PAGE 6. KANSAS CITY KANSAS, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 4, 1941.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be BN

By PAUL 0’BOYNICK N= bf
Officials of the local YMCA didn’t have to go out of the
confines of this city to find a suitable toastmaster for tonight’s
dinner at the local institution, which will be held prior to the
basketball clinic, conducted by Dr. Forrest C. ‘‘Phog’’ Allen,
basketball coach at the University of Kansas, as a part of the
local ‘‘Y’s’’ contribution to the golden jubilee observance of the

invention of basketball by the late Dr. James A. Naismith.

. The individual selected was Maurice L. Breidenthal, president of:'
the Security National. bank, a most loyal alumnus of Kansas ane |

 

sity, who, with C. O. Burnside of Oklahoma City, made the arrange-
ments for a commercial plane to bring Bill Johnson, phenomenal Kansas ;
center of 1932, from his family’s grave lot in the cemetery at Oklahoma
City to the basketball court at Lawrence, Kan., for an important game
with Oklahoma university. Johnson’s father had died on mete yee |
night, and the game between the Jayhawkers and Sooners was sched-
uled for 7:30 o’clock Saturday night. Apparently there was no way |
for Johnson to travel the 400 miles after his father’s funeral the same |
afternoon and play the game. |
Kansas faced a certain defeat and newspapers had already car-
ried the announcement that Kansas would play without their superstar,
Bill Johnson. On the afternoon of the game, however, Breidenthal
phoned Doctor Allen that he and Burnside had made the necessary
arrangements to have Johnson available for the all-important game.
The starting time of the game was changed to 8 o'clock. Johnson, after
a 34%-hour plane ride and thirty minutes overland by taxi, arrived
a few minutes before game-time. It was the tonic that the team needed
and Coach Allen’s crew won, 31 to 27, in a driving finish to give them
undisputed possession of the Big Six conference championship.