Rick Suttle: My First KU Basketball Hero

Rick Suttle was my first KU basketball hero, the first player to give me chills and truly capture my imagination. My first memories of him center around the 1972-73 team or the 1973-74 Final Four team. To this day, I cannot completely remember the exact moment he entered my consciousness as wonder-eyed 6 or 7-year-old growing up in Lawrence about five minutes from Allen Fieldhouse.

But make no mistake, he left an impression on me that has lasted a lifetime.

Suttle, a 6-10 high school All-American from East St. Louis, Ill., made an immediate mark on the freshman team in 1971-72, averaging 22.3 points and 12.5 rebounds per game while shooting a scorching 54.5 percent from the field.

Then, in his first year of eligibility as a sophomore, he led KU with 16.3 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. He was one of the bright spots on that team, which struggled mightily with an 8-18 record. Suttle scored a career-high 28 points against Iowa, tying Dale Greenlee’s 28 against Oklahoma State for the best single-game mark for KU that season. He also grabbed a career-high 19 boards against Notre Dame.

Suttle was awarded for his accomplishments by being named Second-Team All-Big Eight by the Associated Press.

The following year in 1973-74, Suttle was relegated to sixth man as he became one of the top Super Subs in KU history and helped lead KU to the Final Four. If I remembered Suttle from the previous season, there’s no doubt he truly emerged on my radar this year, the Final Four dream team which gave me pure joy and excitement seeing my heroes like Suttle, Danny Knight, Roger Morningstar, Norm Cook, Dale Greenlee and Tom Kivisto displaying their magic in Allen Fieldhouse.

With their remarkable turnaround from the previous season en route to the Final Four, and just how they made a dramatic comeback in the final minutes against Oral Roberts in the Midwest Regional Final, that team made me believe in miracles, that anything in life was possible.

Above all, they made my childhood a whole lot sweeter and brighter.

While all those Jayhawks were my heroes, Suttle stood out the most. At 6-10 with a huge 70s style afro, Suttle was hard to miss. He was regal looking, like a Greek God on the basketball court, long, lean, agile and sinewy, one of the best big man shooters (along with Cook) in the country. I fondly recall watching him swish jumpers from the free-throw line, or just inside the charity stripe.

It was one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen to that point, and I wanted to hold on to Suttle and that Final Four team forever.

As I learned over the years interviewing his former teammates, Suttle was also a very unselfish player. While he came off the bench in 1973-74 and his scoring average dipped from 16.3 points to 11.3 (KU had five players average in double figures that season with Knight top scorer at 12.4 ppg), that didn’t matter to Suttle.

KU was winning games, and he was enjoying the ride.

“Rick Suttle might have been our best player, but he came off the bench,” Morningstar once told me. “He did that willingly. He just said, ‘Hey, if I’m more effective coming off the bench, that’s what we’ll do.’ It was that kind of (unselfish) attitude that everybody had.”

Despite coming off the pine, Suttle still played plenty of minutes.

“Danny Knight would start, but Rick would actually play more minutes during the game, and sometimes, coach (Ted Owens) would play both at the same time,” Greenlee said in a 2000 interview. “We’d run our double low post. Back in the 70s, it was a pretty nice luxury to have two 6-10, 6-11 people in at the same time.”

On and off the court, Suttle kept everybody loose with his joking and eccentric nature.

“I roomed with Rick. He was funny,” Greenlee said. “I can still see Rick. He was late for a practice. To punish him, we had a pre-game meal and Rick was supposed to sing his school song as the punishment. He didn’t know his school song. I remember him going, ‘I don’t know it.’ We said, ‘So pick a song.’ He leaves the room and came in singing “Hello Dolly.” Here’s Rick, 6-11. He actually left the room, came in waving a handkerchief like Louis Armstrong. He had us roaring. Probably every one in the room remembers that. Things like that, he was always good for something. He always kept you loose.” 

Morningstar agrees. He loved being around Suttle.

“Rick was goofy, real eccentric,” Morningstar recalled. “In those days, we had a dress code. We had the same ties, the same shirts, the same coats, same pants, all that stuff that everyone wore. As a team, you walked around. I think it was on our way to Oral Roberts, Rick comes down. We had the option of wearing a tie or wearing those blue turtlenecks with a Jayhawk on them. We all chose for that game and that trip to wear the turtlenecks. Rick comes out with his turtleneck, one of those clip-on bow ties that you slit a spot and put it in.  He was always doing goofy stuff like that.  

“Our last couple of games, I believe it was our senior year, in the introductions, everybody was on the bench and you just ran out from the bench all by yourself and the crowd was going crazy.  Rick stopped and did this goofy dance, he stopped about half way out and put his hands in the air, running in place and spinning around. The crowd went nuts. Coach was just rolling his eyes, shaking his head, ‘What are you doing Rick?’” 

