play. Surprisingly, Cal jumped off to an early lead, but the Vandals lived up to their nickname and ravaged the Bears, 82-71. Not just Gary Simmons but four other Idaho players scored in double figures. It was the most points Pete Newell's team had given up all year, even against USF, Kansas, Kansas State, or Temple. On the same night, Oregon State defeated USC to improve its record to 11-3. A playoff loomed on a neutral court if both teams won out.

The teams didn't win out. Cal, a one-point winner over Oregon in their first meeting, lost the rematch by two, 64-62. Oregon State, with two games remaining, knocked off Washington State in the first of the two. Then, with the title in their grasp, they lost to Idaho, 62-55. The regular season ended with Cal and Oregon State tied for the PCC title at 12-4. To break the tie, they needed to play each other, winner-take-all, to determine not only the conference champion but the conference representative to the West Regional at the Cow Palace.

When the two schools couldn't agree to a time and place, the league commissioner, Victor Schmidt, decided that Oregon State could pick the neutral site for the playoff game and that Cal could pick the day. Oregon State chose McArthur Court at the University of Oregon. Cal chose Monday night. With Oregon State playing its third game in four nights, Cal opened up a nine point lead at the half, 28-19, built it up to 22 points, 52-30, and won easily, 57-45. Oregon State's legendary coach, Slats Gill, made no excuses. He praised the Bears: "They played a great game with hardly any mistakes (5 turnovers for the Bears to 14 for the Beavers). Cal is very tough when they get ahead and they undoubtedly played the best game we've had against us this season. We tried everything we could, but it wasn't enough" SF Examiner (March 11, 1958).

Pete Newell and his Bears were going to the Cow Palace across the Bay Bridge for Cal's third NCAA appearance. Twelve years earlier, Newell's predecessor, Nibs Price, had taken a team to the 1946 national finals; now the Bears had reached the regional tournament for the second consecutive year.

On Friday night, the Bears would play the winner of the Tuesday night "play-in" game between Idaho State and Arizona State. USF would play the winner of the other "play-in" game, either Seattle or Wyoming. When Idaho State squeaked by Arizona State, 72-68, and Seattle blasted Wyoming, 88-51, the teams and pairings were set for the 1958 West Regional at the Cow Palace. The largest crowd ever to see basketball games in the Bay Area was expected. As Pete Newell and Phil Woolpert prepared their teams, the Examiner proclaimed in its headline in the sports section on Friday, March 14, 1958: "Bears and Dons Favored."

The Bears' opponent was no slouch. Idaho State had won seven straight Rocky Mountain Conference titles, and the Bengals had a win and a loss against Seattle. In addition, Idaho State was not unfamiliar with the NCAAs, having lost to USF, just as Cal had, in the previous year's regional. However, Idaho State, accustomed all season to playing high-scoring games, bumped up against Newell's fierce team defense. The Bears, holding the Bengals to a season-low point total, won, 54-43, qualifying for the championship game of the West Regional for the second consecutive year.

Now it was up to USF (at 24-1 tied with West Virginia for the best record in the country) to show its mettle once again against the 20-5 Chieftains. Unlike the early pre-season game between these two teams, when the Dons had trailed throughout, this time USF had a two-point lead at the half, 33-31. But that was just a prelude for one of the most memorable finishes in West Regional history. The game was close throughout the second half, but when Mike Farmer picked up his fifth foul with 2:45 to go, not only was Farmer out of the game, but the ensuing Seattle free throws put the Chieftains ahead, 65-62. Fred LaCour showed his great skill, hitting two baskets in the next minute to put the Dons ahead 66-65, but then, with 1:35 left, lithe Gene Brown, taking his turn guarding the 6'6," 235-pound Baylor, also fouled out. Baylor made the two free throws, his twelfth and thirteenth of the game, for a 67-66 lead. The Dons, with their other two stars on the bench, naturally went to LaCour. He missed a twenty-footer, but Arthur Day and John Cunningham kept the ball alive on the offensive board for the Dons, and Day was fouled. He made the first shot to tie the game but missed the rim on the second, awarding the ball to Seattle without a fight. Ten seconds remained, and the Chieftains called timeout. Two passes after the timeout, the ball ended up in Elgin Baylor's hands. Elgin either stole a glance at the clock or twitched his head slightly to establish a rhythm, as was his wont, before he pulled up from thirty-five feet directly in front of the basket, well behind the current NBA arc, and let it fly. The ball swished through the net with one second to go. Baylor's point total for the game matched the length of his game-winning shot, and the PA announcer mistakenly proclaimed to the stunned 16,382 fans: Baylor 69-USF 67. Such an error was understandable. Both Phil Woolpert and Pete Newell described Baylor's individual performance that night the greatest they had ever seen. As great as Baylor had played, though, it was the Seattle team that gave USF its second loss of the season and ended the Dons' three-year reign as King of the West. It was certainly no consolation for the Dons that they would be playing Idaho State in the "consolation game" of the West Regional the next evening, a game they won, 57-51, to boost their record to 25-2.

So, on Saturday, March 15, 1958, it wasn't Cal-USF vying for the right to go to the NCAA Championship in Lexington, Kentucky the following week. It was Cal-Seattle. Cal, seemingly, didn't have much of a chance. If Phil Woolpert's highly ranked USF team that had trounced Cal earlier in the season couldn't beat Seattle, how could Pete Newell's Cal team? How could the spindly Cal players stop Elgin Baylor, if USF's mountain of a man Mike Farmer couldn't? Besides, Seattle had some spindly players of its own, especially "Sweet Charlie" Brown and Francis Saunders, Elgin's cousin.

