Big House" Gaines was a national coaching legend at Winston-Salem State University where he led the Rams to 18 20-win seasons and guided WSSU to eight Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) titles. In 1967 he led WSSU to a 31-1 record and coached the Rams, and future NBA star, Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, to an NCAA Championship, making the Rams the first basketball program from a historically black college or university to capture an NCAA national championship.
Gaines was named the CIAA's coach of the year a record five times during his 47-year coaching career at WSSU. Over the span of those 47 seasons, Gaines compiled an overall record of 828-447, good enough to place fifth in wins in NCAA history behind Dean Smith (North Carolina), Adolph Rupp (Kentucky), Bob Knight (Texas Tech and Indiana) and Jim Phelan (Mt. St. Mary's). He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982.
A native of Paducah, KY, Gaines was born on May 21st, 1923. He graduated from Lincoln High School and would then attend Morgan State University on a football scholarship. Though he was a standout football player who garnered All-America honors twice, Gaines was, by his own accounts, "a very average basketball player." Despite his self-proclaimed mediocrity on the court as a player, Gaines would go on to become one of the greatest collegiate basketball coaches in history, as he is still, to this day, the winningest African-American coach in NCAA history.
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