This Day in Illini History: 1968
On October 18, 1968, the Phoenix Suns gave 7,112 people at Veterans Memorial Coliseum a pretty good first night. They beat the Seattle SuperSonics 116–107 in the first regular-season game in Suns franchise history.
The University of Illinois connection was right at the top: Jerry Colangelo was the Suns’ first general manager, and Johnny “Red” Kerr was their first head coach.
Both had been captains at Illinois, eight years apart. Both also knew what it looked like to start an NBA operation from scratch. They had just done it in Chicago.
Two captains from Champaign
Red’s Illinois career came first. He helped the 1952 Illini reach the Final Four, then captained the team as a senior in 1953–54. He averaged 25.3 points that season and left as the program’s leading scorer with 1,299 career points.
His professional playing career gave him plenty more basketball to draw from. Kerr played twelve NBA seasons and made three All-Star teams before moving into coaching.
Colangelo lettered for Illinois from 1960 through 1962, earned All-Big Ten recognition twice, and captained the team as a senior. His route into professional basketball went through the work of putting an NBA operation together.
Their paths would meet with another new franchise, a little closer to Champaign.
Chicago was the rehearsal
The Bulls began play in 1966 and Colangelo worked in scouting and the business side of that new organization. Kerr was the coach, and he took Chicago to the playoffs in its first season. He won the NBA’s Coach of the Year award in 1967.
For a new franchise in Phoenix, that was a useful combination. Colangelo’s background included finding players and helping sell a new team and Red had the playing resume and recent experience coaching a roster assembled for an expansion season.
Building a team in Phoenix
When Colangelo took over in Phoenix on March 1, 1968, he was just 28 years old! The franchise didn’t even have its Suns name yet. That arrived in April.
Six years after captaining Illinois, he was helping build a franchise whose first regular-season game was still months away. With Kerr on the bench, Phoenix would have two former Illini helping it get started.
Of course, their experience didn’t guarantee that the Bulls’ first-year result could be repeated. There was a new roster to put together and a season to play.
A first night worth remembering
Gail Goodrich led the new Suns with 27 points, 9 rebounds, and 10 assists against the SuperSonics. Dick Van Arsdale added 21 points and scored the first basket in Suns history. Those two names would give the new franchise something to build around.
Looking at the rest of the box score, Dick Snyder scored 20 points and McCoy McLemore had 17. George Wilson finished with 16 points and 19 rebounds in 42 minutes.
Goodrich played 41 minutes, and Van Arsdale played 45. That’s a lot of opening-night responsibility. Goodrich was also one rebound short of a triple-double. The new team’s guards were getting plenty of work right away, and looking good.
One win and a long season
Unfortunately for the Suns, there were many losses ahead. Phoenix finished 1968–69 at 16–66. Opening night accounted for one-sixteenth of the season’s wins.
There were players worth following through it, though: Goodrich averaged 23.8 points, Van Arsdale averaged 21.0, and both represented Phoenix in the 1969 All-Star Game. The expansion draft had supplied a backcourt that gave the new audience reasons to keep coming back to home games.
But on October 18, all of that was still ahead. A brand-new team had a home crowd and its first win. Two former Illinois captains were helping it get off the ground, one in the front office and one on the bench.
The beginning of Suns history has a little Illini history in it, too.