Inside Kelvin Sampson, Jim Nantz and Willie Fritz’s Unforgettable UH Weekend — Extreme Bonding, Weigman Want To and a Hall Like No Other

It ends with Willie Fritz speeding down the hall, already eager to get into next week. But even In-Season Willie, a being forever focused on the next task at hand, stops to acknowledge what finishing one of the best Hall of Fame weekends that any school has ever had right means to him.

“It was big ,” Fritz tells PaperCity in the corridor of the football operations building. “We want to do our part.”

Fritz, a sick and determined Conner Weigman and the rest of football Coogs certainly did their part, capping a whirlwind University of Houston Hall of Honor weekend that started and ended in less than 20 hours with that 27-17 roaring comeback win over a defensively dangerous UCF team, providing the desperately needed capper. But before any of that happens, before UH is treated to another session of breakfast football thanks to the Big 12 conference’s grinchy TV schedule spinners, Jim Nantz ushers future Nasimith Basketball Hall of Famer Kelvin Sampson into his now forever school’s Hall of Honor. Nearly every table of the Post Oak Hotel’s largest ballroom is filled with UH believers for this (with only the Media Table having several no shows).

What other university could have a Hall of Honor night like this? With Nantz, one of the voices of sports in America, speaking from the heart, Olympians and NFL pros getting inducted and Sampson’s entire staff filling a table and then some to be there for their guy’s teary-eyed moment. Nantz leaves when it’s still dark out in Houston, hustling to get to Las Vegas for his Sunday NFL game assignment.

Hustle and heart. No wonder why Kelvin Sampson finds himself so emotional.

“When I was standing over there and I knew the adjustments and the sacrifice that Jim made (to be there).” Sampson tells PaperCity, his new UH Hall of Honor red jacket on and an old school coaching days tie knotted precisely too. “Jim and I talk a lot. A lot of times we don’t talk about the Cougars. We talk about our lives and how to handle this, handle that.

“What I’m proud of is that Jim said, ‘You’ve made being a Cougar easy.’ Because everywhere I go that’s all they want to talk about. Is Cougar Basketball and and the basketball team. You’ve made a lot of people Cougar fans.’ And coming from Jim that does mean a lot.

“Because to me he is the No. 1 Cougar. Where the athletic department is the front porch of the university, Jim is the captain of the porch. For him to come here tonight and be here for me, that’s special.”

Sampson will think of legendary Oregon State coach Ralph Miller, who so freely shared with him even as they competed in the same conference. He’ll think of Jud Heathcote, the Michigan State wisecracker who had a line for every happening and without who Sampson would have never gotten that first chance at Montana Tech. And he’ll think of his dad — John W. “Ned” Sampson — who loved coaching so much that he hustled the three months of the year he wasn’t getting paid for coaching to be able to support a family while doing it.

“Back when he coached, they only had nine month contracts,” Kelvin Sampson says, standing off to the side of the stage where he got inducted, having already gone through a line of congratulators and selfie seekers. “So there were three months in the summer — June, July and August — when he had to get out and hustle to put food on the table for his family.

“And that taught me a lot too.”

After that 27-point second half against UCF, a game in which Weigman could be heard telling several offensive players “That’s on me boys,” as the Cougars walked into the locker room at halftime down 10-0, Fritz finds himself thinking of how much Sampson and he are alike.

“I just got a lot of respect for him because I think he’s a family guy,” Fritz says. “That’s how we do things in our program. And sometimes that gets lost in college athletics I guess. Real family guy and I admire that.”

To Nantz, Kelvin Sampson and Willie Fritz are starting to become linked, the grownup master class coaches that few other universities anywhere can boast about having in the two most important revenue sports of all. Heart and hustle. All Coogs.

“We are so well coached,” Nantz tells PaperCity as he lingers in the ballroom post ceremony, not wanting to leave this kind of energizing University of Houston  nighty behind before he absolutely has to do so. “Willie Kelvin. Kelvin Willie. It’s a great time in the history of the University of Houston. These are great days. . .

“We’re celebrating tonight the past. But we have to keep moving forward. And that’s what gets us in the Big 12. That’s what gets us to the Final Four. That’s what gets us into a football powerhouse. That’s what gets us contending for national championships.”

As Fritz eagerly tries to end his press conference after Cougar football’s fourth win in five games to open this season, you can almost see the impatience and the fire of a coaching lifer who thinks his group can do something special this season. Not in the future. Right now. If they can just fix a few things.

