Cliff Ozmun, who coached the Pioneer basketball team from 1962-68, was back on campus this week for the first time in close to 40 years.
Ozmun toured the current home of Wayland basketball, Hutcherson Center, which was not in existence when he was at Wayland. Ozmun's Pioneers teams practiced in what is now the Nunn Business Building and played games at the Plainview High School gym. The Hutch was built in 1971.
Before getting into coaching, Ozmun played basketball at Oklahoma Baptist University under Bob Bass, the former general manager with the San Antonio Spurs and Charlotte Hornets who also briefly coached at Texas Tech. Ozmun said he started every game but one at OBU, where he enrolled at age 16.
After coaching at Noble High School in Oklahoma for four years, Ozmun was "25 or 26 years old" when he started coaching at Wayland. When he left here, he got out of coaching and spent the next 29 years teaching at Illinois Central College in Peoria, Ill., near where the 79-year-old Ozmun continues to make his home in Washington, Ill.
Â
