Jim Nantz Puts Don Chaney Right There With Elvin Hayes In University of Houston History — Inside a True School Changer’s Long Awaited Number Retirement
Honoring No. 24 Forever
BY Chris Baldwin // 02.01.25Don Chaney and Elvin Hayes helped break the color barrier at the University of Houston. Now Don Chaney's number is being retired by the school. (Photo by F. Carter Smith)
The retirement of Don Chaney’s University of Houston number may be long overdue, but Jim Nantz believes his fellow Coogs always knew where Chaney belongs in the pantheon. Chaney’s No. 24 is set to be unveiled in the rafters of the Fertitta Center (or more accurately up on the high wall) at halftime of the Texas Tech game on Saturday evening, but his place in UH history is already indisputable.
“I think of Don Chaney with Elvin Hayes as the players who served the school with a class and dignity that set a new standard for the University of Houston,” Nantz tells PaperCity. “They made much of what came later possible and we all owe them a debt of gratitude. To me, Don and Elvin are forever linked as two of the greatest Cougars ever.”
On this Saturday, Chaney’s No. 24 will finally join Hayes’ No. 44 up there on the wall.
“I really wish I could be there to see it,” Nantz says. “To celebrate Don. No one deserves it more.” Nantz is on assignment for CBS this weekend, calling the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but Chaney’s closest compatriots will be there. Including Hayes, considered the greatest Cougar basketball player of all-time by Kelvin Sampson and at least a clear co-GOAT with Hakeem Olajuwon, and Bill Worrell, the longtime voice of the Houston Rockets and a former University of Houston baseball player who also went to school in the 1960s. And of course, Chaney’s beloved wife Jackie.
“Don’s very appreciative,” Worrell tells PaperCity. “I talked to him and it’s going to be a great night.”
It will be a night when many of UH’s greatest players are back. All to honor No. 24.
No. 6 Houston will be playing No. 22 Texas Tech in an important Big 12 game. The current Cougars will be wearing the Houston Blue uniforms for the first time. Interest in the game, and the event of it all, is high enough that the University of Houston Alumni Association is putting on a big Young Alumni and College off Education tailgate outside the Alumni Center starting at 3 pm and then opening up the center to anyone without a ticket who wants to watch the game on TV together once everything tips off at 5 pm.
With Chaney’s moment coming at halftime. Current University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson pushed for Chaney’s number to be retired, with PaperCity breaking the news that it would happen this season back in July.
“Thank God we’ve got Kelvin Sampson who believes in the history of what you did before carrying over to what you do now,” Worrell says. “. . . When he found out Don Chaney didn’t have his number retired he said, ‘Well, that’s criminal.’ So we’re getting it done.”
Chaney was given UH’s Distinguished Alumni Award back in April, an honor that less than 200 of the 325,000-plus all-time graduates of the University of Houston have ever received.
“I think of Don Chaney with Elvin Hayes as the players who served the school with a class and dignity that set a new standard for the University of Houston.” — Jim Nantz

A fearsome defender, tough rebounder and capable scorer, Chaney helped power the Cougars to two Final Fours and a Sweet 16 from 1965 through 1968. He played all 40 minutes in the sesmic Game of the Century that changed college basketball forever. Chaney contributed greatly to Houston’s 71-69 upset of John Wooden’s storied UCLA dynasty in front of that massive Astrodome crowd.
What Chaney and his buddy Elvin Hayes did off the floor as the first African-Americans to play basketball at the University of Houston changed even more. Warren McVea integrated the UH football team the same year (1965) that Chaney and Hayes became the first African-Americans to play basketball for the Cougars.
“When Don and Elvin came to the University of Houston, there were six or eight other Black students who came in in that first (integrated) freshmen class,” Worrell notes. “And if you went and made a movie out of it, who could you better draft than Don Chaney and Elvin Hayes?”
Changing that type of oppressive hateful societal history is not easy though. Or simple.
“It was tough,” Chaney told PaperCity about integrating Houston athletics in an earlier interview. “It was tough the first year. After the first year it was unbelievable how you were accepted. I say to the point where coming from an all Black high school and an all Black neighborhood, I had to also accept the situation myself.
“It worked out great. But the first year was tough.”
Chaney would go on to win two championships as a Boston Celtics player and coach for 12 seasons in the NBA, winning Coach of the Year honors after guiding the Houston Rockets to 52 wins in 1990-91. He’d have a big impact on other coaches, including Rudy Tomjanovich and Jeff Van Gundy, over the years too. Don Chaney never stopped changing the game.
“People forget how good of a coach Don was,” Nantz tells PaperCity. “And I have to think he took a lot of what he learned from (University of Houston Hall of Fame coach) Guy V. Lewis into his own coaching. He’s part of Guy’s legacy too. Don Chaney is one of a kind.”
UH’s No. 24, forever now.
For more on the Don Chaney number retirement, check out PaperCity’s full story that broke the news.