Maybe that dance was something Suttle learned in his fraternity.

“Him and Tommie Smith and a couple of other guys were all in this fraternity (Kappa Alpha Psi),” Morningstar said. “They had all kind of trinkets around their room. Tommy actually was one of my other roommates. He had more (Kappa Alpha Psi) paraphernalia in our room, and Rick had a table full of it.

“... (Suttle) was a legendary Illinois basketball player,” Morningstar added of his former teammate who averaged 26.6 points and 15 rebounds his senior year at Assumption High School. “He was down just across the river from St. Louis. Those players, northern Illinois and southern Illinois were two different worlds from a basketball standpoint. They’d usually meet somewhere for a state tournament. I knew of Rick, how great he was, but I hadn’t watched him play.”

Morningstar was elated to play with Suttle for two years at KU. In their last year together in 1974-75, that team suffered some growing pains early dealing with the loss of their floor general and leader, Kivisto. Still, KU went 19-8 and won the Big Eight championship before falling to Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Suttle became a starter again that season, pacing the squad with 14.6 points per game and earning All-Big Eight honors. He currently ranks No. 37 in school history in career points (1,166), and is tied with Greg Ostertag for fourth all time on the single-game blocked shots chart (eight against K-State in 1975). Suttle is also tied for No. 20 on the school’s all-time double-doubles chart with 11.

After concluding his KU career, he was drafted in the seventh round of the NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers before embarking on an extremely long and successful pro basketball career in Argentina. 

It was 2005 I believe when Suttle came back for the 1974 Final Four team’s 30-year reunion. After the team was introduced at halftime, I walked over to the south end zone behind the goal where Suttle stood (I saw him taking video during the game) and introduced myself to him.

“Hi Rick, I’m David Garfield. You were my childhood hero.”

“Thank you,” he said politely with a deep voice.

I then asked him what he was doing these days, and he said he was coaching ball in Argentina.

It was a very brief conversation, but a very fulfilling one for me. He was gracious, and I know he was reveling in his first time back in the fieldhouse since he left KU and catching up with his former teammates so I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. But I felt at peace talking to him and knowing I had introduced myself to my first KU basketball hero, someone who meant so much to me during childhood.

I walked back to my seat on press row, smiled and took a deep breath.

And whenever I want to see Rick Suttle swishing buckets, grabbing rebounds, or blocking shots like he did in the 1970s, I can pop in the DVD Dale Greenlee (as classy and positive a guy as you’ll ever meet) sent me a few years ago on KU’s 1974 and ‘75 teams and relive part of my childhood, when I was innocent and young and believed everything was attainable.

It was a simpler and carefree time then as I could forget about any problems in school, and cheer for Suttle and his teammates and get lost in the moment in my own KU hoop dreams.

For that, Rick Suttle and the entire 1974 Final Four team, I thank you for those magical memories. You are in my heart, spirit and soul forever.

KU Flashback: Jayhawks post first-ever win over Kentucky in 1973

With Kentucky’s victory over Kansas in the national championship game on April 2, the Wildcats now hold a 21-6 all-time series lead. However, before UK's last two wins over KU (the Wildcats also beat KU early this season in November), Kansas had won three straight with five of its six wins coming in the last eight meetings.

In the aftermath of the national title game, I began thinking of KU’s six wins over Kentucky, the players that made the plays and the specifics of each game. In this blog entry, I travel back in time to Dec. 3, 1973 when KU beat the mighty Wildcats for the first time in school history.

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With KU still winless in the overall series to Kentucky (0-5), the Jayhawks looked to get their first victory over the Wildcats in Allen Fieldhouse on Dec. 3, 1973, three days after crushing Murray State, 103-79, in the season opener. KU hit its first 12 shots after halftime in that game and finished the contest with 49 field goals, a school and fieldhouse record.

Now, KU was looking to keep the hot shooting cooking against the Wildcats, who won their opening game against Miami of Ohio, 81-68.

Even though it was just the second game this season, after going just 8-18 last year, this was a game KU needed to win to get its confidence boosted for the long season ahead.

And they did.

Behind 20 points from junior college transfer Roger Morningstar and strong inside play (KU’s frontline scored 62 points), the Jayhawks notched their first-ever win against UK, 72-61. Kentucky forward Kevin Grevey was game-high scorer with 23 points, though the Lawrence Journal-World reported that Morningstar “did a sticky first-half defensive job” on the Wildcats’ star player.

KU led just 31-28 at halftime, but hit 19 of 31 shots in the second half to build its lead. Meanwhile, the Jayhawks held the Wildcats to just 39 percent shooting for the game.

