RIP Jim "Poo" Welch

Basketball
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UH lost another great basketball player this week. Kevin “Poo” Welch passed away at the age of 78, at his home in Canton, TX.

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Obituary

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/canton-tx/james-welch-12983618

Here is an interview with Welch 5 years ago, reminiscing.

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Saw him play. He was really good. Teammate of Dwight Davis.

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Really sorry to hear this. I loved to watch him play.

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One season with Ollie Taylor as well. The 69-70 team is one of my favorite UH of all-time

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The 1970 team was really good!

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It was a blast seeing Poo and Ollie play. Those were some great teams and great times watching them play in the brand spanking new Hofheinz Pavilion, the best arena in the south at the time.

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One of the best ball handlers ever at UH, good shooter as well. Need more guys like him.

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Poo was really good at stop and pop from everywhere on the court.

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One of my favorite Cougars.

Condolences to his family.

A loss for all who knew him and for Coog nation.

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Mine too. I also remember Poo having a great final game against KU, the team he almost played his final two years with.
Loved Poo, very quiet, reserved fellow until you got to know him.
Poo was a great guard here and highly underrated by Coog historians IMO

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In honor of Poo, I went back and picked some statistics of his UH career.

1969-70 avg. 13.3 pts/gm, 6 ast.
1970-71 avg. 19.3 pts/gm, 4.6 ast.

In the 1969-70 season, Welch had 15 assists against Loyola (Louisiana), and 14 assists against South Alabama. Both are in the UH top 10 for assists in a game. Welch is tied with Rob Williams for #1 in average minutes played per game in a season: 39 minutes.

In the 1969-70 season, Welch was teammates with Dwight Davis and Ollie Taylor. In the 1970-71 season, Welch was teammates with Davis and Steve Newsome.

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And during both of Poo Welch’s 2 seasons, UH never lost a home game at Hofheinz Pavilion; we played in the NCAA tourney and ended the season ranked in the Top 20 in the nation.

(That was also my first 2 years of attending UH.)

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Loved watching him play and the entire crowd at Hofheinz yelling “POO POO POO”.

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