Chris Piper's childhood hoop dreams and his recruitment to KU

Most people know Chris Piper for his role as starting forward on KU’s 1988 national championship team. After KU’s thrilling 83-79 victory over Oklahoma, then-North Carolina coach Dean Smith said Piper played the best post defense he had ever seen. Quite the compliment from the legendary Smith, a Hall of Famer and one of the best coaches to ever live.

But to me, I’ll always remember the skinny forward as Chris Stephenson, my T-Ball teammate who I grew up with in Lawrence. Chris was one year older than me, and I remember also playing two-on-two football with him at Andy Lawrence’s house nearby my home on Park Hill Terrace, along with my friend Clark Sehon, whose dad was a major league baseball scout.

Chris was a humble, genuine kid with straight blond hair who his friends and classmates affectionately called “Snagglepuss.” My defining memory of Chris from childhood came at recess at Broken Arrow Elementary School. Chris, a sixth grader, would always volunteer to be on my fifth-grade team during heated bombardment games between the two grades.

More often than not, with Chris leading the way, our fifth graders would beat the mighty sixth graders. When I met Chris for a 45-minute interview in 1999 for Jayhawk Insider, I asked him why he always volunteered to be on the fifth-grade team. It was a question I had long wanted to ask him.

“I think I always enjoyed a challenge more than anything,” Piper told me. “I always liked overcoming uphill odds to be honest with you. Playing on the sixth-grade team, we’d be the favorites, but playing on the fifth-grade team against the sixth-grade team, we’d be the underdogs. I always enjoyed that. I’d much rather go into something that I don’t have a clear cut chance of winning and have to battle and do it to win it than go in it with a sure victory wrapped up. I remember I always tried to get on the opposite team of Robby (Zinn, the best athlete in school who played college basketball at Vermont) because he’d always be on the team with all the guys that were going to win. I’d always get on an opposite team, which happened to be the younger class because then we’d become the guys that overcome the big odds and beat the sixth graders. I’ve always enjoyed that. I don’t like the easy way, I guess. Maybe that’s a personality flaw. My wife would probably say so.”

Chris, who was our playground hero back then at Broken Arrow, definitely overcame “uphill odds” as a lightly recruited high school player who earned a basketball scholarship from new KU coach Larry Brown. And then, battling against players who were McDonald’s All-Americans like Mark Randall and Mike Maddox, all Piper did was start 69 of 70 games his junior and senior seasons and was one of the best defensive players KU had in years.

Piper is tied with seven other KU players for most career games played in the NCAA Tournament (16), and finished his four years (he redshirted his first season) averaging 3.9 points and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 49.9 percent from the field and 68.4 percent at the free throw line in 128 games.

Not great numbers, but his game transcended pure stats. He was the consummate team player who persevered through injuries, a great defender, a glue guy, and nobody worked harder. Above all, he was a national champion.

Piper’s calling card was defense, which endeared him to Brown.

“I’m not the dumbest guy in the world,” Piper said. “I knew I had to play defense to be on the team. I always took it as a matter of pride.”

Piper, who played sparingly as a freshman, improved tremendously the following season and was a key backup on the 1986 Final Four team. 

Of course, his greatest KU memory is winning the national title. When Danny Manning grabbed the final rebound that magical evening at 10:09 p.m. on April 4, 1988 at Kemper Arena and the buzzer sounded, KU had beaten OU 83-79 and was national champions. Piper came running to Manning, yelling hysterically.

Piper revealed his thoughts at the time about the feeling he’ll never forget.

“Probably the same thing that went through my mind when (Lawrence High School) coach (Ted) Juneau said I got a scholarship,” Piper said. “What’s the greatest thing that you could possibly win in your life and figure out how you’d feel when you won it?’ That’s probably the feeling I had.”

Juneau said his former pupil is a great testimony about the triumph of the human spirit. Juneau remembers all the doubters about Piper when he coached him during his junior season, which happened to be Juneau’s first year as LHS head coach.

“People were saying, ‘You got to cut him,’” Juneau recalled. And I’m thinking, ‘He looks like one of the best players we have.’ Larry Brown took a chance on him to bring him to KU. Hard work paid off for Chris, just the sheer will. He should be an inspiration for a lot of kids who get cut or don’t think they can play.”

Piper led Lawrence High School to its first state title in 1983 over Shawnee Mission South since 1948 and scored a game-high 27 points on 12-of-13 shooting. The LHS 1983 yearbook later noted the contest was “as fine a game as Lawrence has ever seen.” 

The 6-8 forward, who was an all-league and all-state selection, averaged 14.4 points and 8.1 rebounds per game while shooting an impressive 56.7 percent from the field a a senior.

During my interview with my childhood classmate in 1999, here is Piper’s recollection of growing up in Lawrence and his early beginnings as a hoops player and unusual recruitment to KU.

In his own words:

“It was in third grade, we moved in (to Lawrence) from Lincoln, Neb. Born in Manhattan, but I lived in Lincoln. So I covered all the Big Eight. My stepfather had a job opportunity here and that’s why we came down. My dad lived in Manhattan for a long time so there’s a lot of ties there as well. My Mom still lives there (Lawrence). We lived right off of Ousdahl on 19th Terrace. Actually, you can see the fieldhouse from our kitchen window. Pretty close. I was a Nebraska football fan, but that slowly died being here in Lawrence. I remembered I had all the Nebraska ‘71, ‘72, ‘73 stuff. Yeah, once you got here in Lawrence, you couldn’t help but be a Kansas fan. That’s what I evolved into. 

