title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He then signed with the WWF and was pushed as a villainous character. Between 1980 and 1981, Slaughter wrestled in the WWF under the guidance of the Grand Wizard. He very quickly rose to the status of number one contender on the strength of his "cobra clutch" challenges where he would seat wrestlers in a chair in the ring, and apply the hold, offering $5,000 to anyone who could break it. He would eventually face Bob Backlund for the World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Championship across the WWF territory in 1980, earning two-or-three main event matches in most markets. Slaughter was the only WWF-based challenger not to do the honors for Backlund at MSG (Backlund defeated him at the Meadowlands, but never in the Garden). Slaughter then engaged in a feud with Pat Patterson, which stemmed from Slaughter calling Patterson "yellow" and offering him $10,000 (double the usual amount) to try to break the cobra clutch. Patterson accepted on television and was escaping from the hold when Slaughter released it and put a beat-down on Patterson, starting a hot feud which culminated in an "Alley Fight" in New York, New York's Madison Square Garden between the two that is widely regarded as the best "hardcore" match of the Kayfabe era.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In September 1981, Slaughter joined the National Wrestling Alliance, mainly wrestling for its flagship territory Jim Crockett Promotions. In October 1981, he took part in a tournament to determine a new NWA United States Heavyweight Champion; he defeated Johnny Weaver, Jay Youngblood, and Rick Steamboat in the tournament to win the vacant title. He would hold onto the title for over seven months, before losing the title to Wahoo McDaniel in May 1982.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In September 1982, Slaughter and partner Don Kernodle were awarded the NWA World Tag Team Championship, claiming a title victory over Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba in Tokyo. They would be in a heated rivalry with the team of Rick Steamboat and Jay Youngblood, which culminated on March 12, 1983, losing the titles to Steamboat and Youngblood in a steel cage match in Greensboro, North Carolina. After the rivalry ended, Slaughter left JCP.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: During this period, Slaughter also toured Germany and Austria for the Catch Wrestling Association, twice (in 1982 and 1983) unsuccessfully challenging CWA World Heavyweight Champion Otto Wanz.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter returned to the WWF in March 1983, and again took on the Grand Wizard as his manager. He immediately targeted Backlund, who was still the reigning WWF World Heavyweight Champion. Slaughter turned up the feud another notch when he attacked Backlund at a television taping; Backlund was in the process of completing the Harvard step test before Slaughter beat him repeatedly with his riding crop, leaving bruises on his back. Although he won several matches by disqualification, Slaughter was never able to win the title from Backlund.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In early 1984, Slaughter's career took off after he turned face and defended America's honor against the hated Iron Sheik. Slaughter and the Iron Sheik engaged in many matches throughout the year, culminating in a boot camp match that took place before a sold-out Madison Square Garden that summer. However, with the emergence of Hulk Hogan as the WWF World Heavyweight Champion and lead face within the company, Slaughter left for the AWA. On Vince McMahon's "McMahon" DVD, Slaughter said he was fired by McMahon in Toronto after no-showing an event in protest of McMahon's refusal to give him six weeks of paid vacation. Other interviews with Slaughter and McMahon have revealed that Slaughter left the company more over a dispute that emerged due to the WWF not allowing Slaughter's role in the G.I. Joe toy line. At the time of his departure Slaughter was easily the second biggest "face" in the company, surpassing Jimmy Snuka, and even André the Giant, with his popularity rivaling that of Hulk Hogan's. Sports editor and columnist Lew Freedman wrote of Slaughter's popularity in the wake of his face turn in August 1985: "Talk about your overnight sensations. Slaughter had been wrestling for 10 years and suddenly he was hotter than Dwight Gooden".


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He received a considerable push in the American Wrestling Association (AWA) throughout 1985 and 1986, becoming the AWA America's Heavyweight Champion, defeating Larry Zbyszko shortly after his arrival. He defended the title against wrestlers like Zbyszko, Kamala, Boris Zukhov, and Nick Bockwinkel (before the belt was retired) and feuded with Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissey and his stable of wrestlers, The Road Warriors, and Colonel DeBeers. He even challenged Stan Hansen for the AWA title. He was also involved in the short-lived Pro Wrestling USA Promotion. This was a brief attempt at pulling together the remaining wrestling talent to go up against the rising WWF. Slaughter in this company won a large 25-man battle royal by eliminating Kamala, winning the right to challenge Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In 1988, Slaughter returned to wrestling in the AWA, resuming some of his past feuds with the likes of Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissey, the Iron Sheik, and Col. DeBeers. He also became a top contender to the AWA World title during Larry Zbyszko's reign in 1989 and was a team captain for the AWA's ill-fated Team Challenge Series during the first half of 1990. The AWA even teased fans with Slaughter appearing to win the World title from Zbyszko live on ESPN, only to have the decision reversed on a technicality (a booking practice the AWA had been employing for years).


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: After WrestleMania VI, Slaughter sent a letter to Vince McMahon saying he loved the program and was interested in returning. McMahon told Slaughter he wanted a heel, and his new gimmick would be that Slaughter turned on the United States due to its acceptance of the Russian Nikolai Volkoff. According to Slaughter, he found it difficult to do the anti-American promos associated with this gimmick.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: The August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Ba'athist Iraq triggered a political crisis that would lead to the 1991 Gulf War, in which Kuwait was freed by a U.S.-led military coalition. A decision was made to have Slaughter support the Iraqi cause, not for the actual political reasons, but more for the fact that Slaughter liked "brutality" and the Iraqi government was "brutal" while the US regime was said by Slaughter to have become "soft" and "weak". Slaughter aligned himself with an Iraqi enthusiast and kayfabe Iraqi military general, General Adnan (his old rival who left the AWA shortly after Slaughter did), and entered a feud with Volkoff (which saw Slaughter win the majority of their encounters at house shows), leading to a match at that year's Survivor Series which saw The Alliance (Volkoff, Tito Santana, and The Bushwhackers) defeat The Mercenaries (Slaughter, Boris Zhukov, and The Orient Express). As part of his character change, Slaughter began wearing Arab headdresses to the ring, adopted the Camel Clutch as one of his finishers, and was (kayfabe) photographed meeting with Saddam Hussein. Slaughter also infamously adopted a move where he would grind the tip of one of his knuckles into his opponent's temple. It was reported that while Slaughter was portraying a turncoat, he had received numerous death threats and could not go anywhere in public without wearing a bullet-proof vest and had to be surrounded with security personnel at all times. According to Slaughter, Vince asked him to burn the American flag, but Slaughter refused to do that, so Slaughter suggested he burn Hulk Hogan's shirt.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: As 1990 ended, Slaughter began challenging for the WWF Championship that had been held by The Ultimate Warrior since WrestleMania VI. Slaughter got his chance at the Royal Rumble in January 1991, days after the Gulf War air campaign had begun. He defeated the Warrior when "Macho King" Randy Savage, who had also been feuding with the Warrior at the time, struck the champion in the head with his royal scepter. Slaughter thus became the thirteenth WWF Champion and was immediately challenged by Royal Rumble winner Hulk Hogan, who was furious that Slaughter had (kayfabe) desecrated the American flag (off-screen) as part of his victory celebration. Hogan demanded a match against Slaughter at WrestleMania VII in Los Angeles, California, and Slaughter accepted. Slaughter lost the WWF Championship to Hogan at WrestleMania. After WrestleMania, Slaughter introduced his newest ally, Colonel Mustafa (The Iron Sheik, Slaughter's old nemesis). Slaughter and company went on to feud with Hogan for months, including having a three-on-two handicap match at SummerSlam, which saw the team of Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior prevail over Slaughter, Adnan, and Mustafa.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: After finishing the Hogan feud, Slaughter became a face again, appearing in vignettes next to American landmarks, saying, "I want my country back". During an episode of "Superstars", Jim Duggan was under attack from The Nasty Boys, and Slaughter made the save. Duggan and Slaughter teamed up to defeat the Nasty Boys and continued to team over the next several months. Slaughter would also feud with General Adnan and Col. Mustafa, winning every match in his feud with the heel duo. Slaughter was taken off TV in June 1992 and worked in house shows against The Mountie until August of that year. Slaughter's last regular WWF match, which was against Nailz, was in October 1992 and ended in no contest when Nailz viciously attacked Slaughter before the match could begin.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter started appearing as an on-air official from October 1992 to June 1994. He made his first wrestling appearance in over a year when he appeared on a house show version of a Royal Rumble that was held on January 17, 1994, at Madison Square Garden. After helping to eliminate Adam Bomb he, in turn, was tossed out by Crush. Later that year he would wrestle on four house shows in July in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, facing and defeating Quebecer Pierre. He left the company in September.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: After a hiatus, he returned to WWF television on the August 4, 1997, episode of "Raw Is War" to assume the role of on-air commissioner by (kayfabe) President Gorilla Monsoon who in reality retired from being on camera due to health issues. Initially popular, he eventually became the target of D-Generation X, who called him "Sgt. Slobber". On an episode of "Raw Is War", he put Shawn Michaels and Triple H in a match for Michaels' European Championship. Michaels dropped the belt to Helmsley by lying down in the ring. Slaughter challenged Triple H to a Boot Camp match at the , which he lost. His feud with Triple H continued into WrestleMania XIV where he handcuffed himself to Chyna to prevent her from interfering with Helmsley's match against Owen Hart. But Slaughter's efforts ultimately proved futile, as Chyna threw powder into his eyes, interfered with the match anyway, and hurled Slaughter into the front row.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In 1998, Slaughter turned heel, joined Vince McMahon along with Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson, and became the on-screen lackeys of McMahon; running errands for him and dishing out punishment to McMahon's rivals, namely Steve Austin. In late 1998, Slaughter relinquished the role of commissioner to Shawn Michaels and largely disappeared from television.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter still appeared from time to time in the ring, mostly at house shows. He appeared on "Raw" to put over younger wrestlers, such as Kurt Angle and Funaki. Slaughter also made an appearance at WrestleMania X-Seven, in the gimmick Battle Royal, which was won by The Iron Sheik. Slaughter got his revenge after the match by locking the Sheik in the cobra clutch. He also appeared on both "Raw" and "SmackDown" on occasion during the Invasion storyline in non-wrestling roles, usually in conjunction with Vince McMahon.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He made a special appearance on June 13, 2005, episode of "Raw" to challenge Chris Masters in his "Master Lock Challenge", which Slaughter lost. Then, he returned again on December 5 episode of "Raw", where he and Michael Hayes confronted Edge. He also appeared on the July 4, 2006 episode of "Raw" for a "Diva Boot Camp" segment, as a part of the 2006 Diva Search Competition.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He re-appeared on October 2 episode of "Raw", defeating Nicky from the Spirit Squad with a roll-up when D-Generation X distracted him from up on the TitanTron. Slaughter appeared on the October 23 "Raw" in the corner of Ric Flair as he faced Kenny of the Spirit Squad. After Kenny cheated to gain the victory, Slaughter, Dusty Rhodes, and Roddy Piper cleared the tag champions from the ring. Slaughter was one of three options between himself, Roddy Piper, and Dusty Rhodes that fans could vote for as a tag partner for Ric Flair at "Cyber Sunday", but did not win the vote. At "Survivor Series", Slaughter teamed with Flair, Ron Simmons, and Dusty Rhodes to take on four members of the Spirit Squad in a Survivor Series match. Slaughter was eliminated in the match, but his team won, with Flair as the sole survivor.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: On December 18, 2006, Slaughter participated in a 30-man battle royal for a chance to face John Cena in the main event for the WWE Championship, but he was eliminated from the match and did not get the title shot. At the pay-per-view in June 2007, he faced Deuce 'n Domino for the WWE Tag Team Championship, alongside Jimmy Snuka. They were unsuccessful in their attempt for the titles. He challenged Randy Orton on July 30 episode of "Raw", only to become another victim of the "Legend Killer" and was wheeled out on a stretcher. On "Raw XV", the 15th-anniversary "Raw" special on December 10, 2007, Slaughter participated in the 15th Anniversary Battle Royal. On March 31, 2008, on an episode of "Raw", Slaughter paid tribute to longtime friend Ric Flair at the end of the show. He appeared on "Raw"'s 800th episode in Kung Fu Naki's dance-off and also made an appearance in the Slammy Awards.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter, who had been working as a producer for WWE for the past several years, was released from his backstage producer duties with the company on January 13, 2009.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: His first appearance on the independent circuit following his 1997 signing with WWF, was for the World Wrestling Alliance (WWA) in a tag team match with George "The Animal" Steele. After that, he would only wrestle for WWF/WWE until making two appearances for the WWA in 2003. He started slowing down starting in 2006, wrestling only a few matches a year. On March 28, 2009, he defeated his former rival Kamala at IWC Night of Legends in Franklin, Pennsylvania. To finish off his career he had one match in 2013 and two matches in 2014, all tag team encounters. His last two matches were for Northeast Wrestling (NEW), who he had competed for in the past. His last match was with Jeff Starr as they defeated Dalton Castle and Jake Manning on March 29, 2014.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He was the special guest host on "Raw" on August 10, 2009, where he made fun of Canadians and saying how the USA is the greatest country in the world. He made an appearance on the "Decade of SmackDown" on October 2, 2009, where he had an altercation with the Iron Sheik about which country was the greatest, USA or Iran. Slaughter would appear on November 15, 2010's Old School RAW losing to Alberto Del Rio in one minute and 53 seconds. Then on June 27, 2011's Raw edition he lost to Jack Swagger in 68 seconds. On July 3, 2012, Slaughter appeared on Smackdown teaming with Jim Duggan and Santino Marella defeating Drew McIntyre, Huncio and Camacho for the Great American Bash. He later appeared on December 31, 2012, edition of "Raw", where he was challenged by then-United States Champion Antonio Cesaro in a match for the WWE United States Championship. He lost the match and failed to capture the title. This would be his final match for WWE. He then made an appearance on Old School RAW, serving as the special guest referee for The Great Khali vs Damien Sandow match after he got the most votes.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter made an appearance on November 24, 2014, edition of "Raw", where he confronted United States Champion Rusev and his valet, Lana, and attempted to force Lana and Rusev to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (with the alternative, per an edict from Daniel Bryan, who was running the show that night, being that he would be forced to defend his title against the entire "Raw" roster). Rusev refused and had a staredown with Slaughter, who wouldn't back down; however, Jack Swagger and his manager, Zeb Colter, ran down to the ring and fended Rusev off. Swagger, Colter, and Slaughter then finished reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter returned at the "Tribute to the Troops" show on December 17, 2014 and helped Dean Ambrose beat Bray Wyatt by giving Dean his steel-toe boot to use on Wyatt.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter made a one-night appearance to WWE for the special "Raw Reunion" on July 22, 2019, and on January 4, 2021, on the "Legends Night" special episode of "Raw".


