I first wrote about Bud Stallworth on Oct. 31, 2016. Now, I revisit this all-time KU great with another blog post. Stallworth, whose No. 15 jersey was officially retired in the hallowed Allen Fieldhouse rafters on Jan. 31, 2005, is one of only three players in school history to earn All-American honors on the floor and academically. One of the finest people I’ve ever met and a former great student of my dad’s in the KU School of Social Welfare, Stallworth was named the 1972 Big Eight Conference Player of the Year, when he averaged an eye-popping 25.3 points per game.
The Alabama native was a two-time all-league selection and named Academic All-American in 1971 and All-American in 1972.
Stallworth concluded his magical career as the No. 3 all-time leading scorer in school history with 1,495 points (now No. 23). He’s No. 1 all time at KU for most points scored in conference games with 389 (27.8 ppg in 1972) and owns the fifth highest scoring average in a season with 25.3 ppg in 1972.
His 50 points against Missouri on Feb. 26, 1972 during his final home game ranks second behind Wilt Chamberlain on the KU single-game scoring list.
In my three-hour interview with Stallworth in 1990, here’s his recollection of how his childhood hoop dreams all began and his recruitment to Kansas. In his own words:
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“I first started playing probably before I was 5 years old. My first grade teacher asked all the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. I wrote on that piece of paper that I wanted to be a professional basketball player. I was in the first grade when I was 6 years old. I was serious about playing basketball early, and I’m still petty serious about the game. It was an opportunity for me growing up. I grew up in a real small town (Hartselle, Ala.). All the kids were about the same age that lived on my street and came to the school. I was involved with it by the time I was in the first grade. At that time, my school went from one to 12. It was that small. All the students were in one little schoolhouse. Athletics was our outlet. We didn’t have videos or Nintendo games. We played seasonal sports. In the summer, it was baseball. In the fall, football. In the winter, it was basketball. Basketball to me was year round. I could do that by myself. I could do it with somebody else. It didn’t matter. I had an opportunity. I was serious about it as long as I can remember.
“At that time, growing up in Alabama, basically the only contact that I had with the level of basketball were the high school and small colleges in the area. My parents would take me to games sometimes. It was something that I saw on television that I felt was fun. It was something I wanted to do. I liked the game, just had that image that in my lifetime, that I could do that, that I could actually play professional basketball. Some people I guess want to grow up and be doctors. Some people want to be rocket scientists, and I wanted to be a professional basketball player. The good thing about my parents, and especially my father, he wouldn’t let that be my singular achievement. For me to even think about playing basketball, I had to first of all be involved in music, be involved in school —things I had to accomplish in those areas before I could even think about playing basketball. When I look back on that now, I’m thankful that he did that.
“I played every day that it was possible for me to sneak and get a ball in my hands. Also at that time, the first gym that we had in my community was built in ‘63. So I was 13 years old before I had an indoor court to be playing on in a regular basis. It was kind of any time the weather was OK, which is basically summer to fall. And some of the winter was OK, we would go out if it was kind of cold and wasn’t that dreary out and play in the inclement weather. It was the only way to do it at that time. When you say when did I play, I guess it was every time I had a chance to get my hands on that ball. (Laughs.)
“We’re talking about a kid that was average size, a little above average size, but I knew how to get the ball up to the basket. A lot of kids were throwing it and couldn’t touch the rim, but I could get it up and in the basket. And I liked to do that. There were some baskets outside, I’d take my little ball out there and throw it up there and get it in. That was a thrill for me. When other kids were struggling just to get the ball up in the air, I was throwing it in. Whenever my parents looked for me, I was out there doing just that. They didn’t have to worry about me going anywhere, running around town. I was out there throwing that ball into the basket. When I wasn’t in school, I probably played for a couple of hours (a day). If I could get back out and play before it got too dark, I’d play a couple of hours again. The darker it got, the more difficult your shots got. Some people couldn’t see the rim. I got so good, I could always see the vision of the rim being there. We had to entertain ourselves that way. My parents wouldn’t allow that (playing in the middle of the night). I think that would have gotten me grounded from playing doing that.
“I played varsity basketball when I was in the seventh grade, so I knew I could play, but I didn’t have a measuring stick to say what level I could play on. I knew that I could put the ball in the hole since I was old enough to remember because that’s what I knew I could do. I just had that inner confidence that I could do that. The finer points of the game like playing defense and rebounding just didn’t interest me. I liked to score. (Laughs.) Actually in my community, I started playing in pickup games with older guys when I was probably 10, 11 years old. When I say older guys, I’m talking about guys who were either in high school or graduates of high school. We would meet in our little park and get chosen on teams to play. When other kids that were in high school were getting picked over, I was getting picked to play.
