The Jim Williams Files: Director of Athletics and Basketball Coach

By: John Hirn

Colorado State Athletics was in its greatest capital improvement project in its history in the mid-1960s and Jim Williams found himself front and center among these changes. In early 1964, the State Board of Agriculture approved plans to build a new Auditorium/Gymnasium, ground was broken later that year. CSU athletic director Bob Davis worked nearly around the clock to begin the first stage of the project, a new gym and sports complex, but was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and took a leave of absence in October 1964. Assistant athletic director, Tommy Tompkin, former swim coach and the longest tenured coach in the department at the time took over as interim AD. Bob Davis passed away on January 10, 1965, just being able to see the first concrete poured at the new complex.

Tompkin, who had spent 39 years at CSU, already announced his retirement at the beginning of the 1964-65 school year. He had no intention of continuing as the athletic director following Davis' death. CSU President Dr. William E. Morgan appointed his highly successful and knowledgeable basketball coach, Jim Williams as the new athletic director on April 1, 1965. Following Tompkin's retirement in July of 1965, Williams appointed Fum McGraw as the new assistant director of athletics.

In a 1996 interview with William E. Morgan, he stated, "We built the gym first because a football stadium is only used six times a year, whereas you can use a gym for many other reasons." Morgan went on to say, "The last thing I wanted was to see CSU dropped from a conference, so we knew that we had to do something to gain entrance into the new conference." What Morgan was referring to is that in 1961, CSU had not been admitted to the new Western Athletic Conference based solely on the poor condition of its athletic facilities.

Jim Williams had worked with Bob Davis on the design of what we now call Moby Arena, but to gain the funding and bonds, the official name given to the complex was "Auditorium/Gymnasium" to show its multi-purpose use. It was only while under construction that two Collegian writers jokingly said it looked like a beached whale, and the name Moby Gym stuck. (It was not until 1988 that the name was changed to Moby Arena by athletic director Oval Jaynes.)

Jim Williams took on a very difficult task in 1965, to oversee the construction of the new gym, continue to coach his basketball team and run the other sports in the athletic department. In 1956, Bob Davis resigned from coaching football because the position of athletic director had become much more than it had been in Harry Hughes' days. Williams didn't have a dual role at CSU, he had three roles along with the pressure to get CSU into the WAC.

Among the many photos and articles in the Jim Williams files are a series of color slides showing the construction of the new facility. From the first steel ribs to the concrete siding, Williams documented the construction of this facility as it rose on the west campus of CSU.

The new gym opened on January 24, 1966, a day shy of the one-year anniversary of Bob Davis' death. The rest of the building, athletic offices, a new varsity swimming pool and intermural gum opened later that year. As head coach, Williams had to complete the 1965-66 basketball season in which his Rams, still unable to compete in a conference, were invited to play in the NCAA Tournament. A first-round loss knocked CSU out of the tournament, but they finished with a highly respectable 14-8 season and garnered one of the greats of CSU basketball, Lonnie Wright who made national attention.

After the basketball season, Williams, and a wide variety of others on the campus including football coach Mike Lude and Dr. Morgan, all worked to approve a design for a new football stadium. Morgan did not want a stadium on the campus or even near the campus, so he worked with the government to allow a change of use to build the new football stadium under the "A" on ground owned by CSU. Williams and Lude worked on a design, visiting the Oregon campus and Texas Western (UTEP) to see their stadiums.

Lude and Williams presented the design of the 1963 Sun Bowl as a fit for the new CSU Stadium, a photo of the Sun Bowl remains in the Jim Williams Files showing how much it looks like Hughes Stadium. The design fit with what CSU wanted and was approved in September of 1966, groundbreaking was on May 8, 1967. Williams, along with McGraw oversaw the construction of the football stadium through the basketball season of 1967-68 and into the summer of 1968 when the stadium was completed.

While he did this triple duty as coach, athletic director and overseeing construction of both Moby Gym and Hughes Stadium, Williams' basketball teams went 38-31, attending one NCAA Tournament and having one losing season. Once the construction was complete for Hughes Stadium, President Morgan named Perry Moore as the new athletic director so that Williams could coach basketball.

Jim Williams took control of the greatest facility growth period in CSU history, continued as a successful head basketball coach, and set CSU on its way to a new era in the Western Athletic Conference. No other coach at CSU has done the dual job of coach and AD again, and likely never will as athletics have changed greatly since 1968.

When fans walk into Moby Arena at the North entrance, they will see a wooden plaque and photo of Jim Williams honoring his work while picking up where Bob Davis left off at a difficult time in CSU athletic history. Take time to look at that plaque, which Boyd Grant, Williams' assistant coach at the time, made sure to have in Moby to honor what J.J. Williams did for CSU.

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