Congratulations Hakeem - Living the Dream

Congratulations to Hakeem Olajuwon for being selected for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Obviously this was a no brainer. He is still the all-time NBA shot blocker. #1 draft pick. 2 NBA championships. The only player in NBA history to win the MVP, Finals MVP, & Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. One of the NBA's top 50 players of all time.

Of course he has incredible college stats too. 3 Final Fours. Member of Phi Slama Jama. Consensus All-American. Southwest Conference Player of the Decade for the '80s.

Now if we can just get Guy V Lewis into the Hall.

Today's collectible is his autobiography, Living the Dream. This is one of the better sports autobiographies I've read. So many of these books are just a recounting of stats and games. Since Hakeem's life story is so different from most players, his biography is different too.

His story covers growing up in Nigeria, his time with the Cougars, and his time with the Rockets. But it doesn't just cover basketball. Not only was Olajuwon a great player, one of the reasons I like him so much is he's a great man. One of my favorite stories about Olajuwon's shoe endorsement. Unlike most athletes, he wanted his shoes to not only be high quality, but also to be affordable. But I think this story also reflects poorly on American society. Because they weren't the most expensive, trendiest shoes on the market, they didn't succeed at a high level in the market.

This book is definitely required reading for all UH and Olajuwon fans.

1992 Classic #67 Sam Mack

The NCAA tournament is almost over. Go Memphis! Win it all for Conference USA.

But this is a Houston blog, so let's look back at the last time UH was in the tournament. Unfortunately that was 1992, but hopefully we'll be back soon. UH had a 25-6 record that season, but lost as the 10 seed to Georgia Tech.

The leading scorer that season was Sam Mack who averaged 17.5 points. Although Mack wasn't drafted, he did bounce around the NBA for seven years, also playing in the CBA and the Spanish League.

Today's card is the 1992 Classic #67. I like this card because it shows Mack in his UH uniform shooting over two SMU players.

1960 Topps #524 Bill Henry

Baseball season has begun, so let's look at a card from a Cougar ballplayer. But this isn't just any Cougar, this is the first Coog to make the major leagues, Bill Henry.

Bill Henry played for UH's first baseball team in 1947, but he only played one season. He played 16 years in the majors as a pitcher, primarily as a reliever. In 1960, he made the National League All Star team. In 1962, he pitched in two World Series games. Click here for career stats.

That's interesting enough, but there are some odd stories related to Bill Henry. First, is the story of how he was scouted for the pros. The story goes that he made all-state in high school as a basketball player, but his school didn't have a baseball team. He was signed after a scout saw him pitch in a fast-pitch softball league. That's a great story, but I'm curious how pitching at UH fits into that timeline.

The wilder story is the premature report of his death. Evidently another person named Bill Henry had been pretending to be the baseball player for decades, fooling even his wife. Upon his death, it was reported that he died to the great surprise of the real Bill Henry and his family. UH's Bill Henry is still alive and well, but here are a couple of stories about his fake death:
Major League Fake
Untimely Death

Today's card is the 1960 Topps #524. This is not his rookie card (1955 Bowman) and it doesn't mention UH like his 1961 Topps card, but I love the look of this card. The front has a head shot with a stadium backgroun and an "action" shot with a yellow background. The back contains season and career stats as well as season highlights.

Shasta Bobblehead

This blog likes to cover all kinds of collectibles. A few years ago, one of the biggest trends in collecting was bobbleheads. Every sports team had at least one bobblehead night where you got a free bobblehead for attending the game.

Bobbleheads weren't just for sports. They ranged from Kip's Big Boys to Barry Manilow to Jesus. The quality of the bobbleheads ran from the cheapest thinnest plastic that broke easily and weighed nothing to high quality, extremely detailed products.

Of course the University of Houston had to jump on the bandwagon. One of the UH bobbleheads is the mascot Shasta. Shasta is in a football uniform (no helmet) carrying a football in one hand and an American flag in the other. It is a fairly high quality with quite a bit of detail. Overall, I think it is a very nice collectible.

It was distributed at a UH football game a few years ago and was sponsored by Coca-Cola.

