'Big House' Gaines; won 828 games as basketball coach

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Hall of Famer Clarence ''Big House" Gaines, who led the Winston-Salem State basketball team for almost a half-century and won more games than all but four other college coaches, died Monday after suffering a stroke over the weekend, a family member said. He was 81.

Mr. Gaines, a native of Paducah, Ky., retired in 1993 after 47 seasons at the NCAA Division II school. His 828 wins rank him fifth on the NCAA career coaching list, behind Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp, Bob Knight, and Jim Phelan.

Mr. Gaines won 11 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association titles at Winston-Salem. In 1967 he led the Rams, featuring future NBA star Earl ''The Pearl" Monroe, to a 31-1 record and an NCAA championship. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982.

Mr. Gaines grew up when segregation ruled the country. He was a young coach when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947.

Mr. Gaines was a 6-foot-5, 265-pound high school prospect in 1941, but his college possibilities were considered slim.

Yet with the determination of his family and the black community, he was given scholarship offers from three predominantly black colleges. He went to Morgan State, where a school worker inspired the nickname that stayed with him the rest of his life, telling him, ''the only thing I've seen as big as you is a house."

After graduation, Mr. Gaines continued his career goal of becoming a dentist. He was offered a job as an assistant football and basketball coach at Winston-Salem Teachers' College and decided it would be a temporary solution until he figured out what to do next.

It turned into an unexpected career. After four years, he gave up coaching football to focus on basketball.