“My only vision of other players that were better than me were the professional players like Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor. They were doing some of the same things I was doing. I think I saw Earl Monroe play when I was probably in junior high school or going into high school. He was doing some things I couldn’t do. He could do the twist and the shake, and I didn’t have that down pat. But just coming up, running up the floor, jumping in the air, shooting, I had all that. I’ve had that since I was in the seventh, eighth grade. I could run, jump, and shoot the basketball. Like Jerry West, he would come down, he’d take stutter steps and pull up and shoot a straight jump shot. I could do that. When I saw Earl Monroe take it between his legs, dribble behind his back, twist and spin, that was a new move that I hadn’t accomplished yet. I got to cut Earl out as one of my favorites because I couldn’t do his thing. His thing to me was more, he was tricking people all the time. I wanted to beat them. I didn’t want to trick them. I just wanted to take over. Elgin Baylor, I liked the way he could hang, take it to the basket. He was about my size at the time. I kind of liked to think I was Elgin Baylor. I’d go out on the playground, do the hang, take people to the hole, shoot jumpers on them, learn all the different English moves you had with the ball. Jerry West, Oscar, those were some people (I emulated).
“My size limited me. I couldn’t be Wilt Chamberlain; I wasn’t 7-feet. I didn’t like Bill Russell. I wasn’t that kind of player. He couldn’t score. (Laughs.) Years later, he was my coach in Seattle (SuperSonics), and I still didn’t like him. I still had this thought, ‘This guy couldn’t score.’ (Laughs.) When you say idolize, I kind of would have thought I had an opportunity to be as great as he (Baylor) did doing what he was doing, plus he was in Ebony magazine and doing a commercial or something.
“... After that summer (in 1967) going into my senior year in (high) school, was the beginning of desegregation in the state of Alabama. In most cases, the first thing that people look out is how it can better their program. The athletes were considered the barrier breakers in the state of Alabama. They were being selected because of their athletic skills and if they had good academics. They were being recruited to go and be integrated into the white schools system in the state of Alabama. This brought a whole new wave of notoriety to me and other black athletes in the state of Alabama, because now there was an outlet to go to the University of Alabama, the University of Auburn, and be considered a great person, break through the race barrier, all of this. But they wanted the creme de la creme to do that. I had all the credentials for that. I had the academics, and I had the athletic skills. That brought in a new wave of notoriety for me. All of a sudden, I’m getting the exposure in papers. I’m getting the interviews, I’m getting the recruitment deals all in the span of one year. I said, ‘All of this stuff was building up on me. If everybody thinks I’m this good of a player, I must not be too bad. Hey, I got a real shot now because I got people offering me money and cars and all this to make a decision just for college.’ They’re offering my parents things. High schools in the northeast section of Alabama were starting to call and saying, ‘We would move your family if you came to school here.’ That was a big change for just two years before when we were playing in our own little crackerbox gyms with only our fans there and no press. Now, we got the press. We got radio, TV, packed houses, integrated crowds, college recruiters. That was a big deal in 1967.
“I had made the decision to stay at the school I was at, but the notoriety level there —the press, which makes or breaks anybody—the press that was coming was seeing a kid that nobody ever heard of throwing 40-plus points a game and doing it in a fashion that they hadn’t seen. I was 6-foot-5, but I was playing outside running up and down the court handling the ball. And that was different from basically high school players, who if they were 6-5 or over, they were playing in the middle. I was a little different kind of breed there. Even when I came out here to the Big Eight, KU never had anyone under 6-8 or 6-9 lead them in scoring. Most of their players were big centers that they walked the ball up and dumped it into the post, which was boring as far as I was concerned. Our freshman team, we’d come up and jack up anytime and anywhere. I think I had some impact on the philosophy on how this school has played their basketball in my career. We had big people on the court, but I had a little freedom to put it up when I wanted to, and that was unheard of I was told until my time.
“... My recruiting trip to the University of Alabama was the night they played LSU and they had Pete Maravich. All the assistant coaches were telling me, ‘If you come to school out here, you get a chance to play against Pete.’ I’m sitting here and I’m looking at Pete, whose throwing up every kind of shot you can think about. I said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen me play, but that’s nothing. I can do that. He’s going to have a chance to play against me.’ (Laughs.) That’s just the way it was back then. My senior year in high school, I was averaging probably 45 points per game. I was the first black player to play in the consolidated all-star game at the University of Alabama, won the MVP. We lost the game, but I put on a show down there that they hadn’t seen. I wasn’t living in kind of a bubble. I had played against the best that I knew about, and just from that standpoint, I was there. This guy (Maravich) was out there just throwing up a lot of shots, and I figured if I throw up as many shots as he did, I could get 40 points a game. That’s just the way it was. You’re young and you believe in yourself that much, you just have to go with what you feel, and that’s how I felt.