The previous night's semifinal battle between Seattle and USF had thrilled the crowd with its spectacular finish, but, as hard to believe as it might be the championship game between Seattle and Cal was equally exciting. The Bears, in their own determined way, dominated the first half of the game and led by eight, 37-29, thanks in part to a Don McIntosh follow of a missed shot at the buzzer ending the half. This buzzer-beater by the remaining local team was quite a contrast to the game the night before when USF, with a four-point lead as the first half drew to a close, and seemingly controlling the ball for the last shot, uncharacteristically took a hasty shot from the corner, resulting in a Baylor full-court pass to teammate Jerry Frizzell for an easy basket that totally changed the momentum of the game. Cal didn't make the same mistake. So Seattle, trailing most of the second half, often by seven points, had to continue to fight back. The Chieftains finally closed the gap to two, and with ten seconds left, Seattle's "Sweet Charlie" Brown banked in a shot to tie the game at 60, sending it into overtime.

In the overtime, with two minutes remaining, after Baylor and Buch had traded baskets, Seattle coach John Castellani borrowed a page from Pete Newell's tactical manual, the one Pete had used in 1956 against the great USF team with Bill Russell that was attempting that night to break the intercollegiate record for consecutive wins. In that game Newell had his Bears stall two different times for a total of eight and a half minutes. Castellani had his Chieftains stall for a minute and a half. He then called a time-out to set up a play, seemingly for Elgin Baylor to attempt to do what he had done the previous night. But the ball didn't go to Baylor. The ball went to "Sweet Charlie" Brown, who buried a long jump shot from approximately the same spot as Baylor's shot the night before against USF. Al Buch's drive down the lane and ensuing shot, which would have tied the game, missed its mark. Francis Saunders was fouled at the buzzer, and he made the two free throws for the final score of 66-62. Seattle was going to the NCAA Championship weekend, the culminating weekend of what is now called "March Madness."

Elgin Baylor, who scored 35 points against USF and 26 against Cal, would be the only one of the four all-time greats to participate in the 1958 NCAA Championship. Wilt Chamberlain of Kansas, Oscar Robertson of Cincinnati, and Jerry West of West Virginia would be watching on television -- if they were lucky enough to have a station in their area that carried the game. The other three teams were Kansas State, Kentucky, and Temple. Seattle demolished Kansas State, 73-51, with Elgin Baylor scoring 23 points and grabbing 22 rebounds. Kentucky advanced to the final by snapping Temple's 25 game winning streak, 61-60, on an unanswered basket with 12 seconds remaining. In the championship game, when Elgin Baylor picked up his fourth foul with sixteen minutes to go, Seattle had the lead at 44-38, but Kentucky took advantage of Baylor's foul trouble and rallied to win, 84-72. This victory proved to be legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp's final national championship.

It could just as well have been Phil Woolpert's third title. Instead, when he resigned his position at USF for health reasons on the eve of the 1959-60 season, his 1957-58 Dons, one of the greatest teams in Bay Area history, turned out to be his last hurrah at the University of San Francisco. Three years later, however, Phil accepted the dual role of basketball coach and athletic director at the University of San Diego. No NCAA championships resulted from his seven year tenure at this young, thirteen-year-old university, but more importantly, as former USF player John Cunningham, Woolpert's assistant basketball coach at the University of San Diego and himself a long-time and eventual collegiate Hall of Fame baseball coach at USD, recalls, "He lent instant credibility to the campus and provided much needed leadership when it was most needed." Cunningham goes on to say, "As the Athletic Director and Basketball Coach he brought order out of chaos and because of his national stature he became a voice of reason and stability among the faculty. He didn't win any more basketball championships, but he did help build a university."

On the other hand, in the following season Pete Newell's 1958-59 team, with Daryl Imhoff at center, did win the 1959 NCAA championship, defeating Oscar Robertson's Cincinnati team one night and Jerry West's West Virginia team the next night. Ironically, considering Pete Newell's prior history, this Cal team was the last all-white NCAA championship basketball team. His 1959-60 team returned to the Final Four, losing in the championship game to a great Ohio State team with Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried, and Bobby Knight, but, later that year, Pete Newell, like his mentor Jimmy Needles before him, coached the U.S. Olympic team to the gold medal in Rome, Italy, to complete a rare triple among coaches: N.I.T. champion, NCAA champion, and Olympic champion. Following this season, Pete Newell at the age of 45 resigned as basketball coach to become the first full-time Athletic Director in the history of the University of California. Pete resigned his AD position at Cal in the late 1960s to become general manager of a fledging NBA team, and he has remained close to the game, in fact becoming a "legend in his own time" for teaching NBA players from various teams the fundamentals of the game in his on-going "Big Man Camps."

Phil Woolpert and Pete Newell had relatively short collegiate coaching careers, but both are considered among the greatest coaches of all time. The two Loyola teammates, lifelong friends in spite of personality and philosophical differences, have one more distinction in common. Each has a place of honor in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Lastly, Phil Woolpert retired from coaching in 1972 and moved to the quiet town of Sequim, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. For many years he enjoyed the interaction he had with young people by driving a school bus. He was happily removed from the stress of intercollegiate athletics and never coached again. He died in 1987 at the age of 71. Pete Newell, as of this writing in 2008, is in his 90s and still coaching in Southern California.