60 Year Anniversary: Legends of Wake Forest Remember Historic 1962 Final Four
2/10/2022 10:34:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Les Johns
Members of the 1962 men’s basketball Final Four team look back on the historic run that put the Deacs in the national spotlight.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A bumpy start did not deter them and late-game heroics were a theme for the Deacs to advance in the first two rounds of the 1962 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
Led by powerful big man Len Chappell and guard Billy Packer, the Demon Deacons became the first (and only to this date) Wake Forest team to advance to the NCAA Tournament Final Four.
The Ohio State Buckeyes, led by stars Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, featured heavily in the story of that team's three-year run that started when Packer and Chappell were sophomores. The Deacs had traveled to Columbus to open the 1959-60 season and fell by just eight points to a team that ended up winning the national championship.
"They beat us, but it was a competitive game," Packer recalls. "They went on to win the national championship. For it being our first game together, you figure if they're going to be the national champions, we must be pretty good because we hung with them the whole game.
"That set the stage for our senior year when they beat us (84-62) at home. Then we went down to play at Florida. It was a letdown, and they upset us. We had a poor December. Nobody other than maybe Lenny was playing their best. Once we got into conference play, we did pretty well. Beating a really good Duke team later in the season reminded us of what we were capable of, and that we just needed to play our best basketball."
By the time Packer and Chappell were seniors, the Deacs were highly regarded, beginning the season ranked No. 3 in the country. However, in early February Wake Forest was scuffling with a 9-8 overall record.
From there, the Deacs reeled off six wins in a row to close the regular season to enter the all-important ACC Tournament with a lot of momentum.
"Dave Wiedeman started playing well, and got his game back together," Packer said. "Everything was falling into shape. Bob Woollard and Bill Hull were doing well on the inside. Our overall play was pretty darn good. We won the ACC Tournament and that set the stage for going into the NCAA Tournament."
Woollard, a 6-foot-10 center, averaged 8.2 points and 7.4 rebounds a game that season for the Demon Deacons.
"I never counted them," Woollard said about his statistics. "I just played ball and wanted to do the best I could when I was out there on the floor. Sometimes I stumbled and other times I did well. But we had a good unit of young men who were a team. They weren't individualists. They wanted to make their contribution.
"I was a role player. Lenny Chappell and Billy Packer were the stars of the team, and their performance, leadership and scoring were so important. Dave Wiedeman was an exceptional guard. Everybody worked hard."
Butch Hassell, a 5-foot-11 sophomore guard saw firsthand the improvement the Deacs made down the stretch of the season.
"We were working hard all year and we knew we had a good team, but we just didn't seem to click," he said. "Len Chappell and Billy Packer were both All-Americans as sophomores."
There weren't 68, 64 or even 48 teams in the NCAA Tournament in those days. There were just 25 teams invited, and the only entry from the ACC was to come from the winner of the postseason conference tournament.
"There was an awful lot of pressure," Packer said. "You realized every game in the ACC Tournament would be your last if you didn't win. We liked that pressure and played well in the ACC Tournament. The ACC Tournament was the only major conference with a postseason tournament."
Wake Forest defeated Virginia, South Carolina and Clemson on successive days to win the 1962 ACC Tournament and advance to the NCAA Tournament.
"We played Yale, an Ivy League school," Packer said. "We did not play inspired basketball and were lucky to get out of there alive. We played well enough to get into overtime."
Playing at the famed Palestra in Philadelphia, Wake Forest defeated Yale 92-82 in overtime. Chappell fouled out in regulation with 25 points and 18 boards, and Wiederman chipped in 22.
"Then we had to play a team who had given us a lot of trouble throughout our career, in St. Joseph's and Jack Ramsey," Packer said. "They had us down where there was no way we could win the game. If they had hit one free throw we would have been done, because there were no three-point plays back in those days."
Down four with 18 seconds to go, Packer hit a jump shot and then the Deacs gave up an intentional foul to extend the contest. A missed St. Joseph's free throw allowed Packer to hit the game-tying jumper to send it to overtime. Chappell came up big, as usual, scoring 34 points and grabbing 18 rebounds.
"I was able to make a shot to get us within two, then hit another to put it into overtime," Packer said. "A guy named Tommy McCoy was an unusual player but had a lot of ability. He had a great overtime game against St. Joseph's."
