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    More University of Kansas Basketball Legends
    More University of Kansas Basketball Legends
    More University of Kansas Basketball Legends
    Ebook208 pages2 hours

    More University of Kansas Basketball Legends

    By Kenneth N. Johnson and Ted Owens

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    KU alumnus and Jayhawk enthusiast Kenn Johnson is back with even more legends and firsts. Notable coaches like Danny Manning, who won the national championship as a player in 1988 and again as part of the coaching staff in 2008, have shaped and molded the team throughout the decades. Players like Raef LaFrentz, who became the first Jayhawks player in twenty-seven years to average a double-double over an entire season, keep the fans coming back for more. From the history of the famous Allen Fieldhouse to current coach Bill Self, Johnson offers a closer look at the team's unique contribution to the sport of basketball.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateSep 9, 2014
    ISBN9781625852236
    More University of Kansas Basketball Legends
    Author

    Kenneth N. Johnson

    Kenn Johnson is a Kansas native with a lifelong love of Jayhawk basketball. He created and maintains www.hoopszone.net, which contains information on every KU player, team and coach since the inception of basketball by Dr. James Naismith in 1898. He holds a doctorate in business and has taught for several years at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Ted Owens served as head basketball coach at KU from 1964 to 1983 (nineteen years). Both his 1971 and 1974 teams won their way to the NCAA Final Four. Overall his teams won fifteen Big Eight titles. Owens was named Big Eight coach of the year six times and is the fourth-winningest coach in Jayhawks history. In 1978 he was named the National Basketball Coach of the Year by Basketball Weekly. Owens is the author of "The Hang Up."

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      More University of Kansas Basketball Legends - Kenneth N. Johnson

      books.

      CHAPTER 1

      NONPAREILS

      The only difference between a good shot and a bad shot is if it goes in or not.

      —Charles Barkley

      In Chapter 1 of Kansas University Basketball Legends, I wrote about two Legends associated with KU basketball who are truly incomparable: Dr. James Naismith, basketball’s inventor, and Wilt Chamberlain, perhaps the finest frontcourt basketball player ever. Listed below are two more aspects of Jayhawk basketball that are unique and worthy of recognition as paragons in the history of basketball.

      ALLEN FIELDHOUSE: THE PHOG

      I’ve been going to basketball games throughout America for over fifty years and have never found a better place to enjoy basketball than at the Allen Fieldhouse. As a Kansas grad, I’m biased of course, but unless you’ve ever been inside the Phog during a Jayhawk basketball game, you cannot realize the electric feeling generated in this outstanding building. This place should be on the bucket list of every sports fan. I’m indebted to the University of Kansas Athletics Department, for much of the following information about Allen Fieldhouse has been obtained from its website (http://www.kuathletics.com/sports/2013/6/27/GEN_0627134307.aspx?path=mbball).

      Named in honor of Dr. Forrest C. Phog Allen, the Kansas Jayhawks’ head coach for thirty-nine years, Allen Fieldhouse is widely recognized as one of the best places in America to watch a college basketball game. The following are some notable quotes about the Phog:

      The best place in America to watch college basketball.

      —Mark Whicker, Orange County Register sportswriter

      When I walked in there every night for 15 years, I got chills just walking in that tunnel.

      —Roy Williams, KU coach, 1989–2003

      Rival coaches consider a visit to Allen Fieldhouse not unlike a visit to the hangman.

      —David Halberstam, sportswriter

      It’s one of the great college basketball venues in America.

      —Dick Vitale, ESPN announcer

      I can’t say I’ve ever been in a better arena.

      —Jay Bilas, ESPN announcer

      The best place to watch a college basketball game.

      —Sporting News’s Mike DeCourcy

      A couple years ago, my grandson Mason and I arrived in Lawrence early for an evening basketball game. As we drove by the fieldhouse, we could see that long lines were already forming and assumed we’d be standing in line for hours. Luckily, though, we found an entry from the administrative building next door and had the fantastic opportunity to leisurely go through the six galleries of the Booth Family Hall of Athletics, a 19,335-square-foot museum adjacent to the east side of the fieldhouse.

      The Story of Sport gallery takes one through the history of KU basketball and features two Olympians’ cases and one dedicated to the incomparable Legend Wilt Chamberlain.

      The Game and Gear gallery highlights the eighteen current KU athletic teams.

      The Kansas Experience Wall highlights the KU athletic traditions, including crimson and blue colors, the marching band, cheerleading, fan traditions, rivalries and media.

      The Hall of Champions gallery displays the many conference and national tournament trophies, as well as the Hall of Fame wall.

      The Basketball Legacy gallery honors the history of basketball at Kansas, featuring photos and stories about Dr. James Naismith, Phog Allen, Marion Washington and Lynette Woodard.

      And the Jayhawk Walk is the hallway that leads into Allen Fieldhouse and displays retired jerseys and photos.

      No arena in the country is more steeped in tradition than Kansas’s fifty-four-year-old Allen Fieldhouse. It is located in the southern sector of the main campus on Naismith Drive (you gotta love that).

      Planning and Construction

      Phog Allen began talking publicly about building a fieldhouse for basketball as early as 1927, but material shortages caused by the Great Depression and World War II put the project on the back burner for several years. Thus, the basketball team played at Hoch Auditorium from the 1927 season to the end of the 1955 season. Hoch had been designed primarily for use as an auditorium and was far from ideal for playing the game, even though KU had many successes there.

      Governor Frank Carlson signing the bill to appropriate state funding for the Allen Fieldhouse on April 5, 1949, in Topeka. KU Spencer Research Library.