Morningstar was the star — “This is the biggest game I’ve ever played in my life,” he told the Lawrence Journal-World — but he had help this night from post players Danny Knight (17 points) and Rick Suttle (12 points), who hit shots and also put the clamps on Kentucky’s 6-8 big man Bob Guyotte (1 of 7 shots for just four points), UK’s sixth man last year who was pressed into pivot duty this season.

Coach Ted Owens’ game plan was to get the ball inside to test Guyotte.

“Inside was the place we felt we could hurt them,” Owens said.

KU was now 2-0 and riding high after beating the nationally ranked and defending SEC champs.

"I think we beat a good team Saturday in Murray State, but I think it was important for us to beat a ranked basketball team,” Owens said. “I’m very pleased. We were doing the things necessary to win. This team is more and more beginning to understand the things necessary to succeed. Some of the guys have had all the losing they need. We don’t have to lose anymore to learn lessons. They’ve worked awfully hard to become a team so they don’t want to let it slip away.”

KU marched to the Final Four that season with a 23-7 record, the best turnaround in school history and one of the best comebacks in NCAA history after finishing just 8-18 in 1972-73.

Lewis still 'thrilled' 40 years later

For Part 2 of my tribute to Delvy Lewis, I am posting my Where Are They Now? story I wrote on him back in the March 20, 2003 issue of Jayhawk Insider. A few weeks later that year, KU marched to the national championship game before losing to Syracuse. Nine years later, I’m just sad Delvy passed too soon (last month on March 5) and wasn’t able to see Bill Self’s Jayhawks make their magical run to the national title game on April 2. Lewis, who always bled crimson and blue, would have been proud.


Jayhawk Insider March 20, 2003

Where Are They Now?

By David Garfield

Delvy Lewis can close his eyes and still feel the chills and excitement of those cold, winter nights as a wonder-eyed 9-year-old growing up in Topeka and listening with his dad to the Kansas basketball games on the radio. Clyde Lewis was an avid KU fan who always dreamed of his son playing for KU one day.

They’d cheer mightily for B.H. Born, and oh sure, Clyde would kick the radio when a call went against his beloved Jayhawks. This was their time together, their own sanctuary. For Lewis, it was a chance to grow closer with his father and fantasize about wearing the crimson and blue.

As a high school senior, Lewis was beginning to think his dream would never become reality. Playing in the shadow of superstar teammate Ron Paradis at Washburn Rural, Lewis was just recruited by K-State and a handful of other major colleges. He was actually planning on signing with the Wildcats until the semifinal game against Wyandotte in the state tournament, when Lewis busted loose for 28 points and finally caught the eye of  the Kansas program.

“Of course, when I got the  opportunity, there was no question,” Lewis said recently from his home in Topeka. “They offered me a full scholarship, and I said, ‘Lets go.’ We just are a KU family. My dad was such a fan, and it just kind of rubbed off on me. That was where my heart was.” 

Signing Lewis turned out to be one of the best decisions Kansas head coach Dick Harp ever made. After a brilliant freshman campaign, Lewis started his sophomore season at point guard for the the first part of the season. Then, Harp experimented with different lineups until academic casualties at semester break forced him to insert Lewis back in as a starter.

And Lewis never looked back.

“That’s really I think when I started being better as a player, because I knew that I was going to play,” he said. “I know that it was a fun thing. It was real challenging.”

Lewis averaged 4.5 points per game in 1963-64, while Kansas struggled with a 13-12 record.  After Harp resigned, assistant coach Ted Owens took over the job and improved Kansas to 17-8 the following season. Owens relied heavily on Lewis (9.8 ppg) and other members of the stellar junior class like Walt Wesley, Riney Lochmann, and Fred Chana.

“I think it was our group that kind of laid the foundation to getting the program back on its feet,” Lewis said. 

A great leader, crafty playmaker, and tenacious defender, Lewis was the consummate coach on the floor. He got the team in its multiple defenses, and on offense, his first, second and third priority was getting the ball to 6-11 center Wesley, who averaged a whopping 23.5 points per game.

“Walt would always yell out, ‘Ball,’ in  his deep old voice,” Lewis said. “I was kidding him about it at the reunion (105 year KU reunion held in February). I kept kidding him about yelling out, ‘Ball, Ball,’ because that’s all he did. He wanted that ball, and the coaches wanted him to have the ball. We got him the ball.”

Kansas was, indeed, enjoying themselves and having a ball during Lewis’ senior season in 1965-66. The Jayhawks, who started the season at 15-3, became a dominant team when Jo Jo White became eligible at semester break. KU won its next eight games before getting beat by Texas Western in the Midwest Regional finals.

Despite the heartbreaking double overtime defeat, Lewis was comforted that Texas Western went on to win the national title.

