During the 2003 NCAA basketball tourney, CBS-TV presented a feature on the “10 best coaches” in college annals. Most of the choices were no-brainers, but there probably were at least a couple in there you might wonder about.
Like Pete Newell and maybe John Thompson. And some were irked by the inclusion of Bob Knight if for no other reason than he’s Brash Bobby Knight. Yet everyone in this pantheon won at least one national title, and the selectors had the good sense to include Kansas’ Phog Allen.
Doc finished ninth on the list, as I recall, but he at least made it. He should have been higher considering his massive contributions as the designated Father of Basketball Coaching. He was given that name, of course, by the guy who invented the game, James Naismith.
No. 1, naturally, was UCLA’s John Wooden with his string of 10 titles in the 12 seasons from 1964 through ’75. Nobody ever will match that. Wooden posted a 664-162 record in 29 seasons at Indiana State and UCLA, a percentage of .804. That falls short of the 879-254 record of North Carolina’s Dean Smith in 36 seasons, and the 876-190 by Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp in 41 years as the Bluegrass Baron.
Rupp’s winning percentage was .822, at least four wins in every five games for more than four decades. Love him or hate him, as so many did, Adolph ran the table pretty impressively.
People often point out a team had only to win four tourney games (instead of the current six) during the Wooden Era. Still, a 40-0 mark in those 10 title-winning years ain’t bad.
CBS’s No. 2 and 3 choices were purebred sunflower seeds. Smith at No. 2 played at KU and assistant coached briefly after the ’53 season prior to Air Force duty. Dean was an Emporia-Topeka product whose gleaming escutcheon was tarnished a bit, rightly or wrongly because of the recent Roy Williams kidnapping.
With time, they’ll probably be back.
The relentless Rupp, from Halstead, was a substitute on Phog Allen’s national championship teams of 1922 and ’23 at Kansas. As the Wildcat major domo, he developed a reputation of show-no-mercy and take-no-prisoners and was never lovey-dovey with Phog. Former Kentucky star Bill Spivey said “Adolph started out to make everybody hate him and he pretty well succeeded.”
Yet Adolph used to come back for some of the reunions of the ’22-23 guys and could be disarmingly charming. If he and Doc Allen had daggers on hand, just in case, they kept them under their coats. Sometimes you’d even see them chuckling together. Outwardly they seemed amenable since both were brilliant actors.
I was able to recall the rest of the top 10 list with the help of Fran and Jess McNellis, sports fans par excellence. The others, in no particular order, were Lute Olson (Long Beach State, Iowa, Arizona), Mike Krzyzewski (Army and Duke), Bob Knight (Army, Indiana, Texas Tech), Hank Iba (Northwest Missouri State, Colorado, Oklahoma A&M-State), John Thompson (Georgetown) and Pete Newell (Michigan State, California).
Pete who? He won an NCAA crown at Cal in 1959 and is revered among fellow coaches for his tactical sense and the way he can turn big men from pig’s ears into nylon pocketbooks. Didn’t work with KU’s Eric Chenowith, but nobody’s perfect.
Now consider all the guys with great records, lots of victories and all sorts of contributions who didn’t make it. Clarence “Big House” Gaines of Winston Salem won 828 games. Jim Phelan of Mt. St. Mary’s coached 49 years and won nearly 850 games. Jerry Tarkanian won often but doesn’t belong with the guys on the CBS list.
Ed Diddle of Western Kentucky had a fabulous career, and Kansas product Ralph Miller made the Naismith Hall of Fame at Wichita, Iowa and Oregon State. He’s another Phog Allen product; Dutch Lonborg with his long career at Northwestern played his final KU season (’20) for Doc.
Some might think Temple’s John Chaney should be included for doing so much with so little for so long. He never won The Big One like those in the throne room.
Another Kansas guy who is a Naismith Hall of Famer with a 25-year record of 523-165 at North Carolina College, Hampton, Tennessee A & I, Kentucky State and Cleveland State is John McLendon. He was the first African-American to graduate from KU with a degree in physical education in 1936; his skin-tone prevented him from KU competition. Still, Phog helped John every way he could. At Tennessee A & I he won three straight NAIA titles, 1957-59, the first black to do that and the first to be voted into the Naismith.
McLendon is one of several guys I’d boost up the list over the likes of Lute Olson and John Thompson. Jackie Robinson is always my choice at the greatest athlete of all-time because of his great social impact and the fact he did it in arguably his fifth best sport, baseball. Jackie was even better in football, basketball, track and tennis. McLendon also made a huge impact on the sport of his choice.
By now is anyone getting even a faint idea about the colossal footprint Kansas has stomped into college basketball, first with Naismith and then Phog? That doesn’t even take in Doc’s success in thrusting the game into the Olympics and engineering the March Madness we celebrate today.
I’d move him ahead of Dean Smith and Rupp, mainly because I’m still peeved with the Deaner and never was too taken by the rascally Rupp.