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Fictionalized versions of Sgt. Slaughter were part of the "" toyline, animated series and comic books, as a member of the "G.I. Joe" team and first appeared in the five-part TV episode entitled "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" Along with the traditional merchandising of WWE superstars, Sgt. Slaughter is one of only a few real people to be produced as a "G.I. Joe" figure, (NFL football player William "The Refrigerator" Perry, pro-wrestler Roddy Piper, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin are some of the others), and even appeared in "".


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: Slaughter also appeared twice as a special guest on "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!", which starred fellow wrestler Captain Lou Albano. He appeared in the episodes "All Steamed Up" (in "Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid") and "Caught in a Draft" (in "Bad Rap").


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: During the mid-1980s, Sgt. Slaughter released a full-length LP, "Sgt. Slaughter and Camouflage Rocks America". It featured a number of original songs, including "The Cobra Clutch," as well as a cover of Neil Diamond's "America".


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: A brief cross promotional stint in the late 1980s had Sgt. Slaughter and his "battling battalion" pitted against the Bigfoot Monster Truck in a tug-of-war challenge. It is featured on Blood, Sweat, & Gears USHRA home video. This stunt was recently attempted again with Sgt. Slaughter using fans from the crowd at a Monster Truck show to tug-o-war with Bigfoot.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In the animated series "Code Monkeys", Slaughter appeared as Sgt. Murder. He and Bulk Brogan (Hulk Hogan), "Manly Man" Ricky Ravage (Randy "Macho Man" Savage), and Sergei the Giant (André the Giant) were hired by a video game company to take on their rivals. His brother, Tommy Murder, was killed by "The Black Shadow", who was actually Black Steve, the company's accountant.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He appeared on episode #3.6 of Comedy Central's "Tosh.0", when he clotheslined Daniel Tosh and put David Wills (a.k.a. YouTube's "Crying Wrestling Fan") in a Cobra Clutch during Wills' "Web Redemption" segment.


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: In 2014, Sgt. Slaughter made a cameo appearance in the RadioShack Super Bowl XLVIII commercial "The '80s Called".


title: Sgt. Slaughter

text: He later voiced Dr. Military in the 2013 animated series "Teen Titans Go!" in a two-part episode called "Teen Titans Vroom!"


title: Bruce Lee filmography

text: Several of Lee's films premiered after his death, including "Enter the Dragon", "Game of Death" and "Circle of Iron".


title: Bruce Lee filmography

text: Note: all the documentaries listed here were produced after Lee's death; therefore, all the Lee footage is composed of archive footage and some never-before-seen footage.


title: Bruce Lee filmography

text: Note: In "Super Mario RPG", when Mario is about to fight a boss, his comrade Mallow stops him and says "Who do you think you are? Bruce Lee? You can't go in there with your fists flying!"


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball program is the intercollegiate men's basketball program of the University of Kansas. The program is classified in the NCAA's Division I and the team competes in the Big 12 Conference. Kansas is considered one of the most prestigious college basketball programs in the country with six overall national championships (4 NCAA Tournament championships and 2 Helms national championships), as well being runner-up six times and having the most conference titles in the nation. Kansas is the all-time consecutive conference titles record holder with 14 consecutive titles, a streak that ran from 2005 through 2018. The Jayhawks also own the NCAA record for most consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances with an active streak of 32 consecutive appearances. They were also, along with Dartmouth, the first team to appear in multiple NCAA Tournaments after making their second appearance in the 1942 tournament. The Jayhawks had been ranked in the AP poll for 231 consecutive polls, a streak that had stretched from the poll released on February 2, 2009 poll through the poll released on February 8, 2021, which is the longest streak in AP poll history. Of the 24 seasons the Big 12 conference has been in existence, Kansas has won at least a share of 19 regular-season conference titles.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks' first coach was the inventor of basketball, James Naismith. Naismith, ironically, is the only coach in Kansas basketball history with a losing record. The Kansas basketball program has produced many notable professional players, including Clyde Lovellette, Wilt Chamberlain, Jo Jo White, Danny Manning, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Nick Collison, Kirk Hinrich, Mario Chalmers, Andrew Wiggins, and Joel Embiid. Politician Bob Dole also played basketball at Kansas. Former players that have gone on to be coaches include Phog Allen, Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Dutch Lonborg, and former assistants to go on to be notable coaches include John Calipari, Gregg Popovich, and Bill Self. Mark Turgeon, Jerod Haase, Danny Manning, and Tad Boyle are all former players and assistant coaches that became head coaches. Allen founded the National Association of Basketball Coaches and, with Lonborg, was an early proponent of the NCAA tournament. Four different Jayhawk head coaches are in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as coaches, Phog Allen, Larry Brown, Roy Williams, and current head coach Bill Self. Three different Division I basketball arenas have been named after former Kansas players, the Dean Smith Center named after Dean Smith at North Carolina, Rupp Arena named after Adolph Rupp at Kentucky, and the Jayhawks’ own arena Allen Fieldhouse named after Phog Allen.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In 2008, ESPN ranked Kansas second on a list of the most prestigious programs of the modern college basketball era. Kansas currently has the longest streak of consecutive NCAA tournament appearances of all-time (32), the longest current streak of consecutive NCAA winning seasons (39), the most winning seasons in Division I history (104), the most non-losing seasons (.500 or better) in NCAA history (106), the most conference championships in Division I history (63), the most consecutive regular-season conference titles in Division I (14), the most First-Team All-Americans in Division I history (24), and the most First-Team All-American selections in Division I history (31). As of the last complete season, the program ranks third in Division I all-time winning percentage (.723) and first in Division I all-time wins (2,357).


