Abe Lemons (November 21, 1922 - September 2, 2002) was one of the most successful head basketball coaches in Oklahoma history.

Lemons grew up in the town of Walters, Oklahoma. He served in World War II in the Pacific and often referred to the pressures of his war experience to put sports pressures into perspective. He joined Oklahoma City University (OCU) as a student in 1947.

At OCU, Lemons excelled as a player and coach in basketball for more than 40 years. In 34 seasons of coaching, he accomplished 599 victories and 343 losses, ranking fifth among the winningest men's active collegiate coaches. He coached several All-America & future NBA players, such as Arnold Short^[1] & Hub Reed.

Lemons spent 25 years as head coach at OCU. His first 18 years at OCU from 1955–1973, during which he led OCU to a 309-181 record, two NIT berths and seven NCAA tournament appearances in 1956, 1957, 1963–1966 and 1973. OCU also won the All-College Tournament in 1965.

From 1973-1976 Lemons was head coach at Pan American University, where he was named 1974-1975 Texas Coach of the Year. He took the head coaching position at the University of Texas in 1976. He served as president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 1977 and was named National Coach of the Year in 1978. Lemons' last season at Texas was 1982.

In his second stint at OCU, he took the Chiefs to the NAIA Championship tournament once and to the District IX playoffs four times. Lemons was Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 1985-1986. OCU had an undefeated season record and a trip to the NAIA tournament in 1986-1987. That year, they were ranked number one throughout the season. The season ended with a 34-1 record, Lemons' was named District 9 Coach of the Year and Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. In 1987, he was named Basketball Times Coach of the Year. In 1989, he received the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award.

During his 25 years with OCU, Lemons posted a record of 432-264. He brought positive national attention to the state of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City and OCU. He established himself as a "teacher of men," not only in sports, but in the values of life, as proven by the success and leadership accomplishments of his students and players.

Lemons died on September 2, 2002 of complications from Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 79.

Notable quotes[link]

Lemons is noted for many humorous and insightful quotes he has made over his career, including the following:

• "You out rebounded a dead man by one."

After a 7 foot center got only one rebound in the first half of a game.

• "You may be big in New York, but in Walters, Oklahoma, you're nobody."

to broadcaster Howard Cosell

• "If you had come with me, you could be the principal of a high school by now."

to Johnny Bench, whom he tried to recruit with at Oklahoma City University.

• "Damn referees. I'll miss them less than anybody."

after losing his final game by one point, in a bid for victory No. 600

• "Hey, some places this would be a foul!"

while at the scorers' table holding up a tooth that had been dislodged from the mouth of his player, James Washington

• "You mean in the state?"

When asked if he felt his 1976 University of Texas basketball team should be ranked in the top twenty that season

• "That foul wouldn't have killed a gnat."

after losing his final game on a free throw after a disputed foul

• "How hard is it to coach track? Tell 'em to stay to the left and get back as fast as you can."

after being fired by Texas Athletics Director and former Kansas State track coach DeLoss Dodds

• "Finish last in your league and they call you 'Idiot'. Finish last in medical school and they call you 'Doctor'."

• "I never substitute just to substitute. I play my regulars. The only way a guy gets off the floor is if he dies."

• "One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn't do you any good."

• "I don't jog. If I die I want to be sick."

• "Doctors bury their mistakes, but mine are still on scholarship."

• "I hope they notice the mistletoe tied to my coattails as I leave town."

• "We don't pray after a game. That's too late."

• "At Pan American one year the only player coming back was named Tree McCullough. But hell, his name could have been Stumpy."

• "It was the toughest seven man zone we faced all year."

• "I'm not playing favorites. All my favorites have graduated."

• "We ran all over Texas-Arlington last season, 84-83. Ozie and Rich scored 71 points for us. After the game a reporter asked me how I thought we'd have done without them. I said, "Figure it out for yourself. We'da got beat 83-13."

• " We went to Alaska once and they made us honorary Alaskans. Then we went to Hawaii and they made us honorary Hawaiians. We're going to the Virgin Islands this year."

• "I was at OCU 23 years and today I can give you the addresses of every kid who played for me, and what he's doing now. To me, that's what coaching is all about."

