Remembering UCR Hall of Famer Howard Lee
12/20/2022 3:58:00 PM | Men's Basketball
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Former UC Riverside Men's Basketball student-athlete and UCR Hall of Famer, Howard Lee, passed away last week. He was 72.
Born May 22, 1950, Lee is one of the most decorated Highlanders to come through the Men's Basketball program as the program's all-time leading rebounder with 1,004 career boards. He also holds the single-season and career records for made field goals and is second all-time in scoring and scoring average.
UC Riverside first fielded a Men's Basketball team in 1954-55, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that UCR would begin to make its mark on college basketball. The legendary UCLA player, Freddie Goss, took the reins as head coach at the start of the 1969-70 campaign, the Highlanders' inaugural season in the Division II California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) and the first year at UCR for a sophomore transfer from nearby San Bernardino Valley Junior College named Howard Lee.
All the pieces were in place for something special. Lee just set everything in motion.
His presence down low combined with Mike Washington's perimeter game helped the dynamic duo each break the program's single-season scoring mark set just two years earlier, while Lee also set the program single-season record for made field goals and rebounds. Fittingly, UCR's maiden voyage in the CCAA ended with a 7-1 conference record and a CCAA title.
Lee was named the 1969-70 CCAA Most Valuable Player with 20.9 points and 13.0 rebounds per contest in what would become the tip of the iceberg for that magical season. The San Bernardino native went on to average a double-double once more, this time in a postseason run that brought UCR a Division II Final Four appearance and an NCAA Third Place finish, and brought Lee the Southern California College Division Player of the Year and NCAA All-Tournament Team honors.
Lee was the Highlanders' career leader in scoring, rebounding and made field goals when his UCR career was complete. His larger-than-life presence under the rim, though, echoed far beyond basketball.
Lee earned his degree in Sociology from UCR in 1972, was later inducted into the UC Riverside Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986 and was later named to the UCR Athletics Hall of Fame Committee. After basketball, he worked for the State of California Department of Corrections and the California Youth Authority for 34 years as a counselor, teacher, principal (Soleded State Prison and Youth Training School) and education administrator, as well as co-owned A Lee Gallery, which specialized in African American art.
A memorial service for Howard will be held on Wednesday, December 21 at 8:00 a.m. at the Kansas Avenue Seventh Day Adventist Church.
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