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Since the opening of Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks’ home arena, in 1955, the Jayhawks have earned a well established home court advantage. Allen Fieldhouse is often considered one of the best home court advantages in college basketball. As of 2022, the Jayhawks have won over 87 percent of their games in the 67-year history of Allen Fieldhouse, losing just 110 games. Under current head coach Bill Self, the Jayhawks have had three home court winning streaks over 30 games and two over 50 games. In addition to Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks frequently play games at the nearby T-Mobile Center (formerly Sprint Center) in Kansas City, Missouri. These games, while technically a neutral site, are officially considered home games when not part of a tournament, the only exception being their games at the arena during their six-game series with rival Missouri.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas ranks first all-time in NCAA Division I wins with 2,357 wins (as of the last complete season), against 877 losses (.729 all time winning %, third all-time). This record includes a 765–110 (.874) mark at historic Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks are first in NCAA history with 98 winning seasons, and tied for first in NCAA history with 101 non-losing (.500 or better) seasons with Kentucky. Kansas is tied for the fewest head coaches (8) of any program that has played since the 19th century, yet has reached the Final Four under more head coaches (6) than any other program in the nation. Every head coach at Kansas since the inception of the NCAA Tournament has led the program to the Final Four. Kansas has had four head coaches inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, more than any other program in the nation. A perennial conference powerhouse, Kansas leads Division I all-time in regular season conference titles with 62 in 113 years of conference play (the MVIAA Conference was created in 1907) through the 2019–20 regular season. The Jayhawks have won a record 20 conference titles and a record 11 conference tournament titles in the 24 years of the Big 12's existence. The program also owns the best Big 12 records in both those areas with a 412–102 record in conference play and a 46–12 record in tournament play. The Jayhawks won their 2,000th game in school history when they defeated Texas Tech in the 2009–2010 season, joining the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina as the only schools to boast such an achievement at that time.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The men's basketball program officially began in 1898, following the arrival of Dr. James Naismith to the school, just six years after Naismith had written the sport's first official rules. Naismith was initially hired to be a chapel director and physical education instructor, but became the head basketball coach.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks played their first game on February 3, 1899 against the Kansas City YMCA, a game they lost 5–16. They would win their first game a week later on February 10 in a 31–6 victory over the Topeka YMCA. Their first intercollegiate game was played on March 23 against Haskell, a school about two miles southeast of the southeastern edge of the University of Kansas. They would finish their first season 7–4.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: During the programs early years, the majority of the university's basketball games were played against nearby YMCA teams, with YMCAs across the nation having played an integral part in the birth of basketball. Other common opponents were Haskell and William Jewell. Under Naismith, the team began their rivalries with Kansas State, later deemed the Sunflower Showdown and Missouri, later deemed the Border War (officially changed to Border Showdown in 2004). Naismith was, ironically, the only coach in the program's history to have a losing record (55–60).


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Including his years as coach, Naismith served as the Athletic Director and a faculty member at Kansas for a total of almost 40 years before retiring in 1937. Naismith died in 1939, and his remains are buried in Lawrence, Kansas. The basketball court in Allen Fieldhouse is named James Naismith Court. Beyond inventing the game, his next greatest basketball legacy may be his coaching tree, whose two trunks are the well-known Phog Allen and Kansas native John McLendon. (McLendon attended KU in the 1930s when Allen was head coach. Although McLendon tried out for the team, he never played for Allen. Naismith mentored McLendon from his arrival at Kansas through degree completion and beyond.)


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: On December 10, 2010, the David Booth family purchased Dr. James Naismith's 13 Original Rules of the game at a Sotheby's auction in New York City for the sum of $4.3 million. They brought the founding document of basketball back to KU's Lawrence campus, where it is currently housed at the DeBruce Center.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In 1907, Kansas hired one of Naismith's players, Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen as head coach. Naismith provided Allen with a now infamous piece of wisdom: "You can't coach basketball; you just play it." Allen would set out to prove the adage wrong and through success and an unrivaled coaching tree has become known as the "Father of Basketball Coaching", having passed on his knowledge of the game to some of the most well-respected names in the history of college basketball, including National Basketball Hall of Fame coaches Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Dutch Lonborg and Ralph Miller (all except Lonborg were born and raised in Kansas). Allen coached the team from 1907 to 1909, but William O. Hamilton coached from 1909 to 1919, with Allen taking over again in 1919. The team went 125–59 and won five conference championships under Hamilton's direction.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Allen coached KU for 39 seasons and amassed a record of 590–219, with two retroactively-awarded Helms Foundation national titles and one NCAA Tournament championship in 1952. Numerous basketball greats would play at Kansas during Allen's era, including Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp, Dutch Lonborg, and Ralph Miller (all future Hall of Fame coaches), Paul Endacott, Bill Johnson, and Clyde Lovellette (Hall of Fame players), two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Bill Hougland, and even former United States Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In 1952, the Jayhawks won the national title with an 80–63 victory in the final game over St. John's, coached by Frank McGuire. Clyde Lovellette of Kansas was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, and is still the only player to lead the nation in scoring and lead his team to a national title in the same year. This tournament was the first to have a true "Final Four" format. Seven members of the championship team represented the United States in the 1952 Summer Olympics and brought home a gold medal for the national basketball team. This was especially poignant for Allen, as he had been the driving force for having basketball added to the Olympics in 1936.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Allen was forced to retire when he turned 70 in 1956, because he was getting too "old". Allen had recruited legendary Wilt Chamberlain to Kansas, but would not get to coach him because freshmen were not eligible to play varsity basketball in 1956.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Following Allen's retirement, the Jayhawks hired former KU player and assistant, Dick Harp. Under Harp the Jayhawks went 121–82 with two conference titles and two NCAA tournament berths.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Wilt Chamberlain played his varsity years under Harp, making his job a rather easy one for the first two seasons. In his first varsity game, Chamberlain scored 52 points and grabbed 31 rebounds, breaking both all-time college records in an 87–69 win against Northwestern. In 1957, he led the Jayhawks to the championship game against North Carolina, coached by Frank McGuire, whom they had defeated in the 1952 title game when McGuire was at St. John's. McGuire triple-teamed Chamberlain and, as a result, KU was defeated 54–53 in triple overtime. The game is considered one of the greatest in NCAA history. Chamberlain continued to average 30+ points per game until leaving KU early to play professionally with the Harlem Globetrotters.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Ted Owens took over for Harp in 1964, and would go 348–128 during his tenure, eventually winning six Big Eight Conference titles.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The team advanced to NCAA postseason play seven times under Owens. The 1971 team went 27–3 and advanced to the Final Four before losing to UCLA. In 1974 the team went 23–7 and again advanced to the Final Four before losing to Marquette.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: During this era the program produced All-Americans such as Jo Jo White, Walt Wesley, Bud Stallworth, Darnell Valentine, and Dave Robisch.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: After 19 years of coaching at University of Kansas, Owens was fired following the 1982–83 season after the Jayhawks posted back-to-back losing seasons.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In 1983, Larry Brown headed to the University of Kansas, after coaching in the NBA. Under Brown, Kansas finished first in the Big Eight in 1986, and second in 1984, 1985, and 1987. In 1988, Kansas got off to a 12–8 start, including 1–4 in the Big 8. The Jayhawks' 55-game homecourt winning streak in Allen Fieldhouse was snapped with a loss to rival Kansas State, and they would also lose two more home games to Duke and Oklahoma. Behind the high-scoring of Danny Manning, KU finished 21–11 at the end of the season and entered the NCAA tournament as a #6 seed. Two early upsets allowed them to face lower seeds, gain momentum, and advance. The Jayhawks would ultimately go on to face the three teams who had given them their three home losses that season. They defeated rival Kansas State in the Elite 8, then defeated Duke in the Final 4, and won the national championship, defeating favored conference rival Oklahoma 83–79 in the final. The 11 losses Kansas accrued in 1988 are more than any other national champion have before or since. The win garnered the team the nickname "Danny and the Miracles". Earlier, near the start of the tournament, Dick Vitale had been asked about Kansas' chances and commented "If Kansas wins, I'll kiss the Jayhawk on the floor of Allen Fieldhouse." Eventually, he did make good on his promise.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: During Brown's tenure, Kansas had five NCAA Tournament appearances, which included two second round appearances, one Sweet 16 appearance, two trips to the Final Four and the national championship. He also compiled a 135–44 (.754) overall record. Brown left under a cloud, as NCAA sanctions and a postseason probation were levied against Kansas following Brown's departure in the 1988–1989 season as a result of recruiting violations that took place during Brown's tenure. The major violation was a plane ticket home for potential transfer Vincent Askew to see his sick grandmother. Prior to the investigation, Askew had already decided not to transfer to Kansas.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Shortly following Brown's departure, Kansas hired then North Carolina assistant Roy Williams as head coach.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: From 1988 to 2003, under the direction of Williams, the Jayhawks had a record of 418–101, a .805 winning percentage. Williams' Kansas teams averaged 27.8 wins per season. Except for his first season at Kansas (when the team was on probation), all of Williams' teams made the NCAA tournament. On Roy's first KU team Patrick Richey, Adonis Jordan and Richard Scott could not visit campus because of recruiting violations by Larry Brown, so they committed sight unseen. From 1990 to 1999 Kansas compiled a 286–60 record, giving them both the most wins and best winning percentage of any team in that decade. From 1994 to 1998, the Jayhawks won 62 consecutive home games at Allen Fieldhouse, which was the longest such streak in the NCAA at the time. The seniors of 1998 (Raef LaFrentz, Billy Thomas, and C.B. McGrath) went 58–0 at home during their KU careers.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas won nine regular-season conference championships over Williams' last 13 years. In seven years of Big 12 Conference play, his teams went 94–18, capturing the regular-season title in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2003 and the postseason tournament crown in 1997, 1998 and 1999. In 2001–02, KU became the first, and so far only, team to go undefeated (16–0) in Big 12 play. From 1995 to 1998, Kansas was a combined 123–17 – an average of 30.8 wins per season.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Williams' teams went 201–17 (.922) in Allen Fieldhouse, and won 62 consecutive games in Allen from February 1994 to December 1998. Kansas was a regular in the Associated Press Top 25 from 1991 to 1999, placing in the poll for 145 consecutive weeks. Williams' teams were ranked in the Top 10 in 194 AP polls from 1990.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas led the nation in field goal percentage and scoring in 2002 and in scoring margin in 2003, held opponents to the lowest field goal percentage in the country in 2001 (37.8 percent), and led the nation in winning percentage in 1997 and 2002. The team shot better than 50 percent from the floor for seven different seasons under Williams, and led the country in field goal percentage in 1990 (53.3) and 2002 (50.6). Williams' teams shot a combined 49.4 percent from the floor during his tenure. Williams-coached teams led the nation in assists in 2001 and 2002 and were seventh in the nation in 2003; scored 100 or more points 71 times (once every 13 games); averaged 82.7 points per game over his 15 seasons as coach; and averaged 90 or more points per game in two seasons (92.1 in 1990 and 90.9 in 2002).