• When asked how to stop illegal recruiting Abe said, "Just give every coach the same amount of money and tell them they can keep what’s left over."

• When asked about running set plays, Abe answered, "There are only two plays that I know, Romeo and Juliet and put the damn ball in the basket."

• "It was a hole in one contest and I had a three."

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	World War II portal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Abe Lemons

References[link]

Granville "Oral" Roberts (January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009^[2][3]) was an American Methodist-Pentecostal televangelist and a Christian charismatic. He founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University.

As one of the most well-known and controversial religious leaders of the 20th century, Roberts' ministries reached millions of followers worldwide spanning a period of over six decades.^[4] His healing ministry and bringing American Pentecostalism into the mainstream had the most impact,^[5] but he also pioneered TV evangelism and laid the foundations of the prosperity gospel^[4] and abundant life teachings.^[6]

Early life[link]

Roberts was born in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, the fifth and youngest child of the Reverend Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudius Priscilla Roberts (née Irwin) (d. 1974).^[7] According to an interview on Larry King Live, Irwin was of Cherokee descent.^[8] Roberts was a card-carrying member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.^[9] Roberts began life in poverty and nearly died of tuberculosis at age 17.^[10] After finishing high school, Roberts studied for two years each at Oklahoma Baptist University and Phillips University. In 1938 he married a preacher's daughter, Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock.^[11]

Roberts became a traveling faith healer after ending his college studies without a degree. According to a TIME Magazine profile of 1972, Roberts originally made a name for himself with a large mobile tent "that sat 3,000 on metal folding chairs" where "he shouted at petitioners who did not respond to his healing."^[12]

Ministry and university[link]

1947 came as a turning point. Up until that time Roberts had struggled as a part-time preacher in Oklahoma. But at the age of 29 Roberts claims he picked up his Bible and it fell open at the Third Epistle of John where verse two read: "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." Roberts decided immediately that it was all right to be rich. The next day he said he bought a Buick and God appeared, he said, telling him to heal the sick.^[13]

Roberts resigned his pastoral ministry with the Pentecostal Holiness Church to found Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (OREA).^[1] He conducted evangelistic and faith healing crusades across America and around the world. Thousands of sick people would wait in line to stand before Oral Roberts so he could pray for them. He appeared as a guest speaker for hundreds of national and international meetings and conventions. Through the years, he conducted more than 300 crusades on six continents, and personally laid hands in prayer on more than 2 million people.^[10][14][15] He also ran direct mail campaigns of seed-faith, which appealed to poor Americans, often from ethnic minorities. At its peak in the early 1980s, Roberts was the leader of a $120 million-a-year organization employing 2,300 people. This spanned not only a university but also a medical school and hospital as well as buildings on 50 acres (200,000 m²) south of Tulsa valued at $500 million.^[4][13] Another part of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, the Abundant Life Prayer Group (ALPG), was founded in 1958.^[1]

The Praying Hands, on the ORU campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma

In 1963, he founded Oral Roberts University (ORU)^[1] in Tulsa, Oklahoma, stating he was obeying a command from God. The university was chartered during 1963 and received its first students in 1965. Students were required to sign an honor code pledging not to drink, smoke, or engage in premarital sexual activities. The Prayer Tower, opened in 1967, is located at the center of the campus.

Roberts was a pioneer televangelist, and attracted a vast viewership. He began broadcasting by radio in 1947,^[16][17] and began broadcasting his revivals by television in 1954.^[4] His television ministry continued with The Abundant Life program reaching 80% of the United States by 1957, and quarterly Prime Time Specials from 1969 through 1980. In 1996, he founded Golden Eagle Broadcasting.^[1]

On 17 March 1968, Roberts and his wife were received as members of the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Dr. Finis Crutchfield, then pastor. The United Methodist Church offered more leniency in doctrinal and moral issues than the Pentecostalism. This granted Roberts some leeway, as it was expected that the strictness of the Pentecostal tradition may have impeded his rise in popularity.^[18] Before Roberts' switch to Methodism, Crutchfield arranged a meeting between Roberts and Bishop William Angie Smith, at which the Bishop told Roberts, "We need you, but we need the Holy Spirit more than we need you and we've got to have the Holy Spirit in the Methodist Church." ^[19] Roberts became an elder in the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church. From 1968 through 1987, Roberts was a member of the United Methodist Church’s ministry.^[20][21]

