1. I didn't know quite what to think or say on Tuesday when I found out longtime Louisville men's basketball coach (1971-2001) died.
Denny Crum and my lifetime friend, Terry Turner (KHS, '72), were both the sons of June Turner. They were (half) brothers.
So, when UCLA hired Coach Crum to be John Wooden's top assistant in 1967, my life took a mind boggling turn.
I got to do things I never would have imagined.
In the winter of 1969, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar)'s senior season, Terry invited me to go to Pullman and watch Washington State play UCLA in the not very friendly confines of Bohler Gym. The Cougar fans were raucous in the cracker box of Bohler and homemade posters festooned one end of the gym with messages like "Sidney Wicks, You're so Bush Your Mother Was a Tree" and at least one poster mocked Lynn Shackelford's high arching baseline jumpers.
I was awe struck.
The seats Denny Crum secured for us were directly behind the UCLA bench.
Needless to say, I'd never seen anyone as tall and graceful as Alcindor/Jabbar. That season, Sidney Wicks was a sophomore reserve for the Bruins. He entered the game at one point, received a pass about fifteen feet from the hoop, took a dribble, and made the most powerful and balletic move to basket to score that I had ever seen.
I left Bohler that night eager for the 1969-70 season, knowing that Sidney Wicks would be a starter alongside UCLA's other powerful forward, Curtis Rowe. Everything I saw in Wicks' one flight to the iron on February 15, 1969 was a foreshadowing of his superb play over the next two seasons, especially against Jacksonville in the 1970 NCAA Final when Wicks not only scored 17 points, but, at 6 foot 8, defended Jacksonville's imposing 7 foot 2 center, Artis Gilmore, blocking four of his shots, out rebounding him 18-16, and limiting him to making 9 of 29 shots from the field.
2. That 1970 Final Four was especially meaningful to me because Terry invited me to join him to go to Seattle's Univ. of Washington campus the week before and watch the NCAA West Regional where UCLA, Santa Clara, Utah State, and Long Beach State battled for a slot in the Final Four.
It was my first trip to Seattle. Bill Kramer bought our entire Kellogg contingent the best meal I'd ever eaten at that point in my life at Ivar's. Seattle blew me away. It was my first visit to a city bigger than Spokane and being there lit something inside me, ignited my lifelong love of visiting cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC, London, and others.
3. This evening, a text message came flying in from Sharann, Terry and Denny's sister.
She was reminiscing at home about Denny Crum and asked Terry and me to refresh her memory of the trip Terry and I made to Los Angeles in 1972 to watch the Final Four at the LA Memorial Sports Arena. The games were played on March 23rd and 25th.
Denny Crum was, in 71-72, the Univ of Louisville's first year coach and on Saturday, March 18th, Louisville defeated Kansas State and so the Cardinals advanced to the NCAA Final Four.
Somehow between that March 18th victory and Wednesday, March 22nd, the day Terry and I flew into Los Angeles, our parents agreed to let us go to LA, secured our flights, and got us to the airport in Spokane.
It all happened so fast that I had trouble believing I was actually going to LA, but we arrived on Wednesday, stayed with (I think) Terry's aunt, got to see Denny Crum briefly when he brought the tournament tickets to the house, and by Thursday evening, we were in the stands, several, but not that many rows, up from the court watching Florida State defeat the Univ of North Carolina and UCLA defeat Louisville.
The basketball was thrilling. UCLA's team featured Bill Walton as a sophomore and he was as great of an all around player as I'd ever seen. UNC's squad included Bob McAdoo, George Karl, and Bobby Jones and I was gobsmacked when the lengthy, sharpshooting Seminoles of Florida State, led by Rowland Garrett, Ron King, and Reggie Royals upset the Tar Heels in a 79-75 thriller. On Saturday, FSU continued its upset minded ways and gave UCLA a lot of trouble, but, in the end, UCLA was more talented and better and prevailed, 81-76.
Well, Terry, Sharann, and I got the details of the LA trip all figured out but we weren't quite done staggering down memory lane.
I say stagger because Terry and I swooped into Roger Pearson's apartment in Salem on Monday, March 24 to watch Denny Crum's Louisville Cardinals play Crum's alma mater, UCLA, for the national championship.
I didn't know it at the time, but Sharann was in Portland for a conference that weekend. It's too bad the four of us didn't coordinate a get together and a viewing.
Louisville won that game, 59-54. It was Denny Crum's first of two national titles at Louisville.
Roger, Terry, and I then piled into someone's rig and rocketed to the Ram, a Salem watering hole, for a boisterous and drunken post-game celebration.
We were overjoyed for Coach Crum's success and for Terry's connection to it.
We had the kind of epic celebration together that we were capable of back in 1980 as young guys in our mid to late 20s.
What a blast!
Terry, Roger, and I got together again and watched Coach Crum's Cardinals win their second national title in 1986.
We were much more subdued by then and loved seeing Louisville win, but didn't paint the town afterward.
Our good times watching those two Cardinal championships together came back to me last spring.
Roger, Terry, and I reunited at Terry's house to watch an NCAA championship game in April of 2022 for the first time in twenty-six years and had a great time watching Kansas come from behind to defeat North Carolina. I don't remember any of us being deeply invested in who won or lost. We definitely didn't drink beer like it was 1980.
We were just guys who've been friends for nearly our entire lives, enjoying basketball, the sport that drew us together at the YMCA, in junior high and high school, and enjoying being fans of college basketball, especially those UCLA and Louisville teams coached so expertly, as an assistant and as the head coach, by Denny Crum.
The news of his death awakened immense gratitude in me.
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