And the 69-year-old Guilford College coach recruited enough talent to win national championships in two contrasting sports, basketball and golf, a rare achievement that also makes good trivia.

That dual success is a large reason why Jensen will be enshrined in the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame at the North Raleigh Hilton tonight, along with a star-studded class of Roy Williams, Tom Butters, Leo Hart, Ken Huff, Richard Childress, Curly Neal and Bill Hensley.

In 1973, Jensen's basketball squad won the NAIA championship. It was a dream team that featured future NBA players World B. Free, M.L. Carr and Greg Jackson.

Jensen later made his mark in golf, guiding the Quakers to three national titles, one of them in NAIA (1989) and two in NCAA Division III (2002, 2005). His teams also have finished second four times.

After each national championship, Guilford's most honored coach has cried, revealing a sensitive soul often camouflaged by his fiercely competitive heart.

"He's going to cry at the banquet; I asked him should I bring a handkerchief or one of my towels,'' quipped Carr, who was also famous for his towel-waving act when playing for the NBA champion Boston Celtics.

As a basketball coach, Jensen had teams thoroughly prepared, Carr said, and was adept at making key game adjustments on the fly.

"He was a worrier; worried about every aspect,'' Carr recalled. "That's not a negative. We were always prepared. But we would tell him: 'Relax, we've got it.' ''

To get athletes like Carr, Jensen logged more miles than Gulliver. Sometimes he slept in his car. After 29 years and 386 victories, he stepped down as basketball coach in 1999, but he is still coaching golf, a job he reluctantly accepted in 1976.

"I didn't want to do [golf]; I thought it might take away from basketball,'' said Jensen, who was a man of the court but hardly a man of the links.

He seldom plays. He doesn't give lessons. And if a Quaker golfer needs help with his swing, he sends him to his teaching pro.

"I've never been a swing coach; I know my limitations," Jensen said.

But he knows how to motivate and manage people -- and win championships.

"It's surrounding yourself with great, talented players regardless of the sport, allowing them to get the job done, and having help from assistants and administrators," he explained.

Jensen, who came to Guilford as Jerry Steele's assistant basketball coach in 1965, also had the backing of former Quakers athletic director Herb Appenzeller.

"He's unique, so loyal... and absolutely knows how to win,'' Appenzeller said. "He's one of the best recruiters. ... He [knows] what to look for."

In 1976, Guilford golf was down, floundering in Bogeyville.

"I was really competitive,'' Jensen said. "I had learned enough from basketball if you recruit five good players, you're going from bad to pretty good in a hurry."

By his third year, Guilford finished third in the national tournament, and the talent kept coming from near and far. Two current players are from Scotland.

Golf was a different sort of sport for Jensen. Where he had been allowed to vent and employ multiple strategies in the madhouse atmosphere of hoops, he had to rein in his emotions at the sedate club courses.

"In basketball, if they fouled up, I used to get on them," he said. "I had to learn to treat golfers differently. You can't yell at 'em or holler on their back swing."

But former Guilford All-America Robert Linville said the coach knew a lot about golf, how to manage a round, and "push the right" motivational buttons.

Jensen, married with two children, was a "gym rat" in Bloomfield, N.J., who got cut from the high school basketball team as a senior. Persevering, he wound up on the varsity one season at Wake Forest primarily as a "practice player," and he also ran track and played tennis one year.

"A Jack of all trades, master of none,'' cracked Jensen, revealing a bit of his self-effacing wit.

He likes to tell of being a "50 percent" career shooter at Wake, adding that he made one of his two field-goal attempts.

While at Wake, Jensen didn't plan to coach basketball or golf, but now is the most celebrated coach in Guilford history and has been elected to five Halls of Fame.

Playing for fabled Deacons head coach Bones McKinney, assistants Charlie Bryant, Al DePorter and Jack Murdock, then working on Steele's Guilford staff for five years, helped shape him as a man and coach.

So did the influence of Wake professor Jasper Memory, who taught a course on "attitudes and appreciations" that helped Jensen "learn how to conduct myself and treat people."

"He's a great fit for Guilford,'' said Dave Walters, the school's sports media relations director. "He is able to find the overlooked [athletes] and help them achieve at a very high level."

Although Jensen had heart surgery (five bypasses) in 2000 and is past traditional retirement age, he wants to continue coaching -- and winning titles.

"I have no plans to retire," he said. "I love to compete. I have this need to compete and am able to do it with golf."

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