Roberts had a vast impact on the Protestant community. According to one authority, in conservative Protestant culture, his ministry had a worldwide impact second only to Billy Graham.^[3][22][23] His divine healing ministry called for prayer to heal the whole person — body, mind and spirit.^[24] Many labeled him a faith healer, but he rejected this with the comment: "God heals — I don't."^[3][5] He played a major role in bringing American Pentecostal Christianity into the mainstream.^[25] Even though Roberts was often associated with the prosperity gospel and the faith movement because of his close doctrinal and personal ties with Word-Faith teachers, his abundant life teachings did not fully identify him with that movement.^[26]

In 1977, Roberts claimed to have had a vision from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center, and the hospital would be a success.^[27][28][29] In 1980, Roberts said he had a vision which encouraged him to continue the construction of his City of Faith Medical and Research Center in Oklahoma, which opened in 1981. At the time, it was among the largest health facilities of its kind in the world and was intended to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process. The City of Faith operated for only eight years before closing in late 1989, but the importance of treating the whole person – spirit, mind, and body – was conveyed to many medical professionals.^[30][31] The Orthopedic Hospital of Oklahoma still operates on its premises. In 1983 Roberts said Jesus had appeared to him in person and commissioned him to find a cure for cancer.^[32][33]

Roberts' fundraising was controversial. In January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home." ^[34][35] Some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. He raised $9.1 million.^[36] Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through Roberts' ministry.^[37] Some of Roberts' fundraising letters were written by Gene Ewing, who headed a business writing donation letters for other evangelicals such as Don Stewart and Robert Tilton.^[38]

Roberts maintained his love of finery and one obituary claimed that even when times become hard, "he continued to wear his Italian silk suits, diamond rings and gold bracelets – airbrushed out by his staff on publicity pictures".^[13][20]

The CityPlex office complex, originally built as Oral Roberts' City of Faith Medical and Research Center in Tulsa.

He stirred up controversy when Time reported in 1987 that his son Richard Roberts claimed that he had seen his father raise a child from the dead.^[35] That year, the Bloom County comic strip recast its character Bill the Cat as a satirized televangelist, "Fundamentally Oral Bill." In 1987 Time stated that he was "re-emphasizing faith healing and [is] reaching for his old-time constituency."^[35] However, his income continued to decrease (from $88 million in 1980 to $55 million in 1986, according to the Tulsa Tribune) and his largely vacant City of Faith Medical Center continued to lose money.^[35]

Harry McNevin said that in 1988 the ORU Board of Regents "rubber-stamped" the "use of millions in endowment money to buy a Beverly Hills property so that Oral Roberts could have a West Coast office and house".^[39] In addition, he said a country club membership was purchased for the Roberts' home. The lavish expenses led to McNevin's resignation from the Board.

Wikinews has related news: Former Oral Roberts University Regent member speaks out

His organizations were also affected by scandals involving other televangelists^[3] and the City of Faith hospital was forced to close in 1989 after losing money. Roberts was forced to respond with the sale of his holiday homes in Palm Springs^[which?] and Beverly Hills as well as three of his Mercedes cars.^[13]

Oral Roberts' son Richard Roberts resigned from the presidency of ORU on November 23, 2007 after being named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes, and improper use of university resources.^[40][41] The university was given a donation of $8 million by entrepreneur Mart Green, and although the lawsuit was still in process,^[42] the school submitted to an outside audit, and with a good report an additional $62 million was given by Green.^[43][44] Oral Roberts continued in his role as ORU chancellor, helping in the leadership of ORU along with Billy Joe Daugherty, who was named as the executive regent to assume administrative responsibilities of the Office of the President by the ORU Board of Regents.^[45] Oral Roberts continued as the ORU chancellor until his death,^[1] but in 2009 eleven months before his death, handed over the leadership of ORU to its incoming president, Mark Rutland.^[46]