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks were in the AP Top 25 in 242 of 268 weekly polls, reached the No. 1 ranking in the country in six different seasons, and reached at least No. 2 in the nation in 11 of William's 15 seasons as head coach at Kansas.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Under Williams, the team had several deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, making it to four Final Fours and appearing in the national championship game in both 1991 and 2003, losing both, to Duke and Syracuse respectively. Amidst the tournament successes, there were plenty of woes. The 1996–97 team was said by many to be one of the greatest teams in history, featuring future NBA players such as Paul Pierce, Jacque Vaughn, Raef LaFrentz, Greg Orstertag, and Scot Pollard. The team was upset in the Sweet Sixteen by the eventual champion, Arizona Wildcats.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks advanced to the Final Four in 2002 & 2003. Following the national championship loss in 2003, Williams left Kansas and returned to coach at his alma mater, North Carolina.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Bill Self was introduced as the new head coach for the 2003–04 season and in his first season at Kansas, Self inherited Williams' players and recruits, which often caused turmoil as the style of play differed between the two coaches. Nevertheless, Self led his new Kansas team to the Elite Eight at the NCAA tournament his first year.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: KU in 2004–05 was led by seniors Wayne Simien, Keith Langford, Michael Lee, and Aaron Miles. They began the season ranked #1 and started off 20–1, but then they slumped and lost six of their final nine games, including a loss to Bucknell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The team finished 23–7 and settled for a Big 12 co-championship with Oklahoma.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In 2005–06, little was expected of the freshman/sophomore-dominated Jayhawks, and they began the season 10–6, including 1–2 in the Big 12. Although they did post a 73–46 win over Kentucky, they also saw the end of their 31-game winning streak over rival Kansas State with a 59–55 loss at Allen Fieldhouse, and two nights later blew a seven-point lead in the final 45 seconds of regulation en route to an 89–86 overtime loss at Missouri. But afterward, the Jayhawks matured rapidly, winning 15 of their final 17 games and avenging the losses to both Kansas State and Missouri. KU played as the #2 seed in the Big 12 Tournament in Dallas, and avenged an earlier loss to Texas with an 80–68 victory over the Longhorns in the final to clinch the tournament championship and the highlight win of the season. KU was handed a #4 seed for the NCAA Tournament but stumbled again in the first round with a loss to the Bradley Braves.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In the 2006–07 season, Self led Kansas to the 2007 Big 12 regular-season championship with a 14–2 record, highlighted by beating the Kevin Durant-led Texas Longhorns in come-from-behind victories in the last game of the regular season and in the Big 12 Championship game. At the end of the regular season, Kansas stood at 27–4 and ranked #2 in the nation in both the AP and coaches' polls. Kansas received a number 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, but their tournament run ended in the Elite Eight with a loss to 2-seed UCLA.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In the 2007–08 season, Self's Kansas team began the season 20–0 until they suffered their first loss at rival Kansas State, their first loss at Kansas State since 1983. The 2008 Jayhawks won the Big 12 regular-season title and the Big 12 conference tourney. They received a number-one seeding in the NCAA tournament in the Midwest region. On March 30, 2008, Self led Kansas to a win in an Elite Eight game over upstart Davidson College. KU won by two, 59–57. The Jayhawks played overall number 1 tournament seed North Carolina in the semifinals, a team coached by former KU head man Roy Williams. The Jayhawks opened the game with a 40–12 run over the first 12½ minutes before finally defeating them 84–66. On April 7, 2008, the Jayhawks triumphed over a one-loss Memphis team to claim the national title. With only seconds on the clock, Sherron Collins drove the ball the length of the court and threaded a pass to Mario Chalmers, who connected on a deep three-pointer to force overtime. This shot would later come to be known as "Mario's Miracle" in a nod to 1988 championship nickname "Danny and the Miracles". Kansas then outplayed Memphis in the overtime to win the NCAA Championship game, 75–68. The Jayhawks finished the season with a 37–3 record, the winningest season in Kansas history.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In the 2008–09 season, despite losing seven of their top nine scorers and the entire starting line-up, the Jayhawks earned their 20th consecutive NCAA tournament bid after going 25–7 (14–2), winning the conference regular season title and extending their home winning streak to 41 straight at Allen Fieldhouse. On March 22, 2009, Kansas defeated Dayton, advancing to their 3rd consecutive Sweet 16 appearance. But the Jayhawks' season ended on March 27 when Michigan State came from behind in the final minute to defeat Kansas 67–62, ending their year at 27–8. Coach Self's record, after 6 seasons with the Jayhawks, was 169–40, an .809 percentage. After the season, Self was named National Coach of the Year by the Associated Press, CBS Sports' Chevrolet Award, USBWA (Henry Iba Award), and Sporting News.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: On April 13, Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich announced their intent to return for the 2009–10 season. On April 23, top high school recruit Xavier Henry made his commitment to play at Kansas in the fall, prompting ESPN to name the Jayhawks as "the team to beat in 2009–10." By the time the fall of 2009 arrived, Kansas was the unanimous preseason #1 team in all major publications. The Jayhawks finished the regular season with a 29–2 record and continue to hold the Division I record for the current consecutive home winning streak at 59 straight games in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas passed 2,000 all-time wins in the 2009–10 season, only the third school to do so (finishing the season with a total of 2,003 all-time victories). They won the Big 12 tournament on March 13, clinching their 21st consecutive NCAA tournament appearance, an active NCAA record. However, despite being named the overall #1 seed in the tournament, the Jayhawks fell in the second round to #9-seeded Northern Iowa, finishing the season at 33–3.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Recruiting began immediately for the 2010–11 season, as Kansas landed the nation's top recruit Josh Selby in April. By September 2010, both The Sporting News and Athlon Sports had ranked Kansas in their pre-season outlook as #4 overall and, along with ESPN's Joe Lunardi, were projected to become a #1 seed again in the 2011 NCAA Tournament, which they would again earn. Blue Ribbon and the USA Today/ESPN coaches polls both placed Kansas at #7 in the pre-season poll. Josh Selby, became eligible and joined the Jayhawk line-up on December 18. On March 5, the Jayhawks beat Missouri 70–66 to clinch the Big 12 regular-season title for the 7th consecutive time and later went on to finish 29–2 during the regular season, ranked #2 in both the AP Poll and the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll. Bill Self was named Big 12 Coach of the Year and Marcus Morris was named Big 12 Player of the Year. The Jayhawks defeated 16 seed Boston University, 9 seed Illinois and 12 seed Richmond to reach their 3rd Elite Eight in the past 5 seasons before falling to 11 seed Virginia Commonwealth University in the quarterfinal game. During the season, Kansas moved past North Carolina as the 2nd winningest basketball program in history.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: After being considered the top team but falling short in both of the previous two seasons, Kansas lost six of their top 8 scorers for the 2011–12 season. The Jayhawks had to rebuild after winning seven straight Big 12 titles. Prior to the season, the NCAA declared that three of the Jayhawks top recruits were ineligible for the season, which included games against perennial powerhouse programs such as Kentucky, Duke, Ohio State, and Georgetown. Despite 7 games against top 10 ranked opponents, Kansas finished the regular season 26–5, earned their 8th consecutive Big 12 title, and advanced to their 14th Final Four in school history. The Jayhawks faced another 2 seed, the Ohio State Buckeyes, in the National Semifinals, and came back from a 13-point first-half deficit to win the game, 64–62. They then faced the Kentucky Wildcats, who had beaten the Louisville Cardinals on the other side of the bracket, in the championship game. Kansas lost to the Wildcats, 67–59.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas entered the 2012–13 season with eight straight Big 12 titles in tow. They ended the season having won 107 of their last 109 games at home. After scoring their ninth consecutive title and winning the Big 12 tournament championship by defeating rival Kansas State for the third time that season, KU set its sights on a sixth national title. They were seeded #1 in the South bracket, defeating Western Kentucky and North Carolina before losing in overtime to Michigan 87–85 in the Sweet 16.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: With star freshmen Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid on the roster, Kansas entered the 2013–14 season as the #5 team in the country. They started off well with five straight wins, including a victory over Duke in the Champions' Classic. However, the team went 4–4 over its next eight games, including back-to-back losses to Colorado and Florida and an ugly home loss to San Diego State. The team recovered from this rough stretch and began Big 12 play with seven straight wins, ultimately finishing 14–4 to win its 10th consecutive Big 12 title. A back injury to Joel Embiid, however, left the Jayhawks vulnerable on their interior defense, and they fizzled out at season's end with four losses in their final seven games, including a loss to Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals in Kansas City and an NCAA Tournament Round of 32 loss to Stanford to end the year. Kansas concluded the year 25–10, the first ten-loss season for Kansas since Roy Williams' 1999–2000 Jayhawks went 24–10.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: After the exodus of Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid to the NBA draft, the Jayhawks reloaded with freshmen Kelly Oubre Jr. and Cliff Alexander, the Jayhawks looked poised for another Big 12 season title, which would be their 11th straight. After a loss in the Champions Classic to Kentucky, the Jayhawks finished 11–2 in the non-conference. In what many regarded as the toughest conference in the nation (Big 12) the Jayhawks won their 11th straight title outright with a record of 13–5, having lost a strong post presence in Cliff Alexander due to an investigation by the NCAA of improper benefits being given to Alexander. Evidence never clearly materialized, but Alexander was held out and played his last game as a Jayhawk at Kansas State, where they lost by 7. They then lost in the Big 12 Championship game to Iowa State 70–66, and had a final record going into the tournament of 26–8. The Jayhawks were given a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, where they ousted 15 seed New Mexico State by 19 points, but exited the tournament early at the hands of Wichita State by 13 points. Both Oubre Jr. and Alexander declared for the draft shortly after the conclusion of the NCAA tournament.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 2015–16 Jayhawks, led by Perry Ellis and Frank Mason, won a 12th consecutive Big 12 title and won the Big 12 Tournament. Seeded #1 in the NCAA South Region, the Jayhawks reached the Elite Eight, where they stumbled against #2 seed Villanova, the eventual national champions.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In 2016–17, behind the leadership of national player of the year Frank Mason, the Jayhawks won a 13th consecutive Big 12 title, tying UCLA's record for most consecutive conference titles. Although the team made an early exit from the Big 12 Tournament with a quarterfinal loss to TCU, the Jayhawks got the #1 seed in the NCAA Midwest Region. They dominated UC-Davis, Michigan State, and Purdue in their first three games, but ran into a buzzsaw against Oregon in the Elite Eight.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 2017–18 Jayhawks lost a number of players to graduation, the NBA Draft, and transfer; but appeared to be poised for another spectacular season. Star freshman Billy Preston was sidelined by an NCAA inquiry into the financial picture surrounding his car, and ultimately left the team to play professional basketball in Europe. Kansas won its first seven games before losing in Kansas City to Washington and at home to Arizona State. Kansas would lose a total of three home games during the season, the most for any Bill Self-coached Kansas team, and the most since losing three home games in the 1998–99 season. The season bottomed out in early February with a home loss to Oklahoma State and a 16-point loss at Baylor. But Kansas rallied to win a 14th straight Big 12 title, breaking UCLA's record. Then they defeated West Virginia to win the Big 12 Tournament. Seeded #1 in the NCAA Midwest Region, the Jayhawks defeated Penn, Seton Hall, Clemson, and Duke to reach Bill Self's third Final Four appearance and the program's 15th overall. However, they stumbled against Villanova for the second time in three years. As with their last outing, Villanova wound up as the college champions.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas played in the 2015 World University Games in South Korea as the United States representatives in July 2015. The Jayhawks went undefeated in the World University Games, winning the championship to give the United States its first gold medal in World University Games men's basketball since 2005. In August 2017, Self and the Jayhawks traveled to Italy to play four exhibition matches against local professional Italian teams.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Shortly before the 2019–20 season began the NCAA announced they had major NCAA violations stemming from their involvement in the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball corruption scandal putting their NCAA record consecutive tournament appearance streak in jeopardy.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks finished the 2019–20 regular season 28–3 and were unanimously ranked number one in the final regular season AP poll. The Jayhawks went undefeated against unranked teams, and their three losses came to ranked teams. The Jayhawks were a favorite to win the NCAA Tournament, but the tournament was cancelled on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The following season, the Jayhawks struggled early in the conference schedule. After eight games, they had a 4–4 conference record. At one point during conference play, they lost five of seven games which included a 3-game losing streak, a rarity under Self. They would finish the regular season the season winning seven of their last eight games, including a 71–58 defeat of number 2 ranked Baylor, who was undefeated going into the game. Kansas withdrew from the Big 12 tournament after a player tested positive for COVID-19. They qualified for the tournament, extending their NCAA record to 31 consecutive tournaments. They defeated Eastern Washington in the first round. The following round, they were beaten by USC 51–85, their worst NCAA Tournament loss in school history and one of the worst defeats in program history.