Former KU head coach Dick Harp’s enlightened change from Phog Allen in recruiting the black athlete

When Dick Harp became the KU head basketball coach in 1956, he brought a new, enlightened change to Kansas basketball as to the recruitment and treatment of black players than Phog Allen, an old-fashioned man with biases and prejudices.

“How adamant Dick was when he took over the black athlete would not be denied,” Harp’s assistant coach Jerry Waugh once told me. “Dick was just adamant that we will go after (blacks in recruiting).”

And if a hotel refused service to Harp’s black players, then the team would not stay there. That’s what happened in Dallas during the NCAA Midwest Regional in Dallas in 1957 as the hotel denied Maurice King and Wilt Chamberlain.

“At that time, one of my responsibilities was to make sure I handled travel arrangements,” Waugh said. “It was understood if a hotel couldn’t accommodate for us lodging or eating accommodations, (then we would stay somewhere else). When we won the NCAA regional in Dallas in Texas, we didn’t say at the hotel, the headquarters. We had to go in-between Dallas and Fort Worth (in Grand Prairie) because we would not, if they wouldn’t take our black athletes and feed us, we couldn’t stay there. We got on the bus to go to the game, and had to drive one car and we had three escorts.”

After Chamberlain left KU in 1958, thanks to Harp, black players followed in droves. Players like Bill Bridges from Hobbs, N.M., Al Correll, Ralph Heyward and Wayne Hightower from Philadelphia, Jim Dumas from Topeka, and brothers Butch and Nolen Ellison from Kansas City, all made their way to Kansas. Other blacks like Eddie Douglas (he scored 100 points in a high school game) from Philadelphia and Johnny Redwood from New York also came to KU, but left after becoming academically ineligible.

While it may have been unpopular with many KU boosters, Harp was making a statement about giving blacks equal opportunity to succeed. And he implored Waugh to help him with his cause.

“I went back to Nashville (to recruit),” Waugh said shortly after he was hired by Harp in 1956. “John McLendon was the coach at Tennessee A&I, and he had that national all-black tournament at A&I. All the schools in the south were segregated. There was another white coach in the tournament that was in attendance.

“There was a young man, Ronny Lawson, father was in the physics (department) at Fisk University and his mother worked at A&I. He later goes to UCLA. We were there to look at Ronny and also look at the players. Kansas at that time, was one of the forerunner in the recruitment of black athletes. Because of this, Dick’s stance on how we handle it as part of our team, great guy, felt very strongly (about this).”

Correll, who had known Chamberlain from childhood, attended West Philadelphia High School and was a 12-man letterman in four sports. Hightower, from Chamblerlain’s high school at Overbrook, led his team to three city championships.

Both idolized Wilt and wanted to follow in his footsteps at KU.

“The reason we went to Kansas was because of Dip,” Correll told Robert Cherry in his book, “Wilt: Larger than Life.” “He sent me a letter and said I ought to come out (with Wayne).”

Correll told Cherry about he and Hightower’s recruiting trip to KU.

“We visited Wilt’s room,” Correll said. “He had a thesaurus and said that every day he tried to learn a new word. He did that so people wouldn’t think of him as a dumb jock. We were there for four days and he took us everywhere. We’d go to the Blue Room or the Orchid Room in Kansas City. They used to say he spent more time on the Kansas Turnpike than anyone else.

“One night he took us to a club in Topeka, Kan. He was doing about 110 miles per hour in that Oldsmobile he had. We were scared as hell. He had the top down, and he was flying. It was me and Wayne Hightower. We didn’t make a sound. He was flying so fast it was very scary. But that’s the way he did things. Everything was to the extreme.”

With Harp’s first team featuring two black players in Chamberlain and King, his second team in 1957-58 (Chamberlain) and 58-59 (Bill Bridges) teams comprising just one African-American player, the 1959-60 team boasted four black players, including Wayne Hightower, Bridges, Al Correll and juco transfer Butch Ellison, the most African Americans of any Jayhawk squad in school history at the time. KU, which looked to bounce back after last season’s disappointing 11-14 campaign (Bridges was the team’s tallest starter at just 6-5), was boosted with the additions of Hightower and Correll, who became eligible second semester.