Even though Roberts' prosperous lifestyle, unorthodox fund-raising techniques, and the expanse of his organizations raised criticism and controversy, there was no credible evidence of malfeasance while he was in charge,^[4] he did not have sex-and-money scandals like some other televangelists,^[5] and he was not named among the six prosperity teachers in the financial investigations launched by U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2007.^[47] The Oklahoma Senate adopted a resolution honoring the life of Oral Roberts, and he accepted this honor in 2009 at the age of 91, seven months before his death.^[48] The Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters (OAB) elected Roberts to the OAB Hall of Fame one month before his death.^[17][49]

Personal life[link]

Roberts was married to Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock (April 22, 1917 - May 4, 2005) for 66 years from December 25, 1938 until her death from a fall at the age of 88.^[11][50][51] Their daughter Rebecca Nash died in an airplane crash on February 11, 1977 with her husband, businessman Marshall Nash.^[52][53] Their elder son, Ronald Roberts, committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart on 10 June 1982, five months after receiving a court order to undergo counseling at a drug treatment center and six months after coming out as gay.^[54][55][56] The other two Roberts children are son Richard, an evangelist and former president of Oral Roberts University (ORU), and daughter Roberta Potts, an attorney. Roberts' gay grandson, Randy Roberts Potts, talked about his uncle Ronald Roberts,^[55][56] and wrote an article discussing growing up gay in the Oral Roberts family.^[57]

Oral Roberts died on December 15, 2009^[58][59] at the age of 91. He had been "semi-retired" and living in Newport Beach, California.^[60]

According to a 1987 article in the New York Review of Books by Martin Gardner, the "most accurate and best documented biography is Oral Roberts: An American Life, an objective study by David Edwin Harrell Jr., a historian at Auburn University. Two out-of-print books take a more critical stance: James Morris' The Preachers (St. Martin's Press, 1973) and Jerry Sholes' Give Me That Prime-Time Religion (Hawthorn, 1979)."^[61]

See also[link]

• Healing Revival
• Charismatic Christianity
• List of television evangelists

References[link]

Further reading[link]

About Roberts

• The Faith Healers, by James Randi, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987. ISBN 0-87975-369-2
• Oral Roberts: An American Life, by David Edwin Harrell, Jr., Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-15844-3

By Roberts

• The Call: An autobiography. by Oral Roberts, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1972.
• Expect a miracle: my life and ministry. by Oral Roberts, Nashville : T. Nelson, 1995. ISBN 0-7852-7752-8
• Oral Roberts' life story, as told by himself. by Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1952.

External links[link]

Find more about Oral Roberts on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Oral Roberts at Find-a-Grave
• Webcast of Chancellor Oral Roberts' Memorial Service
• Oral Roberts Ministries
• Oral Roberts University
• Oral Roberts: The Man. The Mission. The Ministry., online archive at Tulsa World
• Life With Oral Roberts slideshow by Life magazine
• Voices of Oklahoma interview with Oral Roberts. First person interview conducted with Oral Roberts on August 11, 2009. Last interview before his death. Original audio and transcript archived with Voices of Oklahoma oral history project.
• UM Portal: Q&A: Evangelist Roberts was comfortable with Methodism

Jody Conradt (born May 13, 1941) is a retired women's basketball coach. She was the head coach for the women's team at University of Texas at Austin (UT). Her coaching career spanned 38 years, with the last 31 years at UT from 1976 to 2007. She also served concurrently as the UT women's athletic director from 1992 to 2001. During her tenure at UT, she achieved several notable personal and team milestones in collegiate basketball. At retirement, she had tallied 900 career victories, second place in all time victories for a NCAA Division I basketball coach.

High school and college[link]

She was born in Goldthwaite, Texas, United States.^[1] She was a standout basketball player at Goldthwaite High School (Texas), where she averaged 40 points per game.^[1] After high school, she played collegiate basketball at Baylor University, earning a degree in physical education in 1963.^[1] She finished her collegiate basketball career averaging 20 points per game. After graduation, she taught and coached at Waco Midway High School^[2] and earned her master's degree from Baylor in 1969.

