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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Dec. 3, 1963
KU Basketball Tradition Hit Peak at 1952 Olympics
EDITOR'S NOTE: As the 1963-64 basketball season opens here this week, Don Pierce, KU's sports publicity director, recalls KU's finest basketball hours in "The Road to Helsinki."
No school in the land can boast a more glittering basketball tradition than Kansas.
Intertwined in the history of 31 conference championships or cochampionships, three NCAA titles (two of the Helms-foundation designated in them days before intercollegiate tournament play) and 27 All-Americans is the singular fact that the Jayhawkers legitimately can claim the father of the game, Dr. James Naismith, and the father of basketball coaching, Dr. F. C. "Phog" Allen.
Naismith founded the sport at Springfield, Mass. college in 1892. Just seven years later he became KU's first coach, serving nine seasons.
HE WAS SUCCEEDED by his most famous pupil, Allen, in 1907. When the latter, still a practicing Lawrence osteopath at 78, told Dr. Naimith he had accepted a coaching job at Baker, the game's founder incredulously replied with a line that has grown famous through the years . . . "Why, Forest, you don't coach basketball. You just play it."
Allen disproved this theory dramatically by guiding Kansas to the first championship of the original Missouri Valley with an overall 18-6 record and concurrently piloting Baker to a 24-0 season.
The following year, he added Haskell, tutoring the three clubs to a fantastic combined mark of 74-10. W. O. Hamilton headed the Jayhawkers through the next 10 seasons before Allen returned in
Naismith came to Kansas in 1898 as director of chapel. Later he became a professor of physical education, a department which he headed until 1925. He retired from active teaching in 1937 and died in 1939.
1920 as Athletic director and basketball coach to serve out a tenure of 39 years.
Probabilities direct the conduct of the wise man—
PRLSERVING THE legacy left to him by Naismith, Hamilton and Allen now is Dick Harp, another conspicuous figure in Kansas cage history. Soon to begin his eighth season, following the same tenure as Allen's assistant, he is the only man in basketball who has taken part in the NCAA finals as player (1940); assistant coach (1552 and 53) and head coach (1557).
playoff champion Caterpillars, and Dan (Tip-In) Pippin, erstwhile Missouri forward, also a member of the champion Cats.
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Oklahoma State, which joined the old Big Seven in 1957, but then was a Missouri Valley member, claimed still another spot with the celebrated 7-footer Bob Kurland, also a Phillips wheelhorse. It was the latter's second Olympic trip since he played with the combined Phillips-Kentucky champions of 1948 at London.
By virtue of winning the title game, Peoria's Waren Womble earned the head coach's post with Allen his lieutenant.
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Completing the array were Cats Ron Bontemps, ex-Beloit; Frank McCabe. ex-Marquette, and Howie Williams, ex-Purdure.
THIS TEAM blended together almost perfectly, uniting in spirit, cooperation and mutual individual respect with one goal in mind, to bring the USA its third consecutive Olympic basketball crown.
Towering above this entire scene of overall brilliance is that brawny gang of twelve seasons past . . . Clyde Lovellette, the 6-9, 244-pound hook-shooting colossus; Bill Lienhard, the deadly Newton set-shooter; John Keller, the tireless battler from the tiny outpost of Page City; Bob Kenney, the driving Winfielder; Dean Kelley, the fire-ignitor from McCune; Bill Houghland, the sinewy Beloit all-round, and lightning Charlie Hoag.
THE TITLE WAS clinched at Boulder, long a Kansas trouble spot, 72-55, with Lovellette broadsiding Colorado with a then-record 41 points.
By the time the Games were ended in Helsinki, Pippin, an ancient enemy from Tigerland, was buddying with his old adversaries from Lawrence. He even plastered his luggage with Jayhawk decals.
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The then Big Seven proudly claimed three of the remaining seven spots on the 14-man squad that went to Finland . Wayne Glasgow, former Oklahoma forward then playing with Phillips 66; Marcus Freiburger, ex-Oklahoma center, who pivoted the
Overall, this club won 28 while losing only three. Aside from the Caterpillars, Kansas State, with one of the finest teams in its history beat the Jayhawks, 81-64, at Manhattan, halting a 13-game winning streak, and Oklahoma A&M hung a 49-45 defeat on them two nights later at Stillwater. However, KU whipped K-State twice that year, 90-88, in overtime, in the semi-finals of the Big Seven tournament, and 78-61, in the return at Lawrence. A&M too fell, at Lawrence, 66-46, with Lovellette and Kenney both climbing beyond 20 points.
Russian challenge at Helsinki. Climaxes were tumbled so closely together, that, at the end, these Jayhawkers were clawing along on a single high plateau of frantic, heart-pounding effort, outdoing themselves, it seemed, as they surmounted each new barrier.
This was the Immortal Seven which won in the far reaches of Seattle, and New York, then filled half the spots on America's Olympic squad to beat down the rising
Once past the shoals of their own conference, the Jayhawks of that season chewed up NCAA opposition carnivorously. TCU fell, 68-64, in the first round of the Regionals at Kansas City. St. Louis' Missouri Valley kings went down in the finals, 74-55, before a record 44 point explosion from Lovellette.
THE BIG GUY got 33 each night in Seattle, as Kansas first dismembered Santa Clara, 74-55, then buried St. Johns, 80-63, for the crown.
Springfield's NIAA champions buckled. 92-65, in the first round of the Olympic playoffs back in Kansas City. This brought the Jayhawks into the crescendo of the entire season against LaSalle, the NIT champions, in the finals of the collegiate Olympic bracket in New York's Madison Square Garden.
Lovellette rampaged for 40 points that night, canning 15 in succession to haul the Kansans
from eight points back to the final quarter to a 70-65 victory. They lost to Peoria's Caterpillars, 60-62, the following night, but they already were safely in the fold.
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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Lawrence
Meeting time: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays
Meeting place: Danforth Chapel
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