Aug. 7, 2013
HOOP DREAMS – Counting down 20 of the greatest men’s college basketball moments in this region’s history.
#20 Snake LeGrand and The Stage
Despite only three winning seasons in his 11 years as head coach of UTA Men’s Basketball, Bob “Snake” LeGrand is a revered coach in this region’s history, as is his former home court, known affectionately as “The Stage”
By Jan Hubbard
When considering the possibility of Arlington, Texas, hosting the Men’s Final Four back in his day, Bob “Snake” LeGrand barely got the words out of his mouth before he started laughing.
“There was no AT&T Stadium,” LeGrand said, “so if they were going to bring the Final Four to Arlington, they would have had to come on The Stage. And I know they didn’t want to come on The Stage.”
The Stage was officially known as Texas Hall, a 3,309-seat entertainment venue that was designed like Radio City Music Hall, with a stage fronted by theater seating.
It opened in 1965 with a performance by Louis Armstrong. Over the years, it has hosted elite entertainers like Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, the Kinks, Aerosmith, Bob Seger, the Supremes and Jerry Seinfeld. Opera, symphony and ballet companies have performed at Texas Hall.
And for more than 40 years, it also was the home court for the University of Texas-Arlington (UTA) basketball team. On game nights, a court was simply placed on the stage. It was weird and quirky, but it sometimes had its advantages.
“Other teams would come in and their players were worried about falling off the stage,” Snake said. “So that gave us a home court advantage because our players were used to it, and they knew it was no different than playing in a place where walls were close to the basket. You weren’t going to fall off the stage.”
It was not, however, a pretty place to play. But from 1976 to 1987 – the 11 years of the Snake LeGrand coaching era – it was a fun place to play.
At the time, UTA was in the Southland Conference, not one of the powerhouse conferences in college basketball. Recruiting was a challenge and Snake – who got his nickname because of his snake-like moves on the court when he played in college at St. Mary’s in San Antonio – had to compete with larger schools in Texas for players. That led him to create a radically different approach that featured:
1. Fast break basketball. “He would tell people, ‘Everybody knows what kind of defense we teach,’” said John Mocek, then the public address announcer at home games and now a senior UTA athletics official. “‘That would be the matador defense. If we let them shoot the ball, we get it back quicker and we can score.’”
2. North Texas. “I’d tell them that the weather is always great and we have a great campus,” LeGrand said.
3. Make sure they don’t see The Stage. “We’d take recruits around campus and show them how great it was,” LeGrand said. “And then we’d go to Texas Hall, but we’d make sure someone went there ahead of us and chain-locked the doors. Then we’d go up there and couldn’t get in and we’d say, ‘Man. I can’t believe this. Someone forgot to leave the doors unlocked.’”
“He had a variety of excuses to not let recruits see Texas Hall,” Mocek said. “He’d say it was all set up for graduation, or they have a huge concert, or a huge theater production going on. He’d drive by and tell them he couldn’t take them there right then, but it was a great place to play basketball. He probably went five years without taking a recruit inside Texas Hall.”
Snake was funny and had the gift of gab. The UTA press guide would include many of his one-liners and would call them “Snake Bites.” An example: “I don't jack my team up for anybody. The season is 27 games long and that would mean 27 speeches. I don't have that many.”
He did, however, have “The Look.” At 6-5, he dressed impeccably and let his hair grow long.
“He had kind of a Dr. J look,” Mocek said. “He had a good ‘Fro, wore fancy suits and when the game started, he’d pace up and down the sidelines, stomp his feet, wave his arms and put on a big show. People loved it.”
UTA basketball at the time was a mere blip on the North Texas sports scene, but by the sheer power of his personality, Snake would sometimes get highlights on the local TV channels or a feature story in one of the newspapers. When he was fired in 1987, The Dallas Morning News published a 1,750-word feature about the end of an entertaining era.
How many coaches with a 122-184 career record have major, sympathetic stories written on them when they are let go? That is the stuff of legends.
“He was really entertaining,” Mocek said. “It didn’t matter if you were talking to him in the office on a Monday morning, going out to lunch with him, on a bus to the game, after the game or wherever you were. He was so relaxed he would talk to people sitting behind the bench five minutes before the game started. He was always entertaining.”
In 2012, UTA opened a 7,000-seat basketball arena and one of the fans who attended the first game was Snake LeGrand. With the combination of that facility and the fact that the Final Four will be played less than three miles from the campus, Snake found himself wishing, just for a moment, that he could have another shot at recruiting.
In recent years, LeGrand – who has been to every Final Four since 1975 – has watched as mid-major schools like Butler and Virginia Commonwealth have gone to the Final Four. Why not UTA and Snake LeGrand? “That would be fun,” he said. “I’d tell them that we have one of the greatest stadiums in the world right next to our campus and if they wanted to come to school here, we might even be able to play in it. That would be a great recruiting tool.” Then he paused for a second and laughed again before saying, “Better than The Stage.”
Reprinted with permission from Tip-Off North Texas, The E-Newsletter of the North Texas Final Four Local Organizing Committee and Fay Sawers, LLC.