      In 1947, a bill was introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives to appropriate funds for a new sports building at KU, but it was defeated. Another push was made in 1949; this one was successful and led to the assignment of the state architect to oversee the preparation of plans and drawings. Nonetheless, another two years passed before sufficient funding could be identified in the state’s budget to move ahead.

      As part of the campaign to gather funding for the fieldhouse, the building was promoted as a benefit for the physical education programs for the growing number of students at KU, as well as to serve as a place for major academic events, such as commencement and convocation. It was also promoted as a facility that could be used as an ROTC drill hall and an armory in the event of a national emergency, as was the case during World War II.

      The Kansas state legislature appropriated $750,000 in 1949 for its construction, and additional funds were authorized in 1951, allowing for the first construction bid to be let that October. Ground was broken in 1951 by Bennett Construction, of Topeka, which had just completed building Ahearn Field House at Kansas State University.

      Allen Fieldhouse. KU Spencer Research Library.

      Initial approval for the massive amount of steel needed (2,700 tons) was gained in November 1950 but did not result in timely delivery of the material. After nine hundred concrete pilings had been poured in March 1952, the project was suspended for lack of structural steel. By late 1953, the steel had still not arrived. An appeal was made to the Federal Security Agency emphasizing the planned military uses of the building, and approval was finally gained. The steel began to arrive early in 1954.

      As completion of the building approached, the decision about its name became an important matter. The names of both Dr. James Naismith and Phog Allen were both considered. While it was against the Kansas Board of Regents’ policy to name any building for a living person, popular support—including a 924–10 (Allen over Naismith) poll taken among students by the University Daily Kansan—was clear. The fieldhouse was to be the house that Phog built.

      The Dedication

      The fieldhouse was dedicated on March 1, 1955, as the Jayhawks defeated Kansas State, 77–66, before an overflow crowd of 17,228, still the largest in fieldhouse history for a basketball game (and it always will be unless the fire marshal disappears or another one thousand seats are installed). There was no TV coverage of note for the dedication game.

      Halftime ceremonies included a pageant with a cast of almost three hundred people, including basketball players and trackmen practicing, graduates in caps and gowns and ROTC students performing marching drills.

      As part of the pageant, a narrator interviewed Dr. Naismith, an actor who dramatically recounted the story of basketball. This began with a reenactment of Naismith’s experience in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the 1890s creating a game that could be played indoors during the winter. As the story progressed from Massachusetts to Kansas, Dr. Naismith met and befriended the young Forrest C. Allen in 1905. The story shifted to focus on Allen as he built his reputation as the father of basketball coaching and culminated with recognition of KU’s 1952 National Basketball Championship and its part in winning the Olympic gold medal for the United States later that same year.

      Among the guests on hand were:

      •   The Allens’ sons, attorney Milton Allen and Dr. Robert Allen, and daughters, Mrs. Jane Mons, Mrs. Mary Hamilton and Mrs. Eleanor Glenn.

      •   Bob Kennedy, president of the All-Student Council.KU athletic director and KU Legend A.C. Dutch Lonborg.

      •   James McCain, president of Kansas State University. Larry Moon Mullins, KSU athletic director.

      •   Fred Tex Winter, KSU men’s basketball coach.

      •   Ernie C. Quigley, former KU athletic director and KU Legend.

      •   Charles Marshall, fieldhouse architect.

      •   Charles Bennett, general project contractor.

      •   John Brown, building supervisor.

      Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy was the first to address the audience, saying, Tonight we have paid tribute to the game of basketball. Kansas University has been the pivotal point of the game for the entire world. Then, Kansas governor Fred Hall officially presented the fieldhouse to KU. Publisher Oscar Stauffer, representing the Kansas Board of Regents, said, By unanimous vote, the regents have named this fieldhouse in honor of a great Kansan, an outstanding coach and a fine gentleman.

      Murphy drew a rousing ovation when he declared, For just about every special occasion at the university, there has to be a queen, and tonight is no exception. Never has there been a more lovely and attractive regent to grace the campus than tonight’s queen, Mrs. Forrest C. Allen. Then, Coach Allen was introduced by the chancellor as a man who not only has built great teams but sound men, as evidenced by the former basketball players assembled on the court tonight. A total of 103 of Coach Allen’s former players were on hand.

      Noted for his memorable quotes and a tendency to speak at length on even ordinary occasions, Coach Allen, then sixty-nine and near retirement, was uncharacteristically brief for this singular honor. He first stressed that he wanted to pay tribute to James Naismith for inventing the game of basketball and imparting so much knowledge and inspiration to him during their years together on Mount Oread. Finally, Coach Allen said, I humbly accept this fieldhouse as a tribute to all the players past, present and future at the university. Again, the crowd roared and continued to express hearty approval when Kansas City alumni leader Scott Ashton presented Coach Allen with keys to a new Cadillac.

      The historic halftime ceremony ended with the band playing Auld Lang Syne as Coach Allen went to the dressing room to rejoin his team, which was being coached on opening night, at his request, by assistant Dick Harp. Coach Allen explained he wanted the players to win for KU and for themselves, not for him.

      The Game

      The outcome of the opening night game was not ensured. KU had lost the three most recent games that season, including the last game played in Hoch Auditorium, against Nebraska, on February 19, 1955.

      But Kansas did hold on to defeat favored Kansas State, 77–67, even though the Wildcats narrowed the gap to three points on three occasions in the final ten minutes. There was no way we were going to let K-State beat us on this night, said sophomore Gene Elstun, who led the Jayhawks with twenty-one points. "Imagine being remembered as the KU team that lost to K-State the

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