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: On April 2, 2021, Kansas signed Self to a lifetime contract. The contract will automatically add an extra year to every year he coaches until he retires or dies.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 2021–22 team earned a number 1 seed in the 2022 NCAA tournament. They defeated Providence in the tournament to become the winningest program in the nation. They defeated Villanova in the Final Four. The Jayhawks defeated North Carolina 72-69 in the National Championship game to win Self's second championship, and the team's fourth NCAA championship. In the championship game, they completed a 16-point comeback, including being down 40-25 at halftime, the largest in NCAA championship history.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Despite having a program for over 120 years, the Jayhawks have only had 8 head coaches. Four of their coaches have been elected to the Hall of Fame as a coach. The longest tenured coach was Phog Allen at 39 seasons, while the shortest tenured coach was Larry Brown, who coached for 5 seasons. Allen also has the most wins in Kansas basketball history with 590. The next closest coach is current head coach Bill Self, who has won over 500 games. Ted Owens is the only coach in program history to have been fired. Allen and Harp are the only Jayhawk coaches to have also played at the school. Self had his first coaching job as an assistant under Brown at Kansas.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Of programs who have been around for at least 100 years, Kansas has had the fewest coaches, yet they have been led to the Final Four by more coaches than any other program. Every coach that has coached Kansas since the inception of the NCAA Tournament in 1939 has led the team to a Final Four. Phog Allen, Dick Harp, Ted Owens, Larry Brown, Roy Williams, and Bill Self have all led Kansas to NCAA Final Four appearances. Of those coaches, Allen, Brown, and Bill Self have led the Jayhawks to NCAA Championships (in 1952, 1988, 2008, and 2022 respectively). In addition to an NCAA Tournament National Championship, Allen won two retroactively awarded Helms Athletic Foundation National Championships for the 1922 and 1923 seasons. Allen and Self are the only coaches to win multiple National Championships of any kind, while Self is the only one to win multiple NCAA Tournament National Championships.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: While officially only having had eight coaches in program history, the Jayhawks also had three interim coaches who are not considered an official part of the coaching history. In 1919, Karl Schlademan coached, and won, the first game of the season before relinquishing the coaching position to Allen in order to concentrate on his duties as head track coach. In 1947, Howard Engleman coached 14 games (going 8–6) after Allen was ordered to take a rest following the 13th game of the season. Engleman's record is not listed in this table as he was never officially a head coach at the university. Assistant coach Norm Roberts served as acting head coach for the beginning of the 2022–23 season while Bill Self served a 4-game suspension for alleged recruiting violations.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Before 1907 the Jayhawks played in various venues, ranging from the basement of the original Snow Hall (even though the ceiling was only 14 feet high) to the skating rink at the local YMCA. Although a current campus building bears the same name, the original Snow Hall was demolished in 1934.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Robinson Gym was the first athletic building on the KU campus and featured a 2,500-seat auditorium used for basketball purposes. The building was demolished in 1967.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Hoch Auditorium was a 3,500 seat multi-purpose arena in Lawrence, Kansas. It opened in 1927. It was home to the University of Kansas Jayhawks basketball teams until Allen Fieldhouse opened in 1955.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Many of Hoch's nicknames during the basketball years were "Horrible Hoch" and "The House of Horrors." Such nicknames were in reference to the difficulty opposing teams had in dealing with the tight area surrounding the court and the curved walls and decorative lattice work directly behind the backboards. The curvature of the walls made the backboards appear to be moving causing opponents to miss free throws.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: On June 15, 1991, Hoch Auditorium was struck by lightning. The auditorium and stage area were completely destroyed. Only the limestone facade and lobby area were spared. When reconstruction of the building was complete, the rear half of the building was named Budig Hall, for then KU Chancellor Gene Budig. The name on the facade was altered to reflect the presence of three large auditorium-style lecture halls within the building: Hoch Auditoria.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Allen Fieldhouse was dedicated on March 1, 1955 when the Jayhawks defeated in-state rival, Kansas State 77–67.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Since February 20, 1994, the Jayhawks have lost only 14 regular season games in Allen Fieldhouse, a 263–14 record (.951). Since February 3, 2007, the Jayhawks have gone 227–9 (.962) at Allen Fieldhouse, as of April 17, 2021, one of the best home record in all of basketball.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Allen Fieldhouse is also notorious for its noise level as well. On November 4, 2010, "ESPN The Magazine" named Allen Fieldhouse the loudest college basketball arena in the country, reaching sustained decibel levels over 120. On February 13, 2017 in a game against Big 12 opponent West Virginia, fans at Allen Fieldhouse broke the Guinness World Record for loudest crowd roar at an indoor sporting event with a roar of 130.4 decibels, which had been set by Kentucky on January 28 against Kansas.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: In the DeBruce Center at the northeast corner of the building is the original document of the Dr. Naismith's Original 13 Rules Of Basketball, purchased at auction by the Booth family for $4.3 million on December 10, 2010.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas won 69 consecutive games at the Fieldhouse between February 3, 2007 and January 17, 2011 until Texas ended the longest streak in NCAA Division I since 1992 with a 74–63 win against Kansas on January 22, 2011. This streak broke Kansas' previous school record of 62, which lasted from February 26, 1994 through December 18, 1998 (during which time, the Jayhawks, along with the remaining members of the Big Eight Conference merged with the remaining members of the Southwest Conference to become charter members of the Big 12 Conference). The Jayhawks also completed a 55-game streak between February 22, 1984 through January 30, 1988, which is a Big 8 record.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Before the start of every Jayhawks home game, after the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner", it is a tradition to sing the alma mater, "Crimson and the Blue". While singing the alma mater, it is tradition for the students in attendance to put an arm over the shoulders of their neighbors and slowly sway side to side, lifting their arms over their heads as the last line of the song is sung. The song is concluded by the Rock Chalk Chant.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Post-game, the band will play a rendition of the Kansas state song "Home on the Range", which the crowd will stand up for similar to the national anthem.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: After singing The Star-Spangled Banner, while the opposing team is being introduced, members of the student section take out a copy of the student-run newspaper, The "University Daily Kansan", and wave the paper in front of their faces, pretending to be reading it in an effort to show lack of interest in the opposing team. After the opponents are introduced, a short video is shown, detailing the history and the accomplishments of Kansas basketball. As the Jayhawks are introduced, the students rip up their newspapers and throw the confetti pieces of paper in the air as celebration. Whatever confetti remains is typically thrown in the air after the first basket made by the Jayhawks.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: If an opposing player fouls out of the game, the fans will "wave the wheat", waving their arms back and forth, as a sarcastic good-bye to the disqualified player, to the tune of "You Didn't Have Your Wheaties", from a series of 1970s television commercials promoting Wheaties breakfast cereal. The same waving motion to the tune of "A Hot Time in the Old Town" follows a Jayhawk victory.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: If the Jayhawks are leading comfortably near the end of the game, the crowd begins a slow version of the Rock Chalk Chant, which has become the signature tradition of Allen Fieldhouse. The chant can also occasionally be heard at neutral sites, such as arenas for the NCAA tournament and the nearby T-Mobile Center on the Missouri side of Kansas City which during the regular season serves as an alternate home arena.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Fans and students will also line up early for Late Night In The Phog, which is the first practice of the season. The practice is viewable to the public and includes skits with past players as the hosts.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks longest played rivalry is with cross-state rival Kansas State. The Jayhawks lead the series 203–94. The Jayhawks have dominated the series since 1984 holding a record of 86–12 in that time frame. K-State has not led the all-time series since 1922. The schools have met annually since 1912 and first played in 1907. Kansas leads in Lawrence 93-35, in Manhattan 81-48, and on neutral courts 29-11. The Largest K-State victory was by 27 points, 96-69, on January 20, 1979. The largest Kansas win was 45 points, 90–45, on March 10, 1955. K-State longest win streak was 5 games, which they achieved twice, from 1972–74 and 1982–83. The longest winning streak from Kansas was 31 games from 1994–2005.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks main rival has been Missouri for many years. The two teams first played in 1907. The two teams played every year until Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC. The schools renewed the rivalry beginning in the 2021-22 season. The Jayhawks won the first game in the renewal of the rivalry 102–65. KU leads the all-time series 174–94. The Jayhawks largest victory was 47 points, 96–49, on December 28, 1977. Missouri's largest victory was 30 points, 99–69, on January 17, 1976. The Jayhawks longest winning streak was 14 games from 1910–1913. Missouri's longest winning streak was 9 from 1920–22.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: While not officially a rivalry, the Jayhawks have played cross-state opponent Wichita State 15 times. The teams most recently met in the 2015 NCAA tournament in the round of 32. Wichita State won that game 79–65. The teams haven't met in the regular season since KU defeated Wichita State 103–54 on January 6, 1993. Kansas leads the all-time series 12–3. The Jayhawks largest victory was the aforementioned 49 point victory in 1993. The Shockers largest victory was the 14-point victory in the 2015 NCAA Tournament mentioned already. Wichita State has never won consecutive games against Kansas. The Jayhawks won five times in a row from 1989–93. Wichita State won both games between to the schools in the NCAA Tournament.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks have won 63 conference championships since their inception, including an NCAA record 14 consecutive from 2005 through 2018. The Jayhawks have belonged to the Big 12 Conference since it formed before the 1996–97 season. Before that, the Jayhawks have belonged to the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association from the 1907–08 to 1927–28 seasons, the Big Six Conference from 1928–29 to 1946–47, the Big Seven Conference from 1947–48 to 1957–58, the Big Eight Conference from 1958 to 1959 up until the end of the 1995–96 season. The Big Six and Big Seven conferences were actually the more often used names of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which existed under that official name until 1964, when it was changed to the Big Eight.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Big Eight Conference did not regularly have a post-season tournament until after the 1977 season. Prior to that teams usually played in the Big Eight (before that, Big Seven) Holiday Tournament in December. The Holiday tournament ended after the 1979 season.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The NCAA started seeding teams with the 1978 tournament, with the seeding format used today beginning in 1979. The Jayhawks were seeded for the first time in their 1981 tournament appearance. There was no tournament in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks have been awarded a combined 6 National Championships, two Helms National Championships and four NCAA Tournament National Championships. The Helms titles were awarded retroactively by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1943. Some schools do not claim Helms championships, Kansas, however, does claim them and has a banner hanging for both in Allen Fieldhouse, along with their NCAA Tournament championships.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks 1951-52 team won the schools first NCAA Tournament Championship. They were coached by Phog Allen and finished the season with a 28–3 record.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 1987-88 team won the Jayhawks second NCAA Tournament championship. The Jayhawks were coached by Larry Brown. They finished the season 27–11, which is the lowest winning percentage (.710) and most losses of any team to win the national championship. The team remains the only championship team of the Jayhawks that did not the regular season conference championship or the conference tournament championship. It is also the only team of the Jayhawks to play for the national championship that didn't win the regular season or conference tournament conference championship.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 2007-08 team won the Jayhawks third NCAA Tournament Championship. They were coached by Bill Self and finished the season with a 37–3 record, which is a school record for wins in a season.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 2021-22 team won the Jayhawks fourth NCAA Tournament Championship, which is their most recent championship. They were coached by Bill Self and finished the season with a 34–6 record.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks have appeared in the NCAA tournament 50 times. Their combined record is 115–48. Their largest victory in a tournament game was a 58-point (110–52) victory over Prairie View A&M in 1998, which is also the Jayhawks tournament record for most points scored in a tournament game. Their largest defeat in a tournament game was a 34-point defeat (51–85) against USC in 2021, which was also their lowest point in the NCAA tournament total since the introduction of the shot clock in the 1985–86 season. They have been eliminated in the first round only six times since the beginning of the tournament, only two of those times have been since the tournament expanded to 64 teams. The Jayhawks have played in 11 overtime games in the NCAA Tournament and have a 6–5 record. Two of their overtime games went into multiple overtimes, those was their 3 overtime game against North Carolina in the 1957 National Championship game and their double overtime loss to Texas Western in the 1966 Elite Eight. The loss to Texas Western was featured in the 2006 film "Glory Road".


