Few Manitobans can lay claim to the title of champion as much as Rick Watts can. A multisport wonder, Watts excelled in track and field and golf as a student at Dakota Collegiate. But he was a two-time provincial champion and all-star in both basketball and volleyball in 1970 and 1971 as a leader on the Lancers team, setting the stage for an incredible run of national titles at the junior, university and senior men’s basketball levels. Watts says there’s no doubt: his national championship hoops title with the University of Manitoba Bisons in 1975-76 is his single biggest thrill from an illustrious career that spanned 1969-1983 and included eight national titles altogether.

“The one that really stands out in my mind was the national championship with the U of M in basketball,” Watts said. “In my second year, we were a terrible team. The Bison tradition had always won with the likes of Bob Town, Angus Burr, Ross Wedlake, Ted Stoesz and all these guys. It went down for a year and then Martin Riley came and Grant Watson came and Doug Froese came and Greg Daniels came and we just grew as a bunch of guys, a bunch of local guys. We lost on a last-second shot in 1975. We should have won it that year, we just sort of blew it at the end. But the next year we won it. We were all from here, home-bred guys playing against all these teams, especially down East, who had all these Americans. We just dominated them. And then the nucleus of that team went on to win all those Nicolett Inn (Canadian Senior Basketball) championships as well (1979, 1980, 1982).” Watts retired as the Bisons’ all-time leading scorer and fourth leading rebounder.

He was also a member of Canada’s World Student Games basketball team that finished fourth in 1973 in Moscow and was on Canada’s national basketball team in 1975, a late cut from the squad that competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Watts, 6-foot-4, was also an elite volleyball player. He was a hitter in volleyball, a member of the Manitoba squad that won the 1970, 1971 and 1972 national junior titles and the 1971 squad that claimed the gold medal at the Canada Winter Games. He was an alternate on the men’s national team even as his major focus was on basketball. Watts says he chose hoops over volleyball because of his love for the game, even though choosing volleyball might have gotten him farther in that sport. “I know I would have been a better volleyball player,” he said. “I probably would have advanced farther in volleyball. I’m pretty sure I would have made the national volleyball team, I think that would have been a given. They had started that professional volleyball league in the States, I think that I could have played in as well.” “But it’s the love of the game, there’s no doubt about that. My dad (Ralph) played basketball and coached basketball and was part of the administration of the game as well in Manitoba. He’s a member of the Hall of Fame from the 1954 Paulins team. It was based on, really, the challenge and love of the game.”