aga

Gwin Henry as Director of Athletics and placed me in charge of
Physical Education. Of course, this was a demotion. Apparently
I had failed to get the winning team for the University that the
Regents desired.

"Some two months after January when this change
happened, I received a phone call from Chicago offering me nearly
double the money that I had drawn at the University of Kansas. I
received the phone call while I was shaving upstairs. Coming
down into the breakfast room I said to Mrs. Allen, "I believe I
am going to take that job." I remembered that for several years
I had averaged seventeen hours a day, working, coaching football,
basketball, promoting drives, building the stadiun, founding the
Kansas Relays, and thousands of other jobs. I said, "I guess I
am fed up. I have had too much of it, and I believe I will take
that job.

"You know, husbands have a way of letting down their
hair at times at the breakfast table and when I made this state-
ment a young black-haired freshman said to me, “Well, Dad, Mit
played three years on your team and somehow I had always hoped
that I would have an opportunity to play on your team. I guess
I won't now, will I?"

eee od

My subject at the Rebounders Club was - “when a son
asks for bread would his father give him a stone?"

ee @ @

“When this youngster asked that question I turned
abruptly and said, "It's settled, Bob. I am going to coach
basketball here until you get through college."

"We were riding on the train coming back from Oklahoma
end in fourth place in 1940. Engleman and Kline and other Kansas
boys were jollying each other about the coming state tournament
which was to be held in Topeka, and these boys were bantering
each other about their high school teams, Finally Engleman said,
“All right, we'll see you in Topeka, Klaine. We'll see how good
Hutchinson is without the Mitchell boys." Bob Allen sat across
the aisle studying his chemistry, and looking up from his book,
said, "All right, you guys, none of us are going to be in Topeka.
We're going to be in Kansas City at the N.C.A.A. tournament."

“That remark was a direct challenge to me. I had given
up thinking of even winning a championship that year because the
boys were not big and tough enough and they made too many mistakes,
but when that was said to me I said to myself, "Phog Allen, you
haven't been coaching that team. You're going to get to work."

I made up my mind that if the Kansas basketball team didn't get