“Ah, Go Score Fella” — Kellen Sampson’s March Moment With His Grandfather Ned and Old Kelvin Sampson Arizona Chatter Show College Basketball’s Enduring Power

As three generations of Sampsons — Kelvin, Karen, Kellen, Lauren and 4-year-old Kylen — crammed into the big old elevator together at the McKale Center that goes down to the loading dock level where the buses await, they had pocketed what is sure to be another cherished memory in the building. And another moment in the state of Arizona.

Many don’t realize how many impactful moments the Sampsons have had in The Grand Canyon State where No. 5 Houston (21-4, 13-1 Big 12) will play another game against Arizona State on Tuesday night (8 pm, ESPN2) looking to set the Big 12 record for consecutive road wins at 12. Or how there was a time when many around here thought Kelvin Sampson would be the coach who’d succeed Lute Olson at Arizona.

Houston’s 62-58 win over Arizona this weekend marked the coaching lifer’s first win over the Wildcats at the 52-year-old arena. But it wasn’t Kelvin Sampson’s first win at McKale. Sampson’s sixth-seeded Washington State team upset three seeded UCLA in the Pac-10 Tournament held at McKale in 1988, a huge victory for another version of Cougars hungry for success and respect.

Then in 2005, Kelvin Sampson’s Oklahoma team rolled over 14th seed Niagara 84-67 in an NCAA Tournament first round game held at Arizona’s home arena. Kellen Sampson, Kelvin Sampson’s son and University of Houston’s current head coach in waiting (who’s happy to wait), ended the scoring in that game with a deep jumper.

One that still carries plenty of meaning for the Sampsons. Kelvin Sampson brought it up with pride to a few reporters after UH’s Arizona win. “My only career NCAA Tournament points,” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity with a laugh.

“Heck yeah,” Kellen Sampson continues when I ask if he remembers that game well. “You don’t not remember that. I was cruising up the left sideline, we were playing Niagara, minimal time on the clock and there was some chatter — I’ll never forget there was some chatter that I should pull it out.

“And I heard my grandfather from behind the bench say, ‘Ah, go score Fella.’ He always called me Fella. . .Maybe the coolest basketball moment of my life. When someone asked me to do something that normally I could not do, but the Gods favored upon me and I scored.”

The role John W. “Ned” Sampson — the beloved father of Kelvin Sampson, an innovative coach in his own right and a Lumbee tribe Native American who stood up to and turned back the Ku Klux Klan in the Battle of Hayes Pond — played in his NCAA Tournament moment makes it mean even more to Kellen Sampson.

“The coach of Niagara was not very happy (with that long jumper late in the rout),” Kellen Sampson tells PaperCity. “But my grandfather said, ‘Don’t worry about that. You’re going to remember that bucket a lot longer than he’s going to be mad at you.’ ”

As usual, Ned Sampson was right.

“He was so excited and thrilled,” Kellen Sampson says of his grandfather’s reaction to his One Shining March Moment. “Just a really cool moment for our family at the time.”

“I heard my grandfather from behind the bench say, ‘Ah, go score Fella.’ He always called me Fella. . .Maybe the coolest basketball moment of my life.” — UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson

The way Kelvin Sampson dotes on Kellen and his wife Tonya’s young kids — 6-year-old Maisy Jade and Kylen — and makes them feel is how Ned Sampson always made Kellen feel as a kid.

“My biggest cheerleader, my biggest supporter,” Kellen says. “Just like Chief is with my kids. He was just 10 toes, 10 fingers invested in my life. Knew everything about me. His telephone number was the first number I memorized. 9105214809. Still remember it to this day. Just coming home from school, I couldn’t wait to call him to tell him how my day was. From the time I was — I think gosh, first or second grade — I called him every day.

“And it stayed that way. He only ever called me by my first name middle name or he called me Fella. I was 28 when he passed. To that day, it was always Kellen Matthew or Fella. Awesome, awesome relationship. I treasure it to this day.”

Kellen Sampson wasn’t a big-time college basketball player. He scraped by with his intensity and team spirit, a deep bench player for his dad who wasn’t close to being in Oklahoma’s regular rotation. But Kelvin Sampson was already a big time rising coach when his Washington State athletic director Jim Livengood became the AD at Arizona in 1994.  That fueled talk in Arizona that Kelvin Sampson eventually could be the Lute Olson successor.

That Kelvin Sampson would leave Oklahoma for the Arizona job, not the Indiana job he eventually took. Sampson admitted he thought it at times too after UH’s win at Arizona on Saturday.

“I thought about that,” Sampson says of being the head coach at Arizona. “Only because of my relationship with Jim. Jim and I. The thing that kind of pushed it down is we were doing so good at Oklahoma. And we had such great success there. And my family loved Oklahoma. We just loved our life there. Where we lived. We loved our friends. We loved our administration.

“For a while I thought that’d probably be my last job. Settle off into the sunset there.”

Kelvin Sampson being the head coach at Arizona after Lute Olson, who Sampson admiringly calls “The Silver Fox,” certainly would have changed college basketball history. University of Houston fans can be grateful that never happened. With Sampson, UH is one of college basketball’s truly nationally elite programs after decades of wandering around aimlessly without a clue, like a bumper car just going every which way and crashing into not-so-padded railings.

Now Houston with Sampson goes for another little piece of history in the desert tonight in a state already deep in memories for this family. Ah, go score Fella.