Today, in 1945, the University of Houston Board of Regents passed a resolution authorizing intercollegiate athletics. Harry Fouke, the head of the school’s physical education department, was named Athletics Director, a job he would hold for 35 years.
That same day, UH agreed to join the Lone Star Conference and would begin playing basketball in the league seven weeks later. The school had been formally invited to join the league on November 3rd.
As a university, UH soared in 1945: in March, Senate Bill 207 was signed into law, removing HISD’s control and forming a new Board of Regents to govern the school. As World War II ended, UH’s enrollment shot from 1,000 in the spring of 1945 to 4,300 that fall.
On the morning of November 20, approximately 1300 students congregated to endorse a move to begin athletics. The student assembly forwarded a message to the Board: “The acceptance of the Lone Star conference offer would be an aid to student morale, the general benefit of the university and an overall assumption of mature college life.”
That endorsement changed the minds of some regents, who voted unanimously to pass the motion by regent Lamar Fleming: Resolved, That the board of regents authorize an intercollegiate athletics program and acceptance of the invitation to join the Lone Star conference.
Starting athletics in 1946 put UH on equal footing with other schools in the Lone Star Conference, as none fielded teams during the war. Alden Pasche, head basketball coach at Lamar High School, had been hired earlier in the month and would lead the UH basketball program that would begin in January 1946.
The school decided to use Public School Stadium for football and the Public School Fieldhouse for basketball when Rice was not using the arena. At the time, Public School Stadium (most recently known as Robertson Stadium) was adjacent to the UH campus.
The University of Houston participated in basketball, track, golf, and tennis in its first season (spring 1946) and began practicing for a fall football season.