Phog reminisces about years gone by
By MARY ARNOLD
Kansan Staff Writer
Eighty-four years is a long time, but for Dr. Forrest "Phog" Allen those years have been filled with many memorable moments. Allen retired in 1956 after 18 years as director of athletics and 39 years as basketball coach at KU.
Tuesday Allen celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday at his home in Lawrence. Cards, gifts, calls and visits from old friends and former pupils and athletes brought back memories to the former coach.
Dr. Allen recalled the 1952 Olympic games in Helsinki where he was coach for the United States basketball team. That was the year KU won the NCAA championship and placed seven players on the Olympic team. At the Games the American team defeated the Russian team twice to win the gold medal.
Allen said it was ironical that this week the Russians and Americans are meeting again in
Phog Allen
Helsinki, even though this time its for strategic arms limitations talks and not a basketball game.
Allen is not able to walk unaided and has been bedridden for the past several months. Even though his condition does not permit him to attend KU athletic events, he still listens to the games and keeps track of what is going on at KU.
Probably the greatest moment of his life was in 1957 in Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy's office.
"Chancellor Murphy called me into his office and told me they were going to name the field house after me. I was so overcome," said Allen, with tears coming to his eyes, "I didn't think I deserved to have it named after me. I thought it should have been named for some scholar or scientist, but the Chancellor said 'You're the one that coaches basketball.'"
Along with coaching basketball, Allen spent one year as football coach in 1920. His team had a 5-2-1 record.
"At least it wasn't as bad a
year as Pepper Rodgers is having," he said. He smiled and then added that he had a lot of respect for Coach Rodgers being able to take the losses so well and not make albis for losing.
Dr. Allen, or Phog as he was nicknamed because he sounded like a foghorn when he umpired baseball games, has written three books on basketball. All three have become texts for coaches around the world.
When Allen first thought of coaching basketball, Dr. James A. Naismith, inventor of the game, told him, "you don't coach basketball, Forrest. You just play it."
Dr. Allen's teams won 24 conference basketball championships and in 1952 won the NCAA crown.
Coach Allen disproved that statement by coaching some of the greatest coaches and athletes in this country.
Among his many awards, Dr Allen cherishes most the Citation for Distinguished Service awarded to him by KU and the Alumni Association, because it is seldom presented to a coach or person associated with athletics, he said.
Even though Dr. Allen can no longer lead an active life, he is not discouraged or disheartened at life
Kennedy's mourn
Funeral to be Thursday
"The only thing that would make him blue," said Mrs. Allen, "is to take him out of Lawrence. Because Lawrence and KU mean a lot to him."
a controversial figure because of his outspoken belief that the United States should stay out of World War II. His views possibly cost him the 1944 vicepresidential nomination.
by United Press International Joseph P. Kennedy, the Massachusetts financier who was a millionaire at 30 and instilled in his children a fierce competitiveness which propelled them to some of the highest offices in the land, died Tuesday in Hyannis Port, Mass.
Kennedy, later to become President, was born May 29, 1917. Two more boys and five girls followed.
Kennedy later became ambassador to Great Britain. He was there during the early bombing of London in 1940 and became
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The Kennedy family was at his bedside when death came at 12:05 p.m. to the 81-year-old multimillionaire father of a President and two U.S. Senators. The Ambassador had suffered the latest in a series of heart attacks Saturday.
Private funeral services will be held Thursday. Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston, longtime friend and religious adviser, will celebrate the mass at nearby St. Francis Xavier Church.
Honorary pall bearers for the service will be the six eldest male Kennedy grandchildren. Burial will be in the family plot in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Mass.
A family spokesman said Tuesday Mrs. Rose Kennedy had asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, 1816 Jefferson Place NW, Washington, D.C.
Graduated from Harvard University in 1912, he made himself a millionaire by shrewd investments and job-hopping through several financial firms.
The heart attack originally had been described as a "minor setback" for Kennedy, who had been confined to a bed or wheelchair since suffering a stroke Dec. 19, 1961 in Palm Beach, Fla.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., spent Monday night in a vigil at his father's bedside. Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis flew in from Greece and Ethel Kennedy arrived from the Washington area. R. Sargent Shriver, U.S. ambassador to France, and his wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver, flew in from Paris. Two other daughters, Jean Kennedy Smith and Patricia Kennedy Lawford, had been with their father during the weekend.
Joseph Kennedy was born in East Boston Sept. 6, 1888, son of Patrick Joseph Kennedy, a saloon keeper and state representative, and Mary Hickey, whose family was "a notch or two" above the Kennedys in the Irish social structure.
The Kennedys made their home in the Boston suburb of Brookline. Their first child, Joseph Jr., was born in July 1915. John F
In October 1914, Kennedy married Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald.
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