Sport: Basketball
Born: December 17, 1935
Town: Collingswood, New Jersey
Raymond Chevalier Waters was born December 17, 1935 in Philadelphia and grew up in Collingswood, NJ. A gifted all-around athlete player nicknamed “Bucky,” he was a pass receiver and pitcher for Collingswood High and teamed with center Bob Seitz to form a formidable one-two punch on the basketball team for coach Jack McCloskey, who would later earn fame as the GM of the Detroit Pistons “Bad Boys.” The Panthers won the South Jersey Group IV title in 1953.
Bucky and Bob would play college ball for Everett Case at North Carolina State. Bucky also managed the football team at NCSU; he had been a standout on the gridiron at Collingswood High and wanted to stay close to the game.
Bucky was a bench player his first two years for the Wolfpack varsity, but saw his playing time increase in the backcourt as a senior in 1957–58. The team went 18–6 that year and was ranked #20 in the nation. Case’s assistant during Bucky’s years was Vic Bubas, a former Wolfpack star. He recognized Bucky’s head for the game and encouraged him to go into coaching. After graduation, Bucky spent a year coaching high-school ball in North Carolina before joining Bubas’s staff at his new job as head coach of Duke University.
Working for Bubas was like taking a master class in recruiting. He was ahead of his time in methodically tracking and engaging with promising high-school sophomores and juniors all over the country. In the early 1960s, Duke attracted three of the top prep star in the nation: Art Heyman, Jeff Mullins and Bob Verga—none of whom would normally have given Duke a second thought. Heyman and Mullins propelled the Blue Devils to the Final Four in 1963 and 1964, and Verga got them there in 1966. Bucky and fellow assistant Chuck Daly were also tasked with scouting Virginia guard C.B. Claiborne, who would become the school’s first African-American basketball player.
In 1965, Bucky was hired as head coach of West Virginia University. In his first three years with the Mountaineers, he produced identical 19–9 records and led the 1966–67 squad to the NCAA Tournament. Bucky was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year that season. His star player was Ron Williams, who went on to play in the NBA for the Warriors. The highlight of Bucky’s stint at WVU was a 1966 victory over Duke, which was undefeated and ranked #1 in the nation at the time.
After a 13–14 campaign in 1968–69, Bucky left WVU and was hired by Duke to succeed Bubas, who retired from coaching but stayed at the university as an administrator. Bucky’s first team had a respectable 17–9 season led by center Randy Denton. Gary Melchionni served as team leader for two years after Denton graduated, when the Blue Devils were basically a .500 team. Bucky left coaching after that and got into broadcasting, departing with a record of 133–96. He followed Bubas into an administrative job at Duke. Bucky’s big personality helped him raise millions of dollars for Duke Medical School.
Bucky was also an in-demand color commentator for several TV and radio networks in the years that followed, including NBC and ESPN. In addition to his college basketball work, he served as a network anchor for the 1988 Summer Olympics and served on the broadcast team for many PGA events during a second career that stretched more than three decades.