When Will Pounds strode onto the Chaminade University campus in the mid-1970s, people took a look at the 6-foot-7, 250-pounder with the disarming grin and immediately began calling him "Big Will."

At the time few had any idea just how big he would turn out to be for tiny Chaminade.

By the time Pounds left in 1979, drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers and the first collegian in Hawai'i to score 2,000 points, they had long since begun to call him other things, too. Like "Mr. Chaminade."

Pounds' death last week in Albuquerque, N.M., of a heart attack at age 49, according to his wife, Yvette, has touched and saddened a generation of Silversword players and fans.

For if the Silverswords' stunning of No. 1-ranked Virginia in 1982 put the school on the basketball map, it was Pounds who, though force of personality, pushed a fledgling program onto the launching pad.

"What he ... and his guys did paved the way for guys like me who came later to play and beat the big teams like Virginia and Louisville," said Mark Rodrigues, a guard on the 1982 team.

When Pounds was recruited off the playgrounds of Pasadena, Calif., to play for CU, he said: "I didn't know what kind of basketball they played. I thought it was in some church league. The important thing was school."

For their part, the Silverswords had no more idea about the wide-body football lineman whose first experience of organized basketball came here.

Together, under the intuitive touch of coach Merv Lopes, theirs became a match made in hoops heaven. Pounds blended with homegrown talents Chico Furtado, Roy Villanova, Alan Silva and Will Pearson among others to form one of the greatest small college teams in state history. They packed gyms and, with rival UH-Hilo, gave UH-Manoa a battle for the headlines.

Their 1978-'79 team, with Pounds averaging 23.6 points and 10 rebounds, went 24-5 — all the way to the NCAA Division III quarterfinals, losing in the gym of eventual national champion North Park of Chicago.

Yet, Pounds' size and power belied a soft-touch left-handed jump shot and gentle nature. "He was one of the greatest human beings I've ever been privileged to coach, a gentle giant," Lopes said.

"I once got into a scuffle at practice and he jumped in to break it up," said Rodrigues, who was coached by Pounds at CU. "He picked me up with one hand and carried me to the side. He then said, nicely, 'just cool off for a while.' "

Pounds' death came a week after Chaminade had appeared in its first NCAA DII championships. "It was very important to him," Yvette said. "He loved Chaminade."

But, then, the feeling was mutual. "Everybody loved Big Will," Lopes said. "He was Mr. Chaminade."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.