Special thanks go to a generous Coog for donating the Shasta Bobblehead for the blog. I won't mention his name in case he wants his privacy, but he was generous enough to offer the bobblehead and wouldn't even take money for postage. His philosophy is it's just Coogs helping Coogs... something we can all aspire to.





Shasta visiting my office in Las Colinas, TX. I should take her to visit the Conference USA office which is just down the street. And yes, I used "her" despite the football gear. I'm a traditionalist who still believes "Shasta (she hasta) have a winning ball club. Shasta have the best."

Want to Help?

Cougar Cards is a blog intended to stimulate interest in University of Houston athletics and collectibles. I receive no income from this site and I’m not asking for financial contributions.

There are several ways anyone can contribute though, but first let me explain my long term goals. I plan on continuing with this blog, but I would also like to create a comprehensive collectibles site with dynamic content. For an example, see http://www.dukecard.com/dukecard.html. I’m a little ambitious, so I’d actually like to have pictures of every card available or as many as possible.

So how can you contribute?
1) Blog entries – Write about any Cougar collectible you’d like. You can be a one-time poster, an infrequent poster, or post on regular intervals.

2) Technical/Programming Assistance – I am not a programmer. I can do some pretty basic programming, but I’ve never written a web application so any assistance would be appreciated. If you can provide advice, answer questions, or even do some programming, I will be happy to have any assistance.

3) Gather pictures – There are over 10,000 cards with Cougars that I am currently aware of. Ideally I’d like pictures of both the front and back of each of these cards. I’ve really just started so I only have about 100 pictures at this time. I’ll probably never get pictures of them all, especially by myself, but the more the better. If you have any of these collectibles, you can provide images from your personal set. If you don’t have any, you can do what I do and find images on eBay or other sites.

4) Comment – I don’t have a lot of traffic to this site, but I have had over 800 visitors since the site began or about 6 per day. Out of those 800+ visitors, I think I’ve receive 6 total comments. Any feedback you receive would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think of a featured collectible, a card you’d like to see listed, my writing style, or just general comments. If you don’t know how to comment, click on the Post a Comment link if you’re on an individual post, or click on the number of comments if you’re on the home page.

If you’re interested in helping, please e-mail at cougarcards@yahoo.com.

1994 Signature Rookies Tetrad Signatures #53 Anthony Goldwire

Some players like Elvin Hayes are superstars in college, high draft picks, and instant impact players in the NBA. Other players have more challenging professional careers. One such player is Anthony Goldwire.

Goldwire was a junior college transfer to the University of Houston where he played 2 seasons, '92-'93 and '93-'94. The '92-'93 team made the NIT tournament with a 21-9 record in Pat Foster's last season as coach. The '93-'94 team had a very poor 8-19 record under first year coach Alvin Brooks. Despite that Goldwire made 2nd team All-Southwest Conference both years, was SWC newcomer of the year in '93, and is 10th in all-time assists for UH. He was drafted in the second round by the Phoenix Suns.

Over the years, Goldwire played in the CBA, ABA, 2 European League teams, and nine different NBA teams. While never a superstar, he had a long professional career that he and the university can be proud of.

Today's collectible is the 1994 Signature Rookies Tetrad Signatures #53. The front of the card shows Anthony taking a shot against Baylor in a UH uniform. It is hand signed and numbered on the card. The back of the card provides some information on Goldwire's UH career.

1981 Topps #17 Otis Birdsong

Congratulations to Robert "Fluff" McKiver for his 52 point night against USM on Wednesday. Anytime a player reaches a benchmark like that, it's time to review other great scorers in UH's past.

Fluff was only the 4th player in Cougar history to score at least 50 points in one game. The first to do it was Don Boldebuck on 2/7/55 when he scored 50 points against Sam Houston State. Next was Lyle Harger on 2/16/63 when he scored 50 against Trinity.

Elvin Hayes is the other player to score at least 50. He did it 4 times with his biggest game of 62 points on 2/24/68 against Valparaiso.

I was surprised to hear that Otis Birdsong never scored 50 in a game. Otis has the second highest season average in UH history at 30.3 points per game in '76-'77. It's amazing that he could average that high and not score 50 points. That shows his ability to consistently score every game. Hayes is 1st, 3rd, & 4th on that list.

Today's collectible is the 1981 Topps #17 of Otis Birdsong.