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Only four times in program history has Kansas failed to win a single game in the tournament and only twice since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Round names listed below, with the exception of 2011–15, are based on the current names for the rounds. The Sweet 16 name didn't begin to be used until 1988, Elite Eight began in 1956, and Final Four began in 1975.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) two times. Their combined record is 3–2.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Kansas leads all NCAA teams with 31 consensus First Team All-American selections, 24 different players have received the honor.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The 49 McDonald's All-Americans listed below have played for Kansas. An asterisk, "*", Indicates player did not finish his college career at Kansas. A cross, "†", indicates player did not begin his college career at Kansas. The 2015 game had the most future Jayhawks playing in the game with four, however, two players transferred to Kansas and one transferred out of Kansas.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Below are any former Jayhawks who are notable in other fields. Included are the years they played basketball at Kansas and what they are notable for.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: KU only retires the jerseys, and not the numbers, of past basketball players. Eight players honored played on one of KU's 5 championship teams. Thirty-one players have had their jersey retired by Kansas. One former announcer, Max Falkenstien, is honored with the retired jerseys as well. His number 60 was chosen because that was the number of years he was the radio announcer for the Jayhawks. Charlie T. Black and Paul Endacott are the only two players with their jerseys retired to play on two championship teams. Four players from the 2008 Championship have their jersey retired, which is the most players honored to be on a roster in any single season in Kansas basketball history.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: There are multiple former Kansas players that have been enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Some former players have been enshrined as players, while some former players have been enshrined as coaches.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The following former players are enshrined in the Hall of Fame but not as a player or as a coach at Kansas.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The following are people associated with Kansas basketball in some way that are in the Hall of Fame for a reason not already mentioned.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: There are multiple former Kansas players that have been enshrined in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Some former players have been enshrined as players, while some former players have been enshrined as coaches.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Below are Jayhawks who represented their country in the Olympic Games as a player or coach. Thirteen Jayhawks have been chosen to represent their home country in the Olympics. Only Sasha Kaun represented a country other than the United States when he represented Russia in 2012. Kaun is the most recent Jayhawk to play in the olympics, while Danny Manning is the most recent Jayhawk to represent the United States. Ten played in the Olympics, two coached, and one was selected but didn't play due to a boycott, Darnell Valentine. The 1952 Olympic team featured 7 Jayhawk players and a coach. Two former Jayhawk basketball players have coached in the Olympics.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honor in the United States and is awarded by the president. Two Jayhawk basketball players have received this honor, former North Carolina head coach Dean Smith, who played guard at Kansas from 1949–1953. Barack Obama gave him the award in 2013. Politician Bob Dole, who played basketball at Kansas in the 1941–42 season and played football at the school as well, received the award from Bill Clinton in 1997.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: The Jayhawks have multiple connections to the NBA. Below is a list of former players and coaches. People that are currently coaches or in management will show their current job, as well as how they are associated with Kansas basketball.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Below is a list of former Jayhawk basketball on NBA rosters. Free agents should not be included on the list. Players with an asterisk are players that have been assigned to the G-League. In the offseason, players who were signed to a team's summer league roster should not be included.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: This section is former Jayhawks that were on an NBA roster during the 2019-2020 NBA season but are not on an NBA roster. Any players on this list that are not on a roster by the start of the season should be moved to former players. Players listed below may be under contract in an international league, but are not under contract in the NBA or the G-League.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Below are Jayhawks that have won an award in the NBA such as MVP, Rookie of the Year, etc. Not included are Jayhawks who made All-Star or All-NBA teams, or Jayhawks that have won All-Star game MVP, the dunk contest, or 3 point contest. Ten times a Jayhawk has won a major award, five different Jayhawks have won awards. The only major award a Jayhawk has never won is Defensive Player of the Year. Wilt Chamberlain won an award six times during his career including four MVP Awards.


