Phi Slama Jama Era

Houston's Final Four hero — Phi Slama Jama was the most exciting college basketball team of the early 1980s.

Clyde Austin Drexler was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1962. He attended the University of Houston alongside Hakeem Olajuwon and was part of the Phi Slama Jama era — Houston's celebrated run-and-dunk teams of the early 1980s that reached consecutive national championship games in 1982 and 1983. The team's nickname — Phi Slama Jama, a play on Greek fraternity names — reflected his athletic, above-the-rim style that had never been seen at college level and that permanently influenced how basketball was played and marketed. He averaged 15.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in his four seasons. The 1983 championship game loss to NC State's Derrick Whittenburg's half-court shot — one of the most celebrated upsets in tournament history — denied Phi Slama Jama his expected title. Portland Trail Blazers selected him 14th overall in the 1983 NBA Draft. His Houston career is less celebrated individually than collectively — what the team represented was more significant than any individual's statistics — but he and Olajuwon together defined an era and a style that changed basketball permanently.

• Final Four 2x (1982, 1983)
• SWC championship
• All-American
• Drafted 14th overall 1983