 

“I don’t remember much about KU in the early years, but I do remember buying Hawks Nest tickets when we were in high school that high school kids could buy for cheap. You’d sit up in the crows nest, wherever the corner rafters were. I remember that. Fortunately, for us, in high school, tickets were easy to come by. Unfortunately, for KU, they weren’t that great at the time. I was never a real huge sports fan to be honest with you, not until I suppose I really got into high school when I got more involved in sports.

“I think the first  memory I have of KU is probably Booty Neal. When I think about KU in the past before I got here, I thought about Booty Neal because everybody would get pumped up when he came into the game and shoot the deep ball. Really, I was not a huge sports fan. I’d watch the games, but I couldn’t tell you much about them. My parents didn’t have tickets to it. I’d go whenever I could go with my friends or something like that. It wasn’t very regularly.  

“I didn’t play organized basketball until...I probably played on some Biddy Ball teams. I was never very interested in basketball, baseball was always my favorite sport. Basketball really didn’t become an interest until probably the eighth grade, and that’s mainly because most of my friends were playing it.

“I started trying to play, and I got cut in the eighth grade. Then I made it in ninth grade because they let me. It was down to me and one other guy, and they ended up taking me. I was the last man. I think Rick (Werner) was before me. I don’t remember. I barely made it then. Maybe he (Coach Ron Garvin) was thinking something good would happen down the line. I really had never played basketball other than when you go out for a team. I don’t think you had too many opportunities if I remember correctly. I don’t remember anything, not at all, probably because I never played. Never played at all. I know I wasn’t very good, that’s for darn sure. 

“I think I went from 6-2, 6-3 to probably 6-5 my sophomore year, and finished high school at 6-7. I wasn’t very good my sophomore year, either, but I could run up and down the floor, which was always a benefit for me. When I was a kid, we’d always do things that involved running in pickup games or whatever. That probably helped for my size to be able to run up and down the floor. But I still hadn’t played a whole lot of basketball. It was right then when I got interested in the game for me than just because my friends were playing it. I think between my sophomore and junior year, I started really playing it because I wanted to play and getting more involved and trying to get better at the game itself. Robby Zinn, Paul Johnson, Eric Lienhard, and Jamie Steinhauser —all those guys played all the time. I went to the varsity (junior year).  I probably wasn’t quite ready for varsity. In fact, I know I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready for it mentally because I wasn’t very confident with my ability at all. That probably held me back quite a bit. I probably could have done a lot more if I had more confidence in myself.  t was kind of bad for me for a while, because all my friends were still playing JV. But by the end of the year, what was going to be our senior team were now playing on the varsity as juniors. That was a good way to finish the season.

“I just saw the state championship game last Friday night for the first time. They were playing it at the reception. It was pretty funny to watch. Some guys had some yearbooks, clippings and stuff showing what we did throughout the year. To be honest with you, I don’t remember scoring as much as I did my senior year. I was kind of surprised.  Heck, I never scored more than 10 points probably in college. I had some games that were 20 points or more in high school, which really surprised me. That was a lot of fun that year. We just had a great group of guys. All best friends. Playing together made it real easy. We just had a lot of fun. The nucleus of our team —Robby, Paul, and Eric, and (Kevin) Armitage — those guys had played since grade school and through St. John’s (elementary school) and upwards. It was a lot of fun to play. We were a good team. We shouldn’t got beat to be honest with you that year. We were better than that. But I think we doubted ourselves sometimes as well. It all ended up good in the end.

“I had no interest from any major colleges. Indiana State (Larry Bird’s college) sent me letters, but nobody ever contacted me from them. I just think I happened to be on the mailing list of theirs. Guys that really recruited me were Dodge City, Hutch Juco, and Washburn. At the time, I did not know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to play basketball, and if I remember right, I was probably leaning toward Washburn, maybe because Tom Meier and Robin Riley going there from Hayden. I knew those guys as players, and it was close and it wasn’t a juco. I didn’t think I wanted to go juco. The reason I didn’t want to go juco was I didn’t think I was good enough to play Division I because nobody kind of contacted me. So I thought if there was no end in sight, why waste your time in juco. That was my thought at the time, which was probably not correct.

“All of a sudden, Juneau says, ‘Hey, Kansas wants to talk to you.’ So I went up and had a meeting with coach Brown. I did not know who coach Brown was, never heard of him really. Paul Johnson had said ‘Yeah, Larry Brown’s coming up from the New Jersey Nets, great coach.’ Of course, Paul’s a basketball nut. I didn’t know who Larry Brown was because I wasn’t really a big sports fan. Coach Brown (was) quiet and nice. I came out of the meeting and didn’t know what he wanted me to do. I assumed they wanted me to walk on. So I told coach Juneau. I said ‘Hey, I think they want me to walk on.’

“Coach said he would call them. I went back to class. I was sitting in Calculus class. I think it was (teacher) Mr. (Ray) Wilbur if I remember correctly. Coach came up to the door and told Mr. Wilbur he needed to talk to me. He put me outside and said, ‘No, they want to give you a full scholarship.’ So I said, ‘Obviously yes.’ There’s no question that’s what I wanted to do. He said they wanted to redshirt me next year. I said, ‘That’s great.” That was it.

“I later found out that Kay Johnson (KU athletic director Monte Johnson's wife) had been the one that said, ‘Hey, there’s a guy that played for Lawrence High.’ They took a chance on me and it worked out. I think coach Brown was probably concerned that I wouldn’t want to redshirt, but for me just the opportunity to play at a Division I school, then play at Kansas at home, hell, I’d redshirt five years if I had to.

“Just pure elation. I mean God, I was on cloud nine. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to play at Kansas. I don’t think you could put it into words. It was just the best feeling possible to not knowing what you were going to do and wondering if you were going to be able to go to go to a good school, to be able to go to the best. Walked on? Probably not, because I don’t think I had the confidence to know I could play there. I doubt it. And I don’t think I could have swung it financially either.”