Bill Hougland, who helped the Kansas men’s basketball team to the 1952 NCAA championship and then won two Olympic gold medals, died Monday in Lawrence. He was 86.
“Everybody that knew Bill loved Bill,” KU coach Bill Self said on his radio show Monday. “He’s been a fixture in Lawrence a lot of years. He had a stroke about a week ago and it was a bad one and he’d been laboring.
“ … It’s a sad day but certainly one that I know I feel fortunate and blessed I was able to have contact not only with Bill but with those other guys (on the ’52 team) as well.