“I’m very happy they won the whole thing, because the coach from Texas Western (Don Haskins) said that was their toughest game when they beat us,” Lewis said. 

Lewis, 59, truly came into his own his senior year, upping his scoring average (10.9 ppg) and leading the team in assists and free throw percentage. He capped a stellar career by being named All-Big Eight. A co-captain along with Lochmann, Lewis endeared himself to Owens and the Jayhawk faithful with his scrappy play and overall work ethic.       

“I think Riney and I were his (Owens’) favorites on that team, because he just appreciated the ‘roll up your sleeves and work,’ and that’s pretty much what Riney and I did,” Lewis said. “I hustled and gave it all I had every game. Everybody did. We had a group that pretty much got after it. We were pretty no nonsense. “ 

Above all, Lewis loved playing for Owens.

“I just have nothing but great words to say about Ted Owens as a coach,” Lewis said. “He was a gentleman. I just feel badly, because I think he’s kind of gotten a bad rap, as far as perception.  He still has a tremendous winning record. .... I just hope he gets some credit for what he did, because I think he did a lot more than people realize. To this day, I have the greatest respect for him. He’s just a neat, neat man.”

After his KU career ended, Lewis spent the next seven years in the insurance business. In 1972, he joined Xerox for eight years before working the next 10 years in upper management for two other copier companies (Savin Corporation and Modern Business Systems). In 1988, Lewis bought his own copier business, which he owned until 1998. He then opened a consulting company, where he does performance and hiring assessments for CEO’s and executives. Lewis continues this business today, along with working 40 hours per week as account manager of outside sales for Office Depot.

It’s been a rich and rewarding business life for Lewis, who is at peace with himself living back in native Topeka. He returned home in 1968.

“I’ve had more success than I probably deserve,” Lewis said. “I think that’s one of the big pluses of going to a school like KU. The recognition — that’s helped big-time, just the exposure that you get has been a real plus.”

In addition to his work, Lewis coaches a touring high school boys select team from Kansas in the summer. Lewis is so passionate about coaching that he hopes to enter the profession full time in the next year.

“I just enjoy the game,” he said. “I enjoy the competitiveness. I just like to compete, and I enjoy working with kids. I always have.” 

When he’s not working or coaching, Lewis loves watching his daughter Mindi play basketball for MidAmerican Nazarene. And when he’s in the stands or out in other public venues, successful people from all walks of life come up to Lewis and tell him he was their childhood hero. Lewis calls that one of the best compliments he could ever receive.

“I‘ve had a number of people tell me that they used to play outside in their own goal, and would pretend they were in my shoes playing at KU,” Lewis said. “That’s kind of a neat honor for people to think enough of you to emulate you in that regard.” 

Indeed, it is. For Lewis, this only makes his decision to turn down K-State and become a Jayhawk 41 years ago that much sweeter.

“It was just a great honor to play at KU,” Lewis said. “It’s a great tradition. To say that you played there and to have some success, is just a thrill.”

A Closer Look at Delvy Lewis:

Years at KU: 1962-66

Career Notables: All-Big Eight and team co-captain in 1965-66...Led team in assists and free throw percentage in ‘65-66 (82.5 percent)...MVP of Big  8 Holiday Tournament in 1964.

Family: Wife, Karen, and children — Kristi, 29, Kerri, 24, and Mindi, 21.

Education: Majored in Education.

Since Leaving KU: Lewis worked seven years in the insurance business before changing directions and entering the copier industry, where he worked for three companies (Xerox, Savin Corporation and Modern Business Systems) for 17 years until 1988. Lewis then bought his own copier business, which he owned until 1998. Next, Lewis opened a consulting company, where he does assessments for CEO’s and executives.

Currently: Lewis owns his consulting business (Corporate Development Services) in Topeka and works for Office Depot as account manager of outside sales.

Hobbies:  Golf, coaching.

Favorite Memories: Playing and beating K-State on television during frosh year in 1962-63.  “That was unheard of back in those days to have  game (freshman) on TV. There were a lot of people interested in it. Everybody was kind of hyped. It was a big deal.”...Shocking Cincinnati, 51-47, on Dec. 7, 1963 and breaking its 80-plus game home winning streak. “They just had some great players. No one expected us to win that game. I think that was a highlight of that year.”...Hitting the game-winning shot at the buzzer against Colorado on March 2, 1964. “The play was supposed to go to Harry Gibson. I think they figured out what we were going to do. ... That wasn’t there so I just took it to the basket and fortunately made the shot. That was a good feeling.”

On the Jayhawks today: “I think he’s (Roy Williams) a great coach. I think he does it the right way. He’s obviously got that tradition where it’s supposed to be.”