"We beat St. Joseph's in overtime in the regional," Hassell said. "Billy was a strong competitor. We called him the locker-room lawyer. He was always involved in serious stuff and was a terrific ballplayer. I was always matched up with him in practice, pushing him and trying to get his starting position."
After two overtime scares, the Deacs overcame a small two-point halftime deficit to defeat Villanova 79-69 in Cole Field House to advance to the Final Four. Chappell had 22 points and 21 rebounds while Woollard also had a double-double with 19 points and 18 boards.
"Bob Woollard played a really good game and Lenny was outstanding again to get us in the Final Four," Packer said.
The win over Villanova set up yet another matchup against Ohio State, this time on the biggest stage possible — the NCAA Final Four at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.
"We were just taking things for granted and the next thing you know we were in Louisville playing in the Final Four," Hassell said.
Chappell had another monster game, with 27 points, but Havlicek scored 25 to pace the Buckeyes in an 84-68 victory.
"From the beginning of February to when we got eliminated by Ohio State, it was a good comeback, turning a disappointing start to the season to something really solid," Packer said.
That wasn't the end of the season, as strange as it would seem now. Back in that era, there was a consolation contest for third place, and Wake Forest knocked off John Wooden and UCLA in that game 82-80.
"We beat UCLA in John Wooden's first trip to the NCAA Final Four," Packer said.
The Bruins went on to win the national championship 10 of the next 13 seasons.
"We were one of the last teams to beat a John Wooden team in a tournament," Hassell said. "That game did matter to us. The mindset going into the Final Four was that we were going to play two games. The coaches did their jobs and stressed the importance of winning that game. I got to play in that game, and it was a thrill."
The Final Four run was obviously fueled by Chappell, who averaged more than 30 points and 15 rebounds a game. He was a 6-foot-8 forward who was inducted in the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.
"He was a very unusual athlete," Packer said. "There was no weightlifting back in those days, but Lenny was unbelievably strong. He was 6-foot-8 and weighed 250-pounds with about a 34-inch waist. Bill Hull was a phenomenal athlete as well and was the first to start in both football and basketball in the ACC in the same year.
"Those two guys were really incredible, modern athletes in regards to their strength and speed. The thing about Lenny also was he didn't look like he had flexibility in his running style and wasn't really a playmaker, but he had a great shooting touch from outside."
The threat Chappell offered down low was opening up scoring for perimeter players, according to guard Alley Hart, who averaged 13.7 points and 3.5 rebounds a game as a senior in 1960-61.
"He was built like the Incredible Hulk," Hart said. "When we went down the court, Bones told us to look for Chappell in the middle. We had what would have been the best three-point shooting club in the country. All of us could shoot from the outside. Then in the meantime you hit Lenny in the middle, and he would make things happen.
"If he got the ball around the basket. If you grabbed his arms while he was trying to dunk the ball, he would just dunk you too. He was very strong. But he could go outside and shoot as well, which was rare for big men in that era."
Bones McKinney, who took over the program after Murray Greason, coached the Demon Deacons for eight seasons, finishing with a 122-94 record. He was also a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate and Baptist minister.
"The way he carried himself as a coach was a lot different then how he carried himself as a minister," Packer explained. "He had been a great high school and college player at Durham High School, where they won the high school national championship. He went to NC State, then he went into the service and came back and played at North Carolina when they made it to the national championship.
"He left college early, because of his age, to join Red Auerbach at the Washington Capitals as a player. Obviously, he had quite a career as an athlete. Then returned as a minister and part-time coach, then as a coach and perhaps a part-time minister. Next to Billy Graham, he was probably the most popular preacher in the south."
You never really knew what was coming next with McKinney, according to Hart.
"He brought big-time coaching to the ACC," Hart said. "He was a very good coach and knew what he was doing. He was a great college and pro player who knew the game and taught the fundamentals. He was a great coach, but you never knew what he was going to say or do; but he knew what he was doing."
McKinney had incredible passion for both the ministry and the game of basketball.
"We always had prayer before the game," Woollard said. "He always kept a positive attitude and was quite a showman on the bench. He used to drink a lot of Pepsi. He was an inspiration and always tried to give you positive affirmations. He was passionate about the game. He loved the game of basketball and he tried to instill in us that same passion."
This year marks the 60-year anniversary of the Final Four appearance by the 1961-62 Demon Deacons.
"It was a great part of our lives and brought great enjoyment to the Wake Forest following," Packer said.
