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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 22, 1963
1923 National Basketball Champs Return
To the contemporary sports fan, the score 23-20 probably indicates the outcome of a football game.
But, to a group of KU alums who will be returning to the KU campus next week, the figures represent the outcome of a most significant basketball game.
Thirteen members of the 1923 KU basketball team plan to return for a reunion here during commencement week. Discussion at this reunion, no doubt, will touch upon the 23-20 score and the long story behind it.
FOR THE SCORE marked the end of an undefeated conference season for the team of 40 years ago. Missouri was the Jayhawkers' final victim that year. The Tigers lost by the 23-20 score.
Not only did the 1923 team finish undefeated in league action and win the Missouri Valley Conference championship, but it also gained the distinction of being the national champion.
no national championship playoffs were held then. The Helms Foundation annually picked the nation's top team. The 1924 KU team also was named No.1 by the foundation.
Dr. F.C. (Phog) Allen coached the 1923 and 1924 national champs. He also led the 1952 KU team to a NCAA title.
BUT, WHEN thirteen of the original sixteen members of the 1923 team get together here next week. Coach Allen probably will be doing more reminiscing than coaching.
Guards Paul Endacott and Charles Black led the KU team in 1923. Both were all-America selections that year. Endacott received the all-America acclaim in 1922, too, and Black again made all-America in 1924.
Endacott was named Helms Foundation "Player of the Year" and later was made an all-time Helms Foundation all-America.
John Wulf was center of the team and Tusten Ackerman and Waldo Bowman were forwards.
ALTERNATES WERE Bill Crosswhite, A.V. Engel, Byron Frederick, George Glasskin, Ward Hitt, Andy McDonald, J. Robert Mosby, Adolph Rupp, Dan Stratton, Verne Wilkins and A.F. Woosteemley.
Only Engel, Stratton and Mosby, who is dead, are not expected to attend the reunion.
This will be the team's third reunion. They met in 1948 in observance of their 25th anniversary and in 1958, the 33th year since they starred for KU.
ACCORDING TO Woestemeyer, who serves as a sort of secretary for the alums, the Jayhawkers' season-ending game with Missouri at Columbia was their most memorable.
"They had a good team, too." Woestemeyer recalls. "It was nip and tuck all the way. We didn't score many points, but scores weren't very high then. The center jump was still in effect then."
black and Endacott were just outstanding in that game. They weren't large, but they could really
get the ball off the backboard and they were good on defense."
Somebody must have been outstanding on defense that year. Opposing teams only scored an average of 16.6 points against KU in 1923. No other team in KU history has been so effective on defense.
KU defeated the following teams:
THE KU TEAM was the first undefeated squad in the Missouri Valley in about 25 years. In non-conference play, the Kansas City Athletic Club edged Dr. Allen's Jayhawkers, 27-23, for their only loss in 18 games.
KU defeated the following teams:
Creighton, 29-7; Nebraska, 30-20,
36-15; Iowa State, 22-12, 37-17;
Grinnell, 23-8, 38-16; Drake, 32-18,
41-11; Missouri, 21-19, 23-20; Washington, 34-16, 41-14; Kansas State,
44-23, 24-17, and Oklahoma, 27-21,
42-18.
"Doc.' of course, was just starting out then," Woestemeyer says. "Phog' had a lot of zip and go. He could get more out of a basketball team than any coach I've seen."
RUPP, NOW head coach at the University of Kentucky, was a reserve. As Woostemeyer says, "Rupp really came into his own but didn't play much as a Jayhawk."
The positions members of the 1923 team now hold range from a retired Sears and Roebuck manager to a counsel for the Internal Revenue Service.
A. Tusten Ackerman is manager of the North Central division of Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States in Chicago.
Pro Grid Team Owner Recalls Last Meeting with Ernie Davis
By Oscar Fraley UPI Sports Writer
NEW YORK — Art Modell, the owner of the Cleveland Browns, broke a long silence today to tell of the moment Ernie Davis received his message of death and the day last week "when he came to say goodbye."
Modell, a sensitive man, hesitates even now to reveal the details. Davis, the All America halfback from Syracuse, who will be buried today in Elmira, N.Y., died of the most severe and acute type of leukemia.
AND IT IS the courage of the man Modell remembers best.
Last Aug. 1, after the original tests on Davis, Modell was told that Ernie had four weeks to live. But by Oct. 6 doctors reported 100 per cent remission and Davis was called into Modell's office where the Brown's owner waited with two doctors.
"Ernie was perspiring when he sat down but he was completely expressionless," Modell recalls. "Then the doctors told him what he had."
"HOW SERIOUS is it?" he asked quietly.
"It's serious," one doctor admitted. "But it's totally remissive now. People have lived with this for years."
Ernie never fought harder on the gridiron than he did in the weeks that followed. But, because of the severity of his case, it was only a matter of time.
Davis nodded and, Modell remembers, "seemed almost relieved now that he knew exactly what he was fighting." Davis asked that nothing be said about his condition but agreed when Modell pointed out that his continuing activity might be an inspiration to others fighting the disease.
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Then, last Thursday morning, there was a call for Modell from the hospital advising him that Ernie's condition suddenly had become critical.
THEY GROPED for conversation. This time was different from the others.
"I'm sure," Model asserted, "that he had a premonition. I think he
came to sav goodbve."
Then he left, walking straight, if not strong, and with a proud, unyielding set to his shoulders.
Davis entered the hospital Thursday at 2 p.m. Saturday at 2 a.m. he died.
His only regret is he wouldn't tell Ernie about it the day Davis waved "so long."
Charles Black, who coached two years at Grinnell College and six years at the University of Nebraska, is a member of the industrial relations staff of the Owens-Illinois Co. in Toledo.
Waldo G. Bowman has been editor of the Engineering News-Record, published by McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., New York, for 38 years.
William V. Crosswhite is a regional counsel for the Internal Revenue Service in New York and Washington.
PAUL ENDACOTT was elected vice-chairman of Phillips Petroleum Co., Bartlesville, Okla., last spring.
ADOLF RUPP, of course, is basketball coach at the University of Kentucky.
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Ward White, who is retired and lives in Bethel, formerly was group merchandise manager of Sears, Roebuck and Co., in Kansas City, Mo.
A. V. Engel is assistant vice-president in charge of personnel for the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. in Los Angeles.
Andy McDonald is chairman of the department and professor of health and physical education at Southwest Missouri State College. Springfield, Mo.
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W. Verne Wilkins is manager of Union Central Life Insurance Co. in Kansas City, Mo.
A. E. Woestemeyer, who helped arrange this year's reunion, is business manager of the Lawrence Board of Education.
John P. Wulf is resident of the Publishers Business Service, Inc., Chicago.
Byron Frederick is an optometrist in Kansas City, Mo.
Don E. Stratton is with the Aluminum Company of America in Pittsburgh, Pa.
George V. Glaskin is president of the Community Oil Co., West Union, Ohio.
Scheduled activities for the alums during commencement weekend are a reception in the Trail Room of Hotel Eldridge at 3-6 p.m. June 1 and a dinner in the Watkins Room of the Kansas Union at 7 p.m. the same day.
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