Return To Oklahoma City University
In his second stint at OCU, he took the Chiefs to the NAIA Championship tournament once and to the District IX playoffs four times. Lemons was Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 1985-1986. OCU had an undefeated season record and a trip to the NAIA tournament in 1986-1987. That year, they were ranked number one throughout the season. The season ended with a 34-1 record, Lemons was named District 9 Coach of the Year and Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. In 1987, he was named Basketball Times Coach of the Year. In 1989, he received the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award.
During his 25 years with OCU, Lemons posted a record of 432-264. He brought positive national attention to the state of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City and OCU. He established himself as a "teacher of men," not only in sports, but in the values of life, as proven by the success and leadership accomplishments of his students and players. In 1990, Abe was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
Lemons died on September 2, 2002 of complications from Parkinson's Disease at the age of 79.
Read more about this topic: Abe Lemons
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“I am apt to think, if we knew what it was to be an angel for one hour, we should return to this world, though it were to sit on the brightest throne in it, with vastly more loathing and reluctance than we would now descend into a loathsome dungeon or sepulchre.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“The traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“I know only one person who ever crossed the ocean without feeling it, either spiritually or physically.... he went from Oklahoma to France and back again ... without ever getting off dry land. He remembers several places I remember too, and several French words, but he says firmly, “We must of went different ways. I don’t rightly recollect no water, ever.””
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its towers blows out of antiquity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)