Led by powerful big man Len Chappell and guard Billy Packer, the Demon Deacons became the first (and only to this date) Wake Forest team to advance to the NCAA Tournament Final Four.
The Ohio State Buckeyes, led by stars Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, featured heavily in the story of that team's three-year run that started when Packer and Chappell were sophomores. The Deacs had traveled to Columbus to open the 1959-60 season and fell by just eight points to a team that ended up winning the national championship.
"They beat us, but it was a competitive game," Packer recalls. "They went on to win the national championship. For it being our first game together, you figure if they're going to be the national champions, we must be pretty good because we hung with them the whole game.
"That set the stage for our senior year when they beat us (84-62) at home. Then we went down to play at Florida. It was a letdown, and they upset us. We had a poor December. Nobody other than maybe Lenny was playing their best. Once we got into conference play, we did pretty well. Beating a really good Duke team later in the season reminded us of what we were capable of, and that we just needed to play our best basketball."
By the time Packer and Chappell were seniors, the Deacs were highly regarded, beginning the season ranked No. 3 in the country. However, in early February Wake Forest was scuffling with a 9-8 overall record.
From there, the Deacs reeled off six wins in a row to close the regular season to enter the all-important ACC Tournament with a lot of momentum.
"Dave Wiedeman started playing well, and got his game back together," Packer said. "Everything was falling into shape. Bob Woollard and Bill Hull were doing well on the inside. Our overall play was pretty darn good. We won the ACC Tournament and that set the stage for going into the NCAA Tournament."
Woollard, a 6-foot-10 center, averaged 8.2 points and 7.4 rebounds a game that season for the Demon Deacons.
"I never counted them," Woollard said about his statistics. "I just played ball and wanted to do the best I could when I was out there on the floor. Sometimes I stumbled and other times I did well. But we had a good unit of young men who were a team. They weren't individualists. They wanted to make their contribution.
"I was a role player. Lenny Chappell and Billy Packer were the stars of the team, and their performance, leadership and scoring were so important. Dave Wiedeman was an exceptional guard. Everybody worked hard."
Butch Hassell, a 5-foot-11 sophomore guard saw firsthand the improvement the Deacs made down the stretch of the season.
"We were working hard all year and we knew we had a good team, but we just didn't seem to click," he said. "Len Chappell and Billy Packer were both All-Americans as sophomores."
There weren't 68, 64 or even 48 teams in the NCAA Tournament in those days. There were just 25 teams invited, and the only entry from the ACC was to come from the winner of the postseason conference tournament.
"There was an awful lot of pressure," Packer said. "You realized every game in the ACC Tournament would be your last if you didn't win. We liked that pressure and played well in the ACC Tournament. The ACC Tournament was the only major conference with a postseason tournament."
Wake Forest defeated Virginia, South Carolina and Clemson on successive days to win the 1962 ACC Tournament and advance to the NCAA Tournament.
"We played Yale, an Ivy League school," Packer said. "We did not play inspired basketball and were lucky to get out of there alive. We played well enough to get into overtime."
Playing at the famed Palestra in Philadelphia, Wake Forest defeated Yale 92-82 in overtime. Chappell fouled out in regulation with 25 points and 18 boards, and Wiederman chipped in 22.
"Then we had to play a team who had given us a lot of trouble throughout our career, in St. Joseph's and Jack Ramsey," Packer said. "They had us down where there was no way we could win the game. If they had hit one free throw we would have been done, because there were no three-point plays back in those days."
Down four with 18 seconds to go, Packer hit a jump shot and then the Deacs gave up an intentional foul to extend the contest. A missed St. Joseph's free throw allowed Packer to hit the game-tying jumper to send it to overtime. Chappell came up big, as usual, scoring 34 points and grabbing 18 rebounds.
"I was able to make a shot to get us within two, then hit another to put it into overtime," Packer said. "A guy named Tommy McCoy was an unusual player but had a lot of ability. He had a great overtime game against St. Joseph's."
"We beat St. Joseph's in overtime in the regional," Hassell said. "Billy was a strong competitor. We called him the locker-room lawyer. He was always involved in serious stuff and was a terrific ballplayer. I was always matched up with him in practice, pushing him and trying to get his starting position."
After two overtime scares, the Deacs overcame a small two-point halftime deficit to defeat Villanova 79-69 in Cole Field House to advance to the Final Four. Chappell had 22 points and 21 rebounds while Woollard also had a double-double with 19 points and 18 boards.
