RIP The Great Billy Tubbs!

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Dutch

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Sep 26, 2009
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I had many conversations with Billy. He was the only thing Big Time at TCU for a while when we really needed it. I attended the press conference in the lettermans lounge when he came from OU. It was between games of a baseball DH with Texas when we won that last SWC baseball title with Reid Ryan and his dad Nolan in TCU uni’s. For the next few years only Billy kept the Frogs on the map. Without him the move to CUSA and the separation from SMU would not have happened imho. Besides all of the winnng, I loved his men’s breakfast speeches at UCC each pre-season. He said “I always have one guy on the team I call “the hugger”. He sits by me during games. He must have a high grade point average to help the team average. When we win I always hug him during the celebration because he isn’t sweaty”. When asked how many games he predicted we would win he always said “all of them. If I say we are going 28-2, the team starts thinking about which 2 we will lose”. His best moment was at OU when the fans were throwing things on the court because of referee calls. The refs ask Billy to address the crowd on the PA to calm down the situation. Billy went to the mic and said “please for everyone’s safety do not throw anything on the court no matter how bad the officiating is !” He got T’d on the spot.
 

Armadillo

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May 25, 2007
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This news breaks my heart. God his teams were fun to watch in the first 5 or 6 years. Yes, he wore out his welcome, but his TCU teams were a lot of fun to watch and follow.
 

Brog

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Sep 20, 2014
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This news breaks my heart. God his teams were fun to watch in the first 5 or 6 years. Yes, he wore out his welcome, but his TCU teams were a lot of fun to watch and follow.

As a Tubbs admirer, I've always been curious about that statement that he "wore out his welcome." Exactly how did he do that?
 

Frog92

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May 25, 2007
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As a Tubbs admirer, I've always been curious about that statement that he "wore out his welcome." Exactly how did he do that?
I don't know specifics, but it was pretty well known that Hyman (AD at the time) and he didn't see eye to eye and Billy didn't care.
 
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Travis Trucks

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Oct 20, 2012
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We were so bad ass in 98. That opening round loss in the tourney sucked.

That was the flaw in his system. It was great for beating teams like Mississippi Valley State and UT Pan American 155-70, but any time we played a team who could match up athletically it was a challenge.
 

westoverhillbilly

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May 26, 2011
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We used to sit next to his wife at every home game (she never missed)- she was a classy lady. My father was in his Wednesday night bible class at Univ Christian Church and said he knew his stuff. So fun to watch his teams and yes, in retrospect that 1998 loss in OKC to a lesser Florida State team was a heartbreaker because who would know it would be 20 years before we got back to the tourney.
 

helcap

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Aug 29, 2007
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I don't know specifics, but it was pretty well known that Hyman (AD at the time) and he didn't see eye to eye and Billy didn't care.
If I remember correctly Hyman technically didn't fire Tubbs, but refused to obtain a waiver for him from the school's mandatory retirement age policy (Billy had turned 67)
 

netty2424

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Aug 2, 2010
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I remember when Keith Van Horn and #9 Utah came to Ft Worth. KVH was an All-American averaging a double double. Never had a problem getting into games with student ID. We walked up at about our normal time pre-game and it was sold out. We didn’t get in.

TCU put up a good fight under Tubbs that night.

Ironically enough, I just went to KVH Twitter and he re-tweeted this 3 days ago.