title: Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball

text: Below are former Jayhawks under contract with a G-League team but are not on a two-way contract with an NBA team.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha (14 May 1947 – 15 December 1989), also known by the nicknames 'Don Sombrero' and "El Mexicano" (), was a Colombian drug lord who was one of the leaders of the notorious Medellín Cartel along with the Ochoa Brothers and Pablo Escobar. At the height of his criminal career, Rodríguez was acknowledged as one of the world's most successful drug dealers. In 1988, "Forbes" magazine included him in their annual list of the world's billionaires.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha was born in May 1947 in the small town of Veraguas, near Pacho in the department of Cundinamarca. He came from a poor family of modest pig farmers, and it is said that his formal education did not extend beyond grade school. He left school in the early 1970s and moved to Muzo, Boyacá, the center of the emerald exploitation in Colombia. There he began to work under Gilberto Molina Moreno, who at the time was called the "star" of emeralds in Boyacá, as part of his security, developing a fearsome reputation as a killer. As he started to go up in the ranks among Molina's men, he also became acquainted with drug traffickers. At some point, Rodríguez Gacha decided that the drug business was more profitable and became independent. He moved to Bogotá and became associated up with Verónica Rivera de Vargas, a pioneering drug trafficker who was known as the "queen of cocaine," by murdering the family of her main rival. Rivera introduced him to Pablo Escobar and to Mexican drug lord, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: As he started to prosper in the drug trafficking business, Rodríguez Gacha started to buy larger amounts of land in the Middle Magdalena region in the valley bordering the departments of Antioquia, Boyacá, and Santander. After moving to Medellín in 1976, Rodríguez Gacha associated with the Ochoa family, Pablo Escobar, and Carlos Lehder in establishing an alliance that eventually strengthened into what would become known as the Medellín Cartel. The traffickers cooperated in the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of cocaine. During the late 1970s, Rodríguez advanced in the organizational hierarchy, pioneering new trafficking routes through Mexico and into the United States, primarily Los Angeles, California and Houston, Texas. He is often said to have been the first to establish cooperation strategies with drug trafficking cartels in Mexico. This, coupled with his infatuation with Mexican popular culture, music, and horse culture, and his fondness for foul language, earned him the nicknames "El Mexicano" (the Mexican) and 'Don Sombrero'. He owned a string of farms in his hometown in the locality of Pacho with Mexican inspired names such as Cuernavaca, Chihuahua, Sonora and Mazatlán.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: According to the US Justice Department, Rodríguez directed cocaine trafficking operations through Panama and the West Coast (California) of the United States. It is claimed that he helped design a Nicaraguan trafficking operation that employed pilot Barry Seal (who was murdered on February 19, 1986, after agreeing to testify against the Medellín Cartel).


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Rodríguez Gacha based much of his operations from Bogotá and other areas in the Cundinamarca region, as well as in the Middle Magdalena region. It was Rodríguez who first set up Tranquilandia, one of the largest and best known of the jungle laboratories where more than two thousand people lived and worked making and packaging cocaine. ["The Accountant's Story", by Roberto Escobar].


