Elvin Hayes

A quiet, introverted youth, Hayes first picked up a basketball in eighth grade, by accident. He was wrongly blamed for playing a classroom prank and was sent to the principal's office. But another teacher, Reverend Calvin, saw Hayes and said he was welcome in his class. Although the youngster showed no inclination for any sports, Calvin thought he would benefit by playing basketball and put him on the school team. Hayes was so clumsy, however, that he evoked laughter with his awkward attempts at shooting and dribbling.

But young Hayes was determined to improve, and during the summers he practiced long hours. As a 6'5" ninth grader he was a benchwarmer on the junior varsity squad at Britton High School when he became determined to crack the starting lineup. "I was too weak to shoot the turnaround then", Hayes recalled, "so all summer long I shot with a small rubber ball at a basket in my yard. My development was almost overnight."

In Hayes's senior year, 1963–64, he led Britton to the state championship, averaging 35 points during the regular season. In the championship game he picked up 45 points and 20 rebounds.

One of five numbers retired by the University of Houston men's basketball team, Hayes's No. 44 hangs in Hofheinz Pavilion.

Hayes and Don Chaney were the University of Houston's first Black American basketball players in 1966.

In 1966, Hayes led the Cougars into the Western Regional semi-finals of the 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament before losing to the Pac-8 champion Oregon State Beavers.

In 1967, he led the Cougars to the Final Four of the 1967 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. He would attempt 31 field goals, and score 25 points and 24 rebounds in a 73-58 semi-final loss to the eventual champion UCLA Bruins featuring Lew Alcindor (now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). His rebounding total is second to Bill Russell's Final Four record of 27.[1][2]

On January 20, 1968, the Big E and the Houston Cougars faced Lew and the UCLA Bruins in the first-ever nationally televised regular season college basketball game. In front of a record 52,693 fans at the Houston Astrodome, Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds while limiting Alcindor to just 15 points as Houston beat UCLA 71–69 to snap the Bruins' 47-game winning streak in what has been called the "Game of the Century". That game helped Hayes earn The Sporting News College Basketball Player of the Year.

One month later on February 10, he grabbed a career-high 37 rebounds in a game against Centenary.

In the rematch to the "Game of the Century", Hayes faced Alcindor and UCLA in the 1968 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. UCLA coach John Wooden had the Bruins play a 'triangle and two" zone defense with Alcindor playing behind Hayes and Lynn Shackleford fronting him. He was held to 10 points, losing to Alcindor and the Bruins 101-69 in the semi-final game.[2]

Houston's Hayes is carried in a victory celebration after the defeat of UCLA in the Game of the Century at the Astrodome

Hayes led Houston in scoring (1966 27.2 points per game, 1967 28.4, and 1968 36.8). For his college career, Hayes averaged 31.0 points per game and 17.2 rebounds per game. He has the most rebounds in NCAA tournament history at 222. While a student at Houston, Hayes was initiated into the Alpha Nu Omega Chapter of the Iota Phi Theta fraternity alongside fellow future Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy.[3]

With his departure from college Hayes was selected as the first overall selection in both the 1968 NBA draft and 1968 ABA draft. He was taken by the San Diego Rockets and the Houston Mavericks, respectively.

Shortly after finishing his career in the NBA, Hayes returned to the University of Houston to finish the last 30 credit hours of his undergraduate degree. When interviewed about the experience, Hayes mentioned, "I played 16 years of pro basketball, but this is the hardest thing I've ever done."[7]

For a while he owned a car dealership in Crosby, Texas. In November 2007, Hayes became a City of Liberty Police Reserve Officer, fulfilling a childhood dream.[8] On November 22, 2010, it was announced that he would serve as an analyst for radio broadcasts of Houston Cougars games on Houston's KBME.[9] Hayes is currently a reserve police officer with the City of Jersey Village, a suburb of Houston.

In his career with the San Diego/Houston Rockets and the Baltimore/Capital/Washington Bullets, Hayes played 1,303 games over 16 seasons, registering 27,313 points (ninth all-time) and 16,279 rebounds (fourth all-time). He is the all-time leading scorer for the Washington Bullets/Wizards. Hayes never missed more than two games in any of his 16 seasons in the NBA. In addition to his 1968 scoring title, he led the NBA in rebounding in 1970 and 1974. Hayes played in 12 straight NBA All-Star Games from 1969 to 1980. His total regular-season minutes played in the NBA were exactly 50,000.

Hayes was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990 and named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team during the 1996–97 NBA season. He boycotted the Hall of Fame beginning in 1990 and refused to return until Guy Lewis, his coach at the University of Houston, was admitted.[10] Lewis was admitted to the Hall of Fame in 2013, and Hayes was there for the first time since his induction in 1990.

In 2003, Hayes was inducted into the Breitbard Hall of Fame, which honors San Diego's finest athletes.[11]

• Heisler, Mark (2003). Giants: The 25 Greatest Centers of All Time. Chicago: Triumph Books. ISBN 1-57243-577-1.

• NBA.com biography
• Basketball Hall of Fame biography
• ClutchFans.net Profile – Houston Rocket Fan Site
• NBA.com history: Elvin Hayes
• Elvin Hayes to join radio crew