“Because to me he is the No. 1 Cougar. Where the athletic department is the front porch of the university, Jim is the captain of the porch. For him to come here tonight and be here for me, that’s special.” — Kelvin Sampson on Jim Nantz

UH’s Hall of Honor Can Take On All Comers

Everywhere on the Hall of Honor night, you can feel the excitement of what’s to come even as what’s been done is celebrated. UH president and chancellor Renu Khator happily finds herself talking to a reporter in the hall as the Spirit of Houston marching band blares away. Khator and Kelvin Sampson may be the only two UH figures who’ve been inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor while they are still bringing it.

“They inducted me while I was still president,” Khator tells PaperCity. “We are proud to induct him while he’s still coaching. But this is only one of one. He’s been getting so many. But he’ll get more. There’s more coming his way. I know it.”

This is a night of so many significant and unforgettable figures forever tied to the University of Houston. There’s Bill Worrell and Don Chaney hugging and sharing old stories. There are Jim Nantz and Carl Lewis, arguably the greatest single athlete in history, laughing about how they were freshmen together, taking a test in the same class, wondering which one of them had the answers.

Just try and find another college with this much groundbreaking star power.

“I think the University of Houston Hall of Fame, I’d put up against Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, anybody,” Worrell says. “It’s one of the best Hall of Fames. Carl Lewis, you see him over there. Oh, it’s Hakeem Olajuwon over here! You look around the room and you’ve got some of the greatest athletes in the world.”

This is a room Kelvin Sampson shows up early to take part in. Sampson is there well before 6 pm, which makes UH basketball SID Jeff Conrad marvel, “Practice must have ended early.” Nantz stays in his room at Houston billionaire believer Tilman Fertitta’s posh hotel till 6 pm because he needs to do his usual NFL prep and team meetings by Zoom. To be there for Kelvin.

With that 11 am UCF kickoff looming, Willie Fritz somehow makes it too. Then again, you’d be a fool to not want to be in this room.

“What an opportunity to build for the future,” UH athletic director Eddie Nunez says, wearing his tuxedo best for this one.

Finding Family

Some of those stories are legendary, some are worth getting to know.

UH Hall of Honor women’s basketball inductee Monica Lamb Powell finds herself thinking of her late dad Moses Lamb, still the biggest University of Houston fan she’s ever known. Lamb Powell wore red Chuck Taylor sneakers with her black-tie gala gown on her big night because that’s what her dad was known for wearing to all of her games. “He would just be so insanely proud today, I know it.”

Men’s swimming inductee Siong Ang flew 21 hours from his native Singapore to be here. Ang even has Jim Nantz beat in extra journeys to get here. But the man once known as the world’s fastest swimmer’s wife had to talk him into doing it, telling him he’d regret missing this special a night.

Softball inductee Jessica Valis Shimek marveled at a program that’s only 25 years old getting a player into the Hall. Shimek stood out as one of the stars on a Houston softball team that came within one game of making the College Softball World Series back in 2008. (Oh to get those UH softball days back.)

Football inductee Kimble Anders goes back to the legacy those UH teams he played on with Andre Ware, the highest scoring, most electrifying Run teams in all the land,. Football inductee Audray McMillian loves being part of that last UH Cotton Bowl team in 1984, something that means as much to him as leading the NFL in interceptions one year for the Minnesota Vikings. “Never in my wildest dreams coming out of a small East Texas town did I think I’d be in U of H’s Hall of Honor,” McMillian says.

“I think the University of Houston Hall of Fame, I’d put up against Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, anybody, It’s one of the best Hall of Fames. Carl Lewis, you see him over there. Oh, it’s Hakeem Olajuwon over here! You look around the room and you’ve got some of the greatest athletes in the world.” — Bill Worrell

Volleyball inductee Lilly Denoon still uses the lessons she learned in getting to the Elite Eight with the athletes she coaches today. It’s a shame men’s golf star Ed Fiori, who Nantz knew well and describes as “just a towering man” with a big swing, and men’s basketball standout Ollie Taylor did not live to see their own inductions.

Time is fleeting. Sampson, who turns 71 on Monday, finds himself thinking of that on his Hall of Honor night too. Hustle and heart. It’s not always enough. Sometimes you need a village behind you to keep that going. It needs to be about more than just Kelvin Sampson for him to keep driving this hard. Not letting the new NIL and player compensation era sap any of his joy.

“For full transparency, if I didn’t work with my family and I didn’t have this situation, I’m not sure I’d still be coaching,” Sampson tells PaperCity.

The greatest coach in University of Houston’s entire athletic history looks around the ballroom. His eyes may be a little moist. But his heart’s full.