What's in a name: Gene Knolle's daughters keep Texas Tech star's family legacy alive

Gene and Sharon Knolle had no sons, so their two daughters took it upon themselves to carry on the family name. Genna Knolle Allen and Natosha Knolle Scott make it a point to use both their maiden and married names.

"We had to negotiate that with our spouses," Genna said. "They were kind of old-school. We had to explain. ... We are Gene Knolle's girls."

Perhaps they first realized the weight the name carried when they were kids in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Gene and Sharon had moved back to Texas after the former Texas Tech star's few years of playing professional basketball in Europe. Someone told a man in Garland that Gene Knolle, the two-time all-Southwest Conference honoree, lived right up the street in their neighborhood.

"Gene Knolle?!," the man exclaimed.

"And he actually walked up to our house and knocked on the door," Genna said. "I thought, 'What is happening here?' There were people who remembered him in ways, of course, we didn't get to see and were really impressed by his career and his athleticism. I don't think we really understood the magnitude for some."

This weekend, the magnitude of Knolle's talents and his importance to the program are being remembered. He is part of the 2022 class of the Texas Tech Athletics Hall of Fame, a group inducted on Friday night and to be recognized again during the Texas Tech-Baylor football game Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium.

Gene Knolle died of cancer in 2004 at age 56, and his wife died in 2010 at age 60. Gene worked as a customer service agent for Delta Airlines from 1977 until his death, a Garland resident the entire time. Sharon was an educator in Garland ISD for 28 years and an instructor with Richland College at the time of her death.

In the 51 years since Knolle last suited up for the Red Raiders, 13 Tech men's basketball teams have posted 20-win seasons and 15 have made the NCAA Tournament. But Knolle, a 6-foot-4, 185-pound forward, still holds the program record for career scoring average at 21.5 points per game.

"It's been a long time," Nathosha Knolle Scott said, reflecting on her father's Tech Hall of Fame induction. "You kind of think you remember your dad, but you don't know that other people necessarily consider or are thinking about him. So I was a little shocked, kind of excited, a little nervous."

As a transfer from Ranger Junior College, Knolle averaged 20.9 points and 8.5 rebounds in 1969-70 when Tech went 14-10 and he averaged 22.0 points and 8.3 rebounds in 1970-71 when the Red Raiders finished 16-10.

He formed a high-scoring combo with 6-2 guard Greg Lowery, a Floridian who came to Tech from Oklahoma Military Academy. Lowery averaged 14.7 and 19.3 points playing alongside Knolle for two years and 24.5 points the season after Knolle finished up.

Knolle captivated fans with his ability to get into the lane and score in traffic, using a finger-roll scoop. A-J sportswriter Don Henry chronicled it in a December 1970 column.

"Tech fans labeled Knolle's pet underhanded shot the slip shot, and even now a few players around the league are trying it."

"Aw, it's just a layup," Knolle said. "There's nothing new about it. Quite a few guys shot it in the parks back home. It's just a layup; that's all."

The parks back home that Knolle described were in Manhattan, New York, and Harlem. Even though his family moved to the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens when Knolle was 16, he took the subway an hour to Manhattan's Brandeis High School for its better basketball program.

Between his first and second seasons at Tech, Knolle went back home to New York and honed his skills with Sonny Dove, the New York Nets forward who'd been a high first-round pick out of St. John's, and with Curly Neal, the dribbling whiz of the Harlem Globetrotters.

The late Corky Oglesby was a Tech basketball assistant at the time. Oglesby's effervescent personality made recruiting his role almost exclusively, and he rounded up a lot of talent for the Red Raiders from New York.

In Henry's December 1970 column, Knolle described meeting Oglesby.

"Coach Oglesby drove through Ranger one day and stopped. We went out and had a sandwich and talked. ... Yeah, with Corky, I did most of the listening and he did most of the talking."

Drake, coming off a 26-5 season and a trip to the Final Four in 1969, was recruiting Knolle. So was Long Island, an option that would've allowed him to play college ball back home.

Instead, Knolle became a trailblazer — the first Black basketball player for the Red Raiders.

"I'm glad I did," he told Henry. "The fans here are beautiful."

In addition to recruiting Knolle to Tech, Oglesby probably also helped him in ways outside of basketball.

"I think there's a story, if I recall correctly, about borrowing his car," Natosha Knolle Scott said of her father and Oglesby. After a pause, she broke into laughter. "And Daddy didn't have a driver's license. Because he was from New York, he rode the train. I remember some funny wild stories, that he borrowed a car to take my mother out."

Sharon Patrick arrived at Texas Tech in 1968 from her hometown of Dallas and earned a degree. If the Knolle girls remember correctly, Sharon told them there were 23 Black students on campus at the time. Gene came a year later.

"A lot of the alums were very supportive, evidently," Genna said. "Daddy was a first-generation college student, so coming from New York, he decided he was going to go to college, and basketball was going to be how he got there.

"His parents hadn't been to college. They kind of waved, 'Goodbye, God bless, good luck.' There were people who were very helpful in helping him stay there (at Tech) and be acclimated and that sort of thing. It's not like somebody (from the family) moved him into his dormitory."

The NBA's expansion Portland Trailblazers and the ABA's Dallas Chaparrals both drafted Knolle in 1971. An A-J photo showed Knolle, wearing glasses, signing his contract with the Trailblazers.

"I just felt I would have a better chance at Portland," he said. "The contracts were about the same as far as salary is concerned. I would have liked to played in Texas, because I liked it at Tech so well, but my chances just look better to make it at guard at Portland."

The Trailblazers, however, had 14 rookies. After being let go by Portland in the fall of 1971, Knolle played pro ball in France. Both the Knolle daughters were born there, Genna in 1972 and Natosha in 1974.

"Tech was a great opportunity," Genna Knolle Allen said. "It offered them an opportunity to see the world. They lived in France, but they'd been to Belgium and Germany. My parents had an opportunity to do that. They both had a good experience at Tech. No matter what sort of social things were going on, they were both really positive people. He had a great experience with Tech."

Today, Gene and Sharon Knolle's legacy is carried on by their daughters. Genna, who graduated from North Garland and the University of Texas, earned a juris doctor at Emory University and is an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. Her son, Donovan Allen, is an offensive lineman at Brown in the Ivy League.

Natosha, who graduated from Garland Naaman Forest, started at Texas Tech before transferring to North Texas, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees. She lives in the Metroplex city of Wylie, teaches fifth grade through the Stride education program and is an adjunct professor with Louisiana Tech. She has a son who's an artist and a son who's an actor.

All those years ago, when the man showed up on their doorstep excited to see the Gene Knolle, the Knolle girls were taken aback. To them, he was just Daddy.

"He was a guy who liked to do his lawn. He went to work. We took vacations," Genna said. "He was very serious about us being educated. Because he didn't finish his degree, he told us, 'Finish the degree.' He was very serious about us getting as much education as we needed to make sure that we could do the things that we wanted to do."

He had no sons to carry on the Knolle name, but his daughters are taking care of that.

"We're Knolle, whatever else," Genna said.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech hall of fame: Gene Knolle's daughters keep his legacy alive