“Between my junior and senior year, I came to music camp out here (KU). The varsity for KU had just gotten beat and Texas Western had won the national championship. Most of the varsity was in summer school and living in Lawrence during the summer. Against my father’s wishes and just because I guess I had to have the ball in my hands at sometime during the day, instead of taking lunch when we’d have break during rehearsals, I was over at Robinson (Gym). That’s when all the guys would come over and play —Jo Jo (White), Vernon Vanoy, (Rich) Bradshaw, everybody that had been on the team. Jo Jo at that time was an All-American. A couple of other guys were All-American high school players on KU’s team. They had the status of being a major college player, and KU’s tradition is second to none, so that summer, I said, ‘Im out here playing with these guys. I’m just a junior in high school and I’m as good as they are. I was just as good as (White) was. He couldn’t do anything that I couldn’t do, which was score, run up and down the floor and win games. That summer, I said to myself, ‘If this is the best of all players in the country and I can compete with them, then I got a chance. I got a real legitimate chance to get to that level.’ Well, I guess some of the players felt the same way about me. Toward the end of music camp, coach (Ted) Owens called my counselor and asked for me to call. He said ‘some of these players that you’ve been playing against said you’re a tremendous basketball player and we’ve never heard of you.’ I said, ‘Well, I went to a segregated school.’ It was small. In the 60s, Alabama was known as basically a football state. They didn’t care about nothing about basketball.
“... To me, you got to be comfortable wherever you go. If I was going to spend four years anywhere and make this sacrifice to be competitive for an institution, I felt at least I owed it to myself to go where I felt comfortable. I just felt that (KU) was the place. I had met players on the team. My older sister had attended school out here. She liked it. They’re a nationally renowned basketball school and academic school. They had all he plusses. I felt that I could come here and make a mark for myself and probably win a national championship, which is all you can ask for. That’s the reason people go to college, they want to be the best they can be and win a national championship. I felt I could do all that at this school. I don’t know whether I would have come out here if I had not come out here on the music camp. They probably wouldn’t have recruited me. At that time, there were the recruiting wars going on per say in the south. The only visits I made were to the four schools —Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn and KU. Cincinnati was recruiting me, but I was there and that was a big city. I didn’t really feel that comfortable. The most intense recruiting was done in the south and KU. I was probably the easiest person to recruit at KU, but from having the opportunity to spend a little time out here during that camp, but then when I had came back out on my recruiting trip, it was just, ‘I’m sold.’ I had this impression of it being what it was like to be recruited and go to school and have the opportunity again to play for a national championship, to be recognized as being one of the better players in the country. You got the exposure there. Some of the great players in history came through KU. (Wilt) Chamberlain came here. I just felt it was good for me at that time. Alabama’s program was just starting. It was basically (legendary football coach) Bear Bryant was there. Auburn had some minor success, but nothing on the scale at what I was looking at. The powerhouse in the SEC at that time was Kentucky.
“...The reason I had heard about (KU) before, my sister had come out there. But I followed college athletics and basketball because that‘s what I wanted to do. They were among the traditionally top teams in the country. Other than UCLA, who was winning everything at that time, KU was considered a good school in basketball. They were winning the Big 8 a couple of times. When you look at what I was looking at, I was looking at some really small options. Either going to a school in the south, which were only recruiting me, or going to a school which had the opportunity to win a national championship. That kind of eliminated some things right there, other than the cars, the money, and clothes, the money, that I would have probably got at other places. I just didn’t have the comfort level to go somewhere else.”
More from Bud Stallworth on the art of shooting the basketball:
“To me, you’ve got this rim, this circle. You got a sphere, this ball, and you have become accomplished at throwing this sphere in this circle with people on you who were moving at a high rate of speed. That’s a gift, that’s an art. That is an accomplishment. People talk about the kind of skills you need to accomplish something, you don’t tell me that’s not hand-eye coordination, the ability to judge distance, to judge speed. That is something that’s an accomplishment. A lot of people can’t walk and drop a piece of paper in a trash can. To me, I had mastered the whole thing of putting it in there.”
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