The Warren Chapman Story

Posted by Dan Jensen

Anyone remember someone named Warren Chapman?  Y'all are probably too young to be eyewitnesses but you may have heard some of the story.  Some of the story is all that I have but it was intriguing in its day.

We had just finished the 1962 season by winning third place (again) at the state tournament. South San Antonio beat us for the title in 1961 but this time the two teams played for third.  Someone got the script for the two years mixed up.

 

Bill Doty was a senior and the big gun on that 34-5 team.  I remember him and Bobby Rule talking in the dressing room afterwards about how they had done about as well as they could do that year and better than many had thought they would.

 

A short while after the team returned home, I heard a story that was hard to believe.  A sophomore with a NASA father had moved into the district.  He was about the same size as Doty and I was being told he was about as good.  Wait a minute, folks.  Bill Doty averaged 22 points per game and was all-state.  About as good as Doty, they persisted.  His name was Warren Chapman, transferring from Virginia, and didn't our future prospects look bright!  Unbelievable!

 

But, there was problem.  A big problem.  Transfers are ineligible for a year.  Not so now is it?  I don't recall when that policy changed but it was not 1963.  Coach Carlisle had me make copies of clippings for the year with emphasis on the good junior varsity team.  That was back in the horse and buggy Xerox days but I got it done.  Woe is us.  Chapman thought he had a better future in Virginia and went back.

 

We won the state championship the next year, you remember, and did not need the big guy for that although we would have had a better record than 26-6.  That was Henry Bauerschlag's first year as head coach since Coach Carlisle took an assistant's job in basketball and football at Rice.

 

The next year, when Chapman was a senior, we lost to tall Graham, 60-50 in the state finals.  A big post player, all-state H. C. Lochner led all scorers with 26.  Don't try to tell me that Chapman would not have neutralized him and we would have had a second straight state title.  Jimmie Dale Lenox was a senior that year and scored 21 against Graham.  Would we have had two all-staters on that team?  Probably.  But we had to wait for Scooter Lenox and Richard Huhn for that rare feat to occur four years later.

 

Coach Carlisle recruited Chapman to play for Rice, got him a summer job but Chapman went to Duke in the fall.  I think he had a decent career there but don't know the details.  I just know it was a sad story about what might have been.

Comments

[Dan Jensen]

If it sounds like I was trying to put Chapman on the team as a junior, I fully realize that would not have happened because of the transfer rule in effect at the time.

Chapman cannot be blamed for not wanting to play on a junior varsity team after playing well as a sophomore on a varsity in Virginia.

This was not a matter of recruiting and Chapman clearly should have been eligible to play and this should have been an exception to the rule.

It's good that things are different now although I am not sure about the details of the transfer policy. Buddy Carlisle could tell us.

The Chapman Story, of course, was a big deal in the Carlisle family. Buddy was young then but certainly remembers it. Who else does? It was only 47 years ago.

[Mark Cook]

WARREN CHAPMAN
6'8", 220 lbs.

Center
Number: 54
Hometown: Seabrook, TX

Team Record
Season Overall ACC(Tourn) Post Season AP Coach Leading Scorer
1966 26-4 12-2 (3-0) Final Four 2 Vic Bubas Marin (18.9)
1967 18-9 9-3 (2-1) NIT Vic Bubas Verga (26.1)
1969 15-13 8-6 (0-1) Vic Bubas Denton (17.4)

He played three years for Duke , 66, 67, 69. Hurt his knee in 67 and sat out all of 68. Apparently a pretty good player. Enoug to get drafted by the ABA Houston Mavericks for their one year of existence in 68'...did not make that team.

[Dan Jensen]

What do the figures at the end of each year mean? Surely not his scoring average. If so, he was more than "pretty good."

[Dwayne "Curley" Lenox]

I remember very well Warren enrolling in Clear Creek as a junior and having to wait a year to play varsity ball. He was unhappy from the first day, mainly because he missed his friends back in Virginia. He was a big, strong boy that had a lot of talent. He was not as strong around the basket as Bill but he was a much better shooter from 15 feet on in. It was obvious that he was going to be somebody special. It would have been great if he had been eligible to play on the 1963 team.

I really think he might have stayed if it had not been for a cute little Clear Creek girl breaking his heart. He liked her a lot and she him, but she broke up with him and that was all for Warren. Too bad. It was our loss. He was a real nice boy that was just looking for a place to fit in. Virginia seemed like the best place for him at that time. Who could blame him.