Former KU Jayhawks basketball assistant and Wichita native Lafayette Norwood dies at 86
Former University of Kansas assistant basketball coach Lafayette Norwood, who coached former Jayhawk All-American/NBA player Darnell Valentine at Wichita Heights High School and KU, died Saturday in Lawrence at the age of 86.
A native of Wichita, Norwood spent four seasons on the coaching staff of Ted Owens (1978-81) at Kansas. The Jayhawks in that span went 81-38, won a Big Eight regular season and postseason tourney title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 1978 and 1981.
“First of all, Lafayette was a lot more than an outstanding basketball coach, he was a really good man,” Owens said of Norwood, an inductee in the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and Wichita Sports Hall of Fame. “He cared for his players everywhere he coached. He was just a really good man.”
Norwood, who lived in Lawrence in retirement, attended KU basketball games for the past many seasons. In December 2020, he participated on an Owens-era reunion via a video conference hosted by Kansas Athletics and K Club.
“I am extremely heartbroken,” Valentine said in a release issued by KU. “He was a father figure to me in every sense of the word other than biological. He was a pillar of virtue, integrity and character that if there was another one like him on this earth today, to me, we could solve America’s problems. That’s how strongly I feel about him.”
Norwood, whose coaching career spanned parts of six decades, was Johnson County Community College basketball coach for 10 seasons (1982-91) and the school’s golf coach for 23 years.
In his years with the golf program, Norwood led the Cavaliers to 18 berths in the NJCAA Tournament. His teams recorded nine top-15 and three top-10 finishes. Norwood also captured three Jayhawk Conference titles and won 42 tournaments. He also coached three All-Americans, 72 all-conference players and three individual conference champions.
The 1952 Wichita East High School graduate, who won a state hoops title as a player at East his senior year, attended Cowley College for two years before completing his degree at Southwestern College in 1956. In 1969, Norwood was named head basketball coach at Wichita Heights High School. He became the first African American coach in the Wichita school district. Norwood led the Falcons to a 109-56 record, one Class 6A state title and three city championships.
After leading Heights to an undefeated season and state title in 1977 he joined Owens’ staff at KU. He and Ralph Miller are the only two individuals in Kansas history to have played on and coached a boys basketball state championship team in the state of Kansas.
Norwood spent two years at Arkansas City (Kansas) Junior College (now Cowley College) before completing his degree at Southwestern College in 1956. A guard, Norwood earned first-team NJCAA All-America honors in 1953 after leading the Tigers to a runner-up finish in the national tournament. The following year he led Cowley to a seventh-place national finish, and again earned All-America honors. He became the first two-time All-American in any sport in school history.
A football running back, Norwood earned all-conference honors.He was inducted into the Cowley Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. At Southwestern, Norwood earned all-conference in basketball and led the school to a NAIA national tournament berth. In 1993, he was inducted into the Southwestern College Hall of Fame.
Norwood was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 and the Wichita Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.
“The fact that I was able to spend as long as I did working with people, particularly young people means a lot.” Norwood told the Johnson County CC Campus Ledger upon retiring in 2014. “Seeing them progress from the inception of their careers in a community college setting and then to advance to the next level, be it a major college, middle-level college, or just the fact that they become young men is important to me.
“Everything has been pretty positive in my life and I’ve enjoyed it.” Norwood added, “I never thought that it would come to this point that I would be departing from the work scene and working with kids.”
Of his relationship with KU coach Bill Self, he said in 2014: “I go to his practices often during the season, maybe two or three times a week and now that I’ll be leaving Johnson County, I’ll be spending a lot of the time with him. They kind of consider me part of their family he lets me visit with the kids often and them as a team.”
In summing up 57 years in coaching he told the Ledger: “I wanted to become a professional athlete and at an early age I realized I didn’t have those capabilities. So I pursued the field of education and working with the youth programs in Wichita, and then it stemmed that, well, if I can’t play maybe I’ll just be instrumental with some of the individuals that go from an amateur status to the professional level.
“I’ve been fortunate and blessed enough that I’ve had several young men not only become NBA players, but also successful in the field of boxing.”
This story was originally published January 3, 2021 at 3:12 PM with the headline "Former KU Jayhawks basketball assistant and Wichita native Lafayette Norwood dies at 86."
