Big Blue of '72 squad among best in country

The "Big Blue of '72" men's basketball squad. Photo courtesy of WWU Athletics

The echos still hang gently in Sam Carver Gymnasium. If you listen carefully, you can still hear them.

It was 40 years ago this season that a tightly-knit group of men heated up a cold city in the middle of an otherwise bleak winter.

Ten men led by a wise and impish coach set ablaze a community otherwise mired in the cold, gray clutches of Jack Frost's grip.

Officially, this odd collection of assorted backgrounds, talents and personalities combined to form the then Western Washington State College (now WWU) men's basketball team. When the season ended in Kansas City, Mo., after it had acquired the conference and district titles and finished among the top eight teams in the nation, these men had become a strongly bonded family unit known, simply, as the "Big Blue of '72."

As a basketball team, the credentials were impressive: 26-4 overall record, good enough to be ranked as high as fourth in the nation during the course of the season; winning its first 21 games before tasting defeat; Evergreen Conference and NAIA District 1 champions; reaching the quarter-finals of the NAIA National Tournament in Kansas City.