"Bob Woollard played a really good game and Lenny was outstanding again to get us in the Final Four," Packer said.
The win over Villanova set up yet another matchup against Ohio State, this time on the biggest stage possible — the NCAA Final Four at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.
"We were just taking things for granted and the next thing you know we were in Louisville playing in the Final Four," Hassell said.
Chappell had another monster game, with 27 points, but Havlicek scored 25 to pace the Buckeyes in an 84-68 victory.
"From the beginning of February to when we got eliminated by Ohio State, it was a good comeback, turning a disappointing start to the season to something really solid," Packer said.
That wasn't the end of the season, as strange as it would seem now. Back in that era, there was a consolation contest for third place, and Wake Forest knocked off John Wooden and UCLA in that game 82-80.
"We beat UCLA in John Wooden's first trip to the NCAA Final Four," Packer said.
The Bruins went on to win the national championship 10 of the next 13 seasons.
"We were one of the last teams to beat a John Wooden team in a tournament," Hassell said. "That game did matter to us. The mindset going into the Final Four was that we were going to play two games. The coaches did their jobs and stressed the importance of winning that game. I got to play in that game, and it was a thrill."
The Final Four run was obviously fueled by Chappell, who averaged more than 30 points and 15 rebounds a game. He was a 6-foot-8 forward who was inducted in the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.
"He was a very unusual athlete," Packer said. "There was no weightlifting back in those days, but Lenny was unbelievably strong. He was 6-foot-8 and weighed 250-pounds with about a 34-inch waist. Bill Hull was a phenomenal athlete as well and was the first to start in both football and basketball in the ACC in the same year.
"Those two guys were really incredible, modern athletes in regards to their strength and speed. The thing about Lenny also was he didn't look like he had flexibility in his running style and wasn't really a playmaker, but he had a great shooting touch from outside."
The threat Chappell offered down low was opening up scoring for perimeter players, according to guard Alley Hart, who averaged 13.7 points and 3.5 rebounds a game as a senior in 1960-61.
"He was built like the Incredible Hulk," Hart said. "When we went down the court, Bones told us to look for Chappell in the middle. We had what would have been the best three-point shooting club in the country. All of us could shoot from the outside. Then in the meantime you hit Lenny in the middle, and he would make things happen.
"If he got the ball around the basket. If you grabbed his arms while he was trying to dunk the ball, he would just dunk you too. He was very strong. But he could go outside and shoot as well, which was rare for big men in that era."
Bones McKinney, who took over the program after Murray Greason, coached the Demon Deacons for eight seasons, finishing with a 122-94 record. He was also a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate and Baptist minister.
"The way he carried himself as a coach was a lot different then how he carried himself as a minister," Packer explained. "He had been a great high school and college player at Durham High School, where they won the high school national championship. He went to NC State, then he went into the service and came back and played at North Carolina when they made it to the national championship.
"He left college early, because of his age, to join Red Auerbach at the Washington Capitals as a player. Obviously, he had quite a career as an athlete. Then returned as a minister and part-time coach, then as a coach and perhaps a part-time minister. Next to Billy Graham, he was probably the most popular preacher in the south."
You never really knew what was coming next with McKinney, according to Hart.
"He brought big-time coaching to the ACC," Hart said. "He was a very good coach and knew what he was doing. He was a great college and pro player who knew the game and taught the fundamentals. He was a great coach, but you never knew what he was going to say or do; but he knew what he was doing."
McKinney had incredible passion for both the ministry and the game of basketball.
"We always had prayer before the game," Woollard said. "He always kept a positive attitude and was quite a showman on the bench. He used to drink a lot of Pepsi. He was an inspiration and always tried to give you positive affirmations. He was passionate about the game. He loved the game of basketball and he tried to instill in us that same passion."
This year marks the 60-year anniversary of the Final Four appearance by the 1961-62 Demon Deacons.
"It was a great part of our lives and brought great enjoyment to the Wake Forest following," Packer said.
Football Media Availability (10/21/25)
Tuesday, October 21
Wake Forest Head Coach Jake Dickert Weekly Press Conference (10/20/2025)
Monday, October 20
Wake Forest Postgame Press Conference vs. Virginia Tech (Oct. 4, 2025)
Monday, October 20
Coach Jake Dickert Postgame Press Conference vs. NC State (Sept. 11, 2025)
Monday, October 20