College coaching[link]

Prior to her career at UT she served as women's basketball head coach at Sam Houston State University from 1969 to 1973 and at the University of Texas at Arlington from 1973 to 1976.^[2]

In 1975, in response to Title IX, the University of Texas created a separate women's athletic department. In 1976, they hired Donna Lopiano to become the first woman's athletic director. The following year, Lopiano hired Conradt to become the coach of the woman's basketball team.^[3] Conradt had attracted national attention while at the University of Texas at Arlington. After two losing seasons, they went 23–11 in the 1975–76 seasons, upsetting powerful opponents.^[2] Texas planned to bring the woman's program to national prominence, and they felt Conradt was the right coach for the job.^[2]

In Conradt's first season, the team went 36–10. The team was ranked in the AP top ten in the nation all but one year in the 1980s, including a string of four years 1984–1988, where they earned the number one in the nation ranking.^[2] The success translated into fan support—the team was averaging 7,500 fans per game by the end of the 1980s, including such state and national leaders as future governor Ann Richards and US Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.^[3]

In the 1985 NCAA tournament, the Lady Longhorns lost a heart-breaking game to Western Kentucky 92–90. Watching the game was highly recruited Clarissa Davis, who had not yet decided where to go to school. She resolved to go to Texas, and help them.^[3] The following year, Texas would win the national championship with the first undefeated women's season, with a record of 34–0.^[2] Although Davis wasn't a starter on the team, she ended up earning the tournament most valuable player award.^[3]

In 38 seasons her head coaching record was 900–306. Her 900 career victories is second on to Pat Summitt.^[4] During her tenure at UT, her record was 783–245. Between January 1978, and January 1990, Conradt's Lady Longhorns did not lose a Southwest Conference game, a streak of 183 consecutive conference victories.^[3] From 1986 to 1991, Texas was the women's basketball attendance leader, including an NCAA record average of 8,481 for one season.^[2]

Over her career, Conradt has coached:^[5]

• 28 players who went on to play professionally
• four US Olympians
• three players who earned a combined 13 national player of the year honors
• eight Kodak All-Americans

Conradt was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998 and into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.^[6][7] She is only the second woman inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame.^[5] She was succeeded as UT women's basketball head coach by Gail Goestenkors, the former women's basketball head coach at Duke University.

In 2008, Conradt was honored, along with Dick Vitale, by the Atlanta Tipoff Club, with the Naismith Award, an honor presented annually that "pays tribute to the individuals who have made a significant impact on women’s and men’s college basketball".^[5]

Awards and honors[link]

• Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
• Women's Basketball Hall of Fame
• International Women's Sports Hall of Fame
• International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame
• Texas Women's Hall of Fame
• Texas Sports Hall of Fame
• UT Women's Athletics Hall of Honor
• Carol Eckman Award - Women's Basketball Coaches Association (1987)
• Outstanding Commitment to Women's Athletics - National Association for Girls and Women in Sports (1991)
• Harvey Penick Award for Excellence in the Game of Life - Caritas of Austin (2003)
• CASEY Award - Kansas City Sports Association (2004)
• Conference Coach of the Year - 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1996, 2003, 2004
• National Coach of the Year - 1980, 1984, 1986, 1997, 2003, 2004
• Lifetime Achievement Award - 2010 by National Association Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA)^[8]

Milestones[link]

• First women's basketball collegiate coach to reach 700 career victories
• Coached first NCAA Division I women's basketball team to an undefeated season and an NCAA National Championship (1986)
• First active women's basketball collegiate coach (and second overall after trophy namesake Margaret Wade) to be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
• 99% graduation rate for the individuals on her teams ^[5]

Head coaching record[link]

See also[link]

• List of college women's basketball coaches with 600 wins

Notes[link]

References[link]

• David L. Porter, ed. (2005). Basketball: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-30952-6. 
• Grundy, Pamela; Susan Shackelford (2005). Shattering the Glass. The New Press. pp. 175. ISBN 1-56584-822-5. 

External links[link]

• Basketball Hall of Fame profile
• University of Texas coaches profile
• Texassports.com: Conradt steps aside from coaching 3/12/07
• Hall of Famer Conradt resigns at Texas: AP 3/12/07