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: As he became one of the main capos of the rising Cartel, Rodríguez Gacha started having problems with the FARC guerrilla, mostly derived from the fact that the insurgent army taxed some of his coca plantations, and that they sometimes robbed some of his men. When the M-19 guerrilla kidnapped Martha Nieves Ochoa, the sister of fellow drug lord Jorge Luis Ochoa, the cartel decided to create what would be one of the first far-right paramilitary groups to fight the guerrillas, the "Muerte a Secuestradores" (MAS) [Death to Kidnappers] movement. Rodríguez Gacha became one of the main economic supporters of the group. He soon became the "de facto" military leader of the cartel and thanks to his immense riches, he managed to form the largest paramilitary organization in the country, composed of around 1,000 men, all trained and armed, originally devoted to his security but soon becoming an anti-communist army directed particularly against the FARC, and then against the Unión Patriótica political party.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: On March 7, 1984, the Colombian Police and the DEA destroyed Rodríguez Gacha's Tranquilandia complex. A few weeks later, on April 30, 1984, Colombian Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara, who had crusaded against the Medellin Cartel, was assassinated by armed men on a motorcycle. In response, President Belisario Betancur, who had previously opposed extradition, made an announcement that "we will extradite Colombians." Carlos Lehder was the first to be put on the list. The crackdown forced the Ochoas, Escobar and Rodríguez to flee to Panama for several months. A few months later, Escobar was indicted for Lara's murder and Rodríguez was named as a material witness. In an attempt to handle the situation, Escobar, Rodríguez and the Ochoa brothers met with the former Colombian president Alfonso López in the Hotel Marriott in Panama City. The negotiation failed after news of it leaked to the press, provoking the open opposition of the United States to any immunity deal.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Paramilitary groups (or self-defense groups, "autodefensas" as they are frequently referred to in Colombia), were created with the support of landowners and cattle ranchers who had been under pressure from the guerrillas as well as from groups affiliated with narcotics traffickers such as the Muerte a Secuestradores movement (MAS – Death to Kidnappers). As made clear in a 2004 judgment of the Inter-American court of Human Rights, numerous independent reports and from what the paramilitaries themselves have said, in at least some cases they were given support by the state itself. The top leaders of the Medellín Cartel created private armies to guarantee their own security and protect the property they had acquired. According to "The Washington Post", in the mid-1980s, Rodríguez and Pablo Escobar bought huge tracts of land in the Magdalena Department (as well as Puerto Boyacá, Rionegro and the Llanos) which they used to transform their self-defense groups from poorly trained peasant militias into sophisticated fighting forces. By the late 1980s Medellin traffickers controlled 40% of the land in the Middle Magdalena, according to a Colombian military estimate, and also funded most of the paramilitary operations in the region.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Throughout the 1980s, Rodríguez helped catalyze the Medellín Cartel's explosive rise to power by financing the importation and implementation of expensive foreign technology and expertise. According to the report by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (Colombia's Administrative Security Department), between December 1987 and May 1988, Rodríguez hired Israeli and British mercenaries to train teams of assassins at remote training camps in Colombia. Yair Klein, a retired Israeli lieutenant colonel, acknowledged having led a team of instructors in Puerto Boyacá in early 1988. It is not clear whether Klein's mercenary activities in Colombia coincided with those of a group of British mercenaries who had allegedly trained paramilitary squads for the cocaine cartels.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: By 1989, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimated that 80 percent of cocaine consumed in the United States was imported from Colombia by the Medellín Cartel and its rival, the Cali Cartel. The newly elected administration of President George H. W. Bush was under considerable pressure to combat the increasing drug usage and drug-related violence plaguing scores of American cities. Much of the government strategy concentrated on restricting drug supply by extraditing Colombian cartel leaders to the United States for prosecution. On August 21, 1989, Attorney General Dick Thornburgh released a list of the twelve Colombian drug kingpins (commonly referred to as the "dirty dozen") most wanted by the United States and said the names would be shared with the Colombian government and Interpol. The list included Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa, and José Gonzalo Rodríguez, the leading members of the Medellín Cartel.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: President Bush declared money laundering a critical target in the war on drugs, allocating $15 million to launch a counteroffensive. Only hours after Bush unveiled his antidrug offensive in September 1989, a federal task force began taking shape. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) was designed to zero in on money launderers with computer programs capable of spotting suspicious movements of electronic money. On December 6, 1989, Attorney General Dick Thornburgh announced that authorities had frozen accounts in five countries holding $61.8 million belonging to Rodriguez Gacha. According to the Justice Department, the money represented long-term high-yield stocks and investments and was held in bank accounts in England, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and the United States. An additional $20 million of Gacha's drug money was suddenly transferred to Panama, where it was protected from American authorities.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: The growth of Rodríguez Gacha's criminal empire had allowed him to increase his fortune but also made him a lot of enemies. By 1987, animosity started with the Cali Cartel, his previous partners in MAS, as he attempted to move in on the New York City market. The animosity turned into an open cartel war in 1988, moved mostly by the personal vendetta of Pablo Escobar against Pacho Herrera. As the military leader of the cartel, Rodríguez Gacha was instrumental in many assassinations and other violent actions against the Cali Cartel.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Furthermore, he was already in an open war against the FARC guerrilla and he was already in a crusade against the Colombian government and the DEA. His push to join his properties in his hometown in Pacho with his many lands in the middle Magdalena region soon put him in conflict with his old allies in the emerald business, as the emerald region of Muzo was in between. To ensure his dominion on the land, Rodríguez Gacha became involved in an intense and violent power struggle over control of the emerald mines. On February 27, 1989, he directed a group of 25 gunmen to kill emerald magnate Gilberto Molina, his former boss, who was previously considered among his close associates, along with sixteen other individuals at a party in Molina's home. Then he went after his former associate Verónica Rivera, the "queen of cocaine," who was killed in Bogota by hitmen under his command, on July 1, 1989. Later, he detonated a bomb in the offices of Tecminas in Bogotá, which were property of Victor Carranza, the new emerald tsar, whose nephew's murder he also ordered.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: "El Mexicano" or 'Don Sombrero' was later charged in Colombia and the United States for his involvement in a number of killings, including the assassination of the president of the leftist Patriotic Union party, Jaime Pardo Leal on October 12, 1987 in retaliation for guerrilla attacks on drug traffickers in the eastern plains area known as the "llanos orientales".. Rodriguez Gacha starts the 1989 (year of horror in Colombia) massacring 12 judicial officials to allegedly remove them the judicial files. Pablo Escobar and Rodríguez contracted trained hitmen by Jair Klein for the slaying of popular presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán on August 18, 1989, who was considered likely to be elected Colombia's next president. After the murder of Galán, "El Mexicano" had begun to have a less active role in the terrorist attacks of the Medellin cartel.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: In response to a wave of drug-related assassinations, Colombian President Virgilio Barco launched an all-out offensive on the cocaine cartels and re-established extraditions with the United States. At first, the Colombian public overwhelmingly backed Barco's crackdown, which was announced hours after the assassination of Galán on August 19. The government made quick and unprecedented strides against the traffickers - seizing expensive homes, ranches, airfields, cocaine processing labs and large amounts of cash and drugs. Authorities conducted raids throughout the country and made thousands of arrests. The Medellin Cartel responded by declaring "war" on the government, and over the next four months, bombings became an almost daily occurrence and scores of people died.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: By October 1989, public support for the crackdown was beginning to wane and the government decided to focus its attention on capturing either Pablo Escobar or Rodríguez. However, both men managed to stay one step ahead of law enforcement and continued to finance a campaign of retaliatory terrorism which claimed the lives of hundreds of politicians, judges and civilians. Colombian authorities said that Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar planned the December 7, 1989 bombing of the federal investigative police headquarters in Bogotá which killed 63 people and injured an estimated 1,000. The two men were also accused of involvement in the November 27, 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203 outside Bogotá that killed all 107 people aboard.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: At the time of his death, Rodríguez Gacha was fighting wars simultaneously against the Colombian government, the Cali cartel, the FARC guerrillas, the DEA, and the emerald businessmen lead by Victor Carranza. All of them began collaborating to bring him down. His organization was infiltrated by the Cali cartel, Carranza and the emerald guild were also providing intelligence reports. In August 1989, the Colombian Government caught a break when Rodríguez Gacha's son, Freddy Rodriguez Celades, was arrested during an army raid of one of Rodriguez Gacha's ranches in the north of Bogotá. Freddy's alleged crime, possession of illegal weapons, was relatively minor but police held him longer than most unindicted prisoners, hoping to put pressure on Rodríguez. When no signs of fatherly concern emerged, the police released Freddy and waited.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Jorge Velásquez, alias "El Navegante", an informant placed by the Cali Cartel into Gacha's organisation, revealed to the police that the drug lord was in Cartagena de Indias protected by 25 bodyguards. When the police arrived there, Gacha fled to Tolú by motorboat. At the destination, the drug lord was accompanied by his son Freddy, Gilberto Rendón Hurtado (alias "mano de yuca" – the alleged No. 8 man in the Medellín Cartel and who had then control over the network to transport cocaine from the Caribe Coast), four bodyguards and El Navegante. El Navegante again gave information on Gacha's location to the police after he left in the evening on December 14, 1989. With this new information, the police intercepted his motorboat and placed him on one of the two Colombian military helicopters prepared for the offensive.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: At noon on December 15, 1989, twenty-two policemen (seventeen of whom were from the elite police) boarded the two artillery helicopters and flew over El Tesoro, a village between Coveñas and Tolú where the police were told that the target was hidden. By talking through a loudspeaker, the police demanded that Rodríguez Gacha surrender, but Gacha and his men, disguised as farm workers, waited for the police to withdraw. Still, the two helicopters kept flying over the zone. When the fugitives got an opportunity, they ran to a red truck parked near the village and drove away, and were pursued by the police.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: After several unsuccessful attempts to escape from the police, Freddy Gonzalo (armed with a 9 mm pistol), Gilberto Rendón and three other bodyguards got off the truck and, while running towards a group of trees, engaged in a shootout with one of the aircraft, during which two of the fugitives were killed by a burst of the helicopter-mounted machine gun. The helicopter then landed; 5 elite policemen engaged in another shootout with the remaining fugitives, two bodyguards and Freddy Gonzalo, eventually killing them.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Meanwhile, the other helicopter was chasing the truck with Gacha and one of his men inside. When another police patrol appeared ahead on the road, Gacha and his bodyguard stopped the truck, got out of it and ran away into a banana plantation on the side of the road. The artillerymen opened fire to try to detect the fugitives's whereabouts on the plantation. Gacha, armed with a German submachine gun, slowed his pace when he tore his scalp while trying to get through a wire fence. Feeling cornered, he fired his submachine gun at the aircraft, which revealed his whereabouts. As a response, the police fired a burst of the helicopter-mounted machine gun at him, wounding him in one of his legs and making him fall. He was then shot in the face, killing him. His last bodyguard was killed shortly afterwards.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Neighbours deduced from the sound of grenades and the damage to his face that El Mexicano had committed suicide by detonating a grenade against his head. However, police confirmed that he had died from a bullet, citing the destructive effect of a large-caliber bullet and the fact that El Mexicano's hands were not damaged, which would have been the case if he had detonated a grenade.


title: José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

text: Thousands of mourners thronged the streets of the town of Pacho for Rodriguez Gacha's funeral on Sunday, December 17, 1989. Residents of Pacho said he donated money to renovate buildings, and some viewed him as a public benefactor. About 3,000 people surrounded the cemetery because access to the funeral was limited to relatives. A newspaper estimated the number of mourners as high as 15,000.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: DeMario DeWayne White Jr. (born September 22, 1991), known professionally as Moneybagg Yo, is an American rapper. He is signed to fellow Memphis rapper Yo Gotti's record label, Collective Music Group (CMG), in a joint venture deal with Interscope Records. His first two projects to debut in the Top 20, "Federal 3X" (2017) and "2 Heartless" (2018), debuted at No. 5 and No. 16 on the "Billboard" 200, respectively. His third album, "Time Served", debuted at number 3 on the "Billboard" 200 in January 2020, while his fourth album, "A Gangsta's Pain", was released in April 2021 and became his first chart-topping project.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: DeMario DeWayne White Jr. was born on September 22, 1991, in South Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in the Walker Homes neighborhood.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: His early mixtapes were issued in 2012, including "From Da Block 2 Da Booth" and "October 20th". In 2016, he released three more, one of which won a Memphis Hip Hop Award for Mixtape of the Year. "Federal Reloaded", a revision of the first installment of the "Federal" series, featured guest appearances from Y Grizzle, Young Dolph and OG Boo Dirty, among others. The follow-up, "ELO (Everybody Lives On)", included guest appearances from Yo Gotti and Migos' Quavo, among others. His work with Yo Gotti continued on a joint effort titled "2 Federal", released in October 2016. "Heartless" arrived in February 2017 and charted at No. 177 on the "Billboard" 200. The mixtape featured guest appearances from YFN Lucci and Lil Durk. In October 2017, Moneybagg released "Federal 3X", his debut with Interscope since signing a distribution deal. The mixtape contains a sole feature from YoungBoy Never Broke Again.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: In 2018, Moneybagg Yo delivered a compilation album: "Moneybagg Yo Presents: NLess Ent x Bread Gang". The project was released on January 1, 2018. On February 14, 2018, Moneybagg released his sequel mixtape to 2017's "Heartless", "2 Heartless" with features from Quavo, Yo Gotti, Lil Baby, and BlocBoy JB and production from Zaytoven and Southside. On July 27, 2018, he released a nine-track mixtape, "Bet On Me", with features from YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Lil Baby, and Gunna with the production handled from Tay Keith, Drum God, Javar and others. Moneybagg Yo released his debut studio album "Reset" in November 2018. He released his second studio album, "43va Heartless", in May 2019. His third studio album, "Time Served", was released in January 2020. It includes "All Dat" and "U Played", his first Hot 100-charting singles. The album reached number three on the "Billboard" 200, with 66,000 units sold during its first week of release. It was followed up by a deluxe edition in May. On June 30, 2020, he released the single "Said Sum", his highest-charting song as a lead artist.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: After Moneybagg Yo and fellow rapper Blac Youngsta both announced they would be releasing their respective solo albums on a shared day of September 18, 2020, the rappers took this to social media two days before to announce they would instead release a collaborative mixtape titled "Code Red". Moneybagg Yo also released a remix of "Said Sum", featuring American hip hop group City Girls and American rapper DaBaby, which is included on the mixtape.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: Moneybagg released his fourth studio album, "A Gangsta's Pain", on April 23, 2021. It features guest appearances from Kaash Paige, Big30, Future, Polo G, Lil Durk, Jhené Aiko, and Pharrell Williams. The album became his first number-one project, debuting with 110,000 units on the "Billboard" 200, and returned to the top in its third week. On June 1, 2021, Moneybagg released the standalone single, "Rookie of the Year", an ode to basketball player Ja Morant.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: Moneybagg Yo has eight children, four sons and four daughters. He dated fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion, however they broke up in 2019; she appeared on his single "All Dat". As of January 2020, he is dating social media influencer Ariana "Ari" Fletcher.


title: Moneybagg Yo

text: In 2018, Moneybagg Yo converted to Islam, taking his Shahada from rapper, Kevin Gates. He prays five times a day and he fasts during Ramadan.