TicketsCincinnati's athletic department dates back to the 1880s. The Bearcats had various phases of early success: From Boyd Chambers' and Frank Rice's basketball teams of the '20s to Dana King's football teams of the '30s to John Weithe's postwar hardwood dominance. However, the university transitioned from a regional contender to a national power in the second half of the 1950s under head basketball coach George Smith.
Smith was a capable coach––the Bearcats boasted a 154-56 record in his tenure––but like any turnaround, Cincinnati's was player-driven. It was a time when major programs were expanding from local recruiting to scouring the country for elite high school talent, and if Smith and UC wanted to grow past Weithe's MAC dominance, they'd need to look beyond their backyard.
The trouble was that the coaching staff of the '50s looked vastly different from how they do now. There were no recruiting coordinators or even a team of assistant coaches. Smith's staff consisted of just him and Ed Jucker––an assistant who was also tasked with coaching the freshman team. Smith and Jucker had a program to run, so they did what the Kentuckys and Louisvilles of the world did and relied on a team of boosters with the time and resources to serve as the face of the program outside of the city limits. This group of well-heeled Bearcats supporters became known as the Roundballers––a precursor to what was later replaced by UCATS.
The Roundballers' primary recruiter was Walter Paul. Paul was a 1940 graduate of UC and an executive in the family businesses, Queen City Barrel and Astro Container. Paul had become close to the UC basketball program during Weithe's days, and when Smith took over in 1952, his ties only deepened. He was the youngest of three brothers and a successful businessman, which made him a competitor. If he could help the Bearcats basketball program, he wanted to. Paul was involved in recruiting some of that era's early difference-makers, including Jack Twyman, who played high school ball in Pittsburgh. But it wasn't until March 1956 that Cincinnati athletics would change forever when a conversation took place in Smith's office between UC sports information director Tom Eicher and Enquirer columnist Dick Forbes.
"Walter Paul sat in [Eicher's] office, listening, as the reporter and the sports publicity man talked back and forth about me," Oscar Robertson wrote in his 2003 autobiography.
"My dad didn't know who they were talking about," Walter's son Jeffrey told us in an interview last month. "And they told him this guy's the greatest high school player in the United States. … And my dad said, 'Well, I think I'm going to give it a shot and see if I can get him.'"
To hear Robertson tell it, Paul went to Indianapolis and started roaming the city like a detective, trying to figure out who had Oscar's ear. He talked to black truck drivers who worked for the family business. He spoke to workers at Kingan's––a meatpacking plant where Oscar's father worked. He even got in touch with Oscar's minister. Eventually, Paul figured out that the only people who had any influence on Oscar's life were Ray Crowe (his basketball coach at Crispus Attucks High School) and his mother.
Paul had learned what Oscar's education meant to him and how his desire to be a great player had kept him out of trouble. He outlined a plan to get Oscar to Cincinnati and enrolled in the co-op program, which would not only supplement his education but also get him some money in a way that wouldn't jeopardize his eligibility with the NCAA. Paul shared this plan with Crowe, who told him Oscar wouldn't be making any decisions about his future until after his senior season: "When the tournament is over, and the activities have subsided, Oscar will then be ready to begin to decide on his college career," Crowe wrote in a letter to Paul.
A few weeks later, Paul would write to Oscar directly, congratulating him on his team's Indiana state championship and making his formal introduction: "I'm a very rabid basketball fan of the University of Cincinnati. It is a very fine school, rating high both academically and basketball-wise, and I would like very much to see you at the University of Cincinnati."
By this time, Paul had done the legwork. He and his wife had developed a relationship with Crowe and his wife and, after learning of Oscar's mother's music aspirations, he'd arranged a recording session for her with a neighbor—Syd Nathan of King Records.
Each party wanted Oscar at Cincinnati but reiterated it would be his decision and his alone, so it was finally time for Smith and Paul to make their pitch to The Big O himself. They met at a hotel suite in Indianapolis and laid out the plan, on and off the court, before setting up an official visit back in Cincinnati.
When Oscar arrived in the Queen City for his first visit that spring, he worked out with Twyman ("Afterwards, Twyman told Paul that I was the greatest player he'd ever seen"). The Smiths, Twymans, and Pauls took Oscar to dinner downtown. "It's the first and last time I ever saw Oscar quiet," said Jeffrey, who was 13 at the time. The next day, they went to a Reds game at Crosley Field. "I remember feeling that if Jackie Robinson could play in Cincinnati, with the whole Negro population turning out to greet him," Oscar wrote in 2003, "then maybe I had a shot of playing there without problems."
It was time for a decision, and the ball was in Robertson's court.
"On June 8, 1956, I wore my cap and gown along with 170 other seniors graduating from Crispus Attucks. I was sixteenth in my class, which put me in the ninety-first percentile, and a member of the National Honor Society. The next day, I announced my intention to enter the University of Cincinnati."
The rest is history. Robertson attended UC, where Paul, J.W. Brown, and other members of the Roundballers served as advisors and mentors. On the court, Robertson's teams went 79-9 during his three varsity seasons and made two Final Fours while he racked up a program-record 2,973 points. Off the court, Robertson co-oped in the business program, working at Cincinnati Gas & Electric and Queen City Barrel—where Paul set up a basketball hoop for Robertson to shoot on during lunch breaks––before an NCAA rule change prevented players from enrolling in co-op.
The Roundballers continued to recruit. Jucker took over the varsity program before the 1960-61 season. With the help of Paul recruits Tom Thacker (of Covington), Paul Hogue (of Knoxville), and George Wilson (of Chicago), the program won back-to-back national titles and finished as runner-up in a third.
Robertson and the Paul family remained close. "He was like my older brother," says Jeffrey, "And that was basically the way he was treated by my mother and my father." Today, Jeffrey tells stories of how his mother spent three weeks in the hospital, and the only visitors she accepted were her husband and Oscar. He remembers how his mother accompanied Oscar when he went engagement ring shopping before proposing to his wife, Yvonne. In the acknowledgments of his autobiography, Robertson thanks Paul: "To Walter Paul for his persistence in getting me to the University of Cincinnati. Thank you for being a sensitive, supportive, and wonderful friend."
It's hard to imagine where Cincinnati athletics would be today without that era of UC basketball and Paul's influence on the program. "I think he put them on the map," Jeffrey says of his father. "The players saw the University of Cincinnati just as they would see maybe Ohio State or Michigan in football today."
Cincinnati became one of the preeminent basketball powers of the 1960s, which set the stage for Gale Catlett's success in the '70s, which built the donor base that helped Bob Huggins succeed in the '90s and helped open the door for the move to the Big East in the 2000s. Success breeds success, and Cincinnati's place on the national stage can be traced back to the 1950s when Walter Paul and a group of dedicated fans changed the university forever.