Sixty years later, Wichita State 1965 Final Four team cherishes their time together
Outside the room of crowded people was an unoccupied table with 11 chairs.
As the 60-year reunion to celebrate the 1964-65 Wichita State men’s basketball team and its improbable run to the Final Four took place inside a ballroom at the Drury Plaza this past Saturday, the vacant table just outside the doors served as a somber reminder.
Each of the 11 empty chairs represented someone with a special attachment to the team who had been inducted into “Sky Hoops,” meaning their death prevented them from attending. A placard for Gary Thompson, the team’s head coach, sat at the head of the table, while one for Dave Stallworth was to his right.
“I’ll be 82 here pretty quick and when you get to be our age, you never know what’s next,” said Dave Leach, a starter on the 1965 team. “You just take things one day at a time and you hope for the best with your health and you appreciate the relationships with special people like the ones who are here tonight.”
When the reunion was initially planned by former player Bob Powers, almost all of the 11 living players committed to coming. But in the days and weeks leading up to the reunion, Powers received one phone call after another with bad news.
In the end, Powers was joined by Leach, Melvin Reed and Gerry Reimond in attendance.
“There’s a lot of stuff going on with people in their 80s,” Powers said. “I still think it’s remarkable we have four guys who are still capable of getting together after 60 years of playing together. That doesn’t sound like many, but when you look at our ages and all of the stuff we’ve been through over the years, I think that’s pretty good. I didn’t think I’d be alive this long. So I wanted to participate in this because once we start getting together, it’s energizing.”
As traveling has become increasingly difficult for the group, the reunions are a rare chance for the ones who are able to still travel to connect with their former teammates in person. Powers said when the teammates were reunited in the same room again, it felt like “yesterday” when they were together last.
Their eyes sparkled when Dave Dahl, WSU’s longtime radio color commentator, stood on stage and recounted their unlikely run.
Their story is well-known by now: The Shockers looked like every bit of a championship contender with Stallworth and achieved a national No. 1 ranking early in the 1964-65 season. But the team underwent a midseason transformation when the second semester began and Stallworth ran out of eligibility and starting center Nate Bowman was deemed academically ineligible.
Thompson opted to play a lineup with no player taller than 6-foot-5 and a group comprised entirely of local players: Leach was from McPherson, Vernon Smith was from Newton, while Kelly Pete, Jamie Thompson and John Criss were all Wichita natives.
The new-look Shockers held on to win the program’s first outright Missouri Valley Conference championship, then completed a Cinderella run through the regional tournament hosted in Manhattan to beat SMU, the SWC champion, and Oklahoma State, the Big 8 champion. Pete scored a combined 50 points to lead the Shockers to their first Final Four, as the 54-46 win over the Henry Iba-led Cowboys still ranks as one of the best in program history.
“Henry Iba was the slowdown coach and we beat them at their own game,” Leach said with a smile. “We were a real team. We played together. Nobody was looking for the glory.”
Dahl, who was a young basketball player in Minnesota at the time, had taken a liking to the Shockers after they had come to Minneapolis and beaten the nationally-ranked Gophers in 1963.
This was year before the spotlight of March Madness could turn a Cinderella story like the Shockers into national darlings, so he had to pick up a newspaper to follow their success. The 1965 Final Four run inspired Dahl so much that he ended up joining the team and playing for WSU from 1968-71.
“That Final Four team, those were my heroes,” Dahl said. “I didn’t even know who they were or where Wichita State was, but I knew I wanted to play basketball for Wichita State someday. Over the years I have developed a close relationship with a number of these players and it is one of the most cherished things in my whole life to be able to associate with them and be in their company. They are just some of the most wonderful, modest, unassuming and caring people I have ever met.”
The team’s achievement will always live on at WSU, as the 1965 Final Four has been commemorated on banners, trophies and plaques all around Koch Arena. But events like the reunion this past Saturday ensure their legacy beyond wins and losses is upheld.
“It’s kind of like the bible,” Powers said. “The stories are passed down year after year.”
If there’s one story that matters above them all to the group it’s the story of Stallworth, who died in 2017.
Many Shocker fans recognize him as the greatest Shocker basketball player of all time, but that’s not the only reason why he has a statue outside of Koch Arena.
“Dave was just a prince of a man,” Powers said. “He was someone who didn’t have any bad habits. He never said a foul word. He was just a genuinely great guy and there aren’t too many of those running around anymore, especially guys who played at his level.”
At one point during Dahl’s speech on stage, a member of the audience asked for a pause so the crowd could give Stallworth’s widow, Gloria, a standing ovation.
That moment meant more than they knew to Gloria.
“It’s hard to put into words, but I feel good because I know he would be so happy,” she said. “I really miss him. I’m just glad that they haven’t forgot about him.”
It was a humbling evening for the Stallworth family, which also included his son, Hameed Holt.
“You know about the accomplishments that he had on the basketball court, but it’s truly a blessing to see the way he affected people on a humanity level,” Holt said. “I knew he was a phenomenal player, but I got to know him as a human being with him day-in and day-out. And he was a phenomenal human and I’m glad that he is still being honored for that.”
That’s why it was important for Powers to include the current regime at WSU, as athletic director Kevin Saal and men’s basketball coach Paul Mills both addressed the crowd and showed their appreciation.
Both said it is a priority at WSU to teach current athletes about the school’s history.
“It was humbling to have the opportunity to be with a group that really started your history in the NCAA Tournament,” Saal said. “You go back and look at Wichita State’s NCAA Tournament history and it starts in 1964 and 1965. Every Final Four, Elite Eight, Sweet 16, Round of 32, it all starts then. So we try to share that with our student-athletes all the time that we stand on the shoulders of greatness and tonight was a perfect example of that.”
The game of basketball has changed immensely in the past 60 years, but the best traits from the 1965 Final Four team — its togetherness and camaraderie to fight for each other — can still be applied to the current batch of Shockers.
In Mills’ speech, he lauded the 1965 team for “leaving it better than they found it,” which is something he is currently trying to do at WSU.
“I can’t tell you what an honor it is to represent Shocker basketball,” Mills told the crowd. “We are the beneficiaries of a path that you have paved for us. And what we do to honor you is to give our best effort day in and day out.”
The next day, with the four members of the Final Four team and Gloria Stallworth in attendance, the Shockers knocked off No. 14-ranked Memphis in overtime to score the program’s first ranked win in four years.
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 5:53 AM.
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