KU started the season at just 5-3, including a 66-59 loss at St. Louis. Harp wasn’t pleased with the play of rising star Hightower, who was taking too many ill-advised outside set shots.

“Dick got pissed off and put his butt on the bench in the second half,” said Butch Ellison, who roomed with Hightower at the time. “Wayne gets on the telephone in the hotel, calls an alum in Philadelphia and tells (him), ‘I didn’t come to god damn Kansas to sit on the god damn bench. Fucking coach sent me down. You call that son of bitch and tell him I’m going to play every minute from now on.'

“And he did.”

Harp was angered and frustrated by the influence of alumni, and felt like a victim. So he was pressured to continued to play Hightower “every minute”, and the Philadelphia native blossomed under his head coach’s tutelage. Hightower led the league in scoring at 21.8 points per game, while also grabbing 10.1 rebounds per game. His play drew rave reviews from opposing coaches around the league.

“Hightower is the best sophomore we’ve ever had in the Big Eight,” KSU coach Tex Winter said. “I said basketball player, not most effective basketball player. Wilt was a wonderful physical specimen. But he can’t do all the things Hightower can do. Hightower is a mature player as a sophomore. He’s got a lot of experience. He can do a lot of thing. Yes, he’s the best sophomore we’ve ever had in the league.”

Doyle Parrack of Oklahoma chimed in:

“He could do more than Wilt Chamberlain could at the same point. He isn’t as big physically, but he plays like a cat. Why, he could step into the professional ranks today and make the team as a guard, that’s how well he moves. He can do more to help a team than any sophomore I’ve ever watched.”

While Hightower was a great athlete and sinewy scoring machine, Bridges complemented at center as a rugged rebounding force and capable scorer. He became a two-time All-Conference center and rebound champion, averaging 13.8 rebounds and 11.4 points per game. Bridges’ 386 rebounds in two seasons ranked as a new school mark in league play, eclipsing Chamberlain’s 371. The 1960-61 media guide described him as a “tremendous jumper, despite 229-pound bulk....Great hustler under boards, often making second and third efforts....Often runs every steps to climb in rebound fight.”

With Bridges and Hightower leading the way in 1959-60, KU got hot and won its last eight of nine games in the regular season to capture a tie with KSU for the league crown. Kansas also got help over the stretch run from Correll after becoming eligible second semester. The 6-4 forward was a great role player who averaged 6.3 points and 3.5 rebounds during the final 11 games.

To earn an NCAA tournament berth, KU had to first get by K-State in a playoff game in Manhattan on March 9. Behind Hightower’s 28 points and 21 from sophomore guard Jerry Gardner, KU beat the Wildcats 84-82 in overtime.

After beating Texas two nights later, 90-81, this set up a huge match with Cincinnati and its do-it-all All-American Oscar Robertson for the right to go to the Final Four. But Cincy was too good and KU too tired. Robertson was dominant with 43 points, while Hightower and Bridges both scored 22. Cincy won, 82-71, rallying from a 57-51 deficit with 13:45 in the game as the Jayhawks only scored eight points in the final 8:10.

“With just six players going most of the way, Kansas just didn’t have the gas to go the entire route against classy Cincinnati and the great Oscar Robertson,” the Journal-World wrote.

Hightower, who told the Philadelphia alum he wanted to play "every minute" of every game, admitted he was extremely fatigued.  

“I couldn’t move toward the end,” he told the Journal-World. “I just wore out.”

Despite losing in the tournament, the Jayhawks gave inspired effort. The school’s yearbook, the 1960 Jayhawker, certainly took notice:

“Looking back at the 19-9 season record, the Big Eight co-championship and second place in the midwest NCAA regional, the 1960 basketball season can be remembered as one of the most inspiring in recent Jayhawk annals.”

It didn’t help the short-manned Jayhawks’ chances that 6-5 starting forward Al Donaghue was ruled academically ineligible the second semester. Donaghue, the team’s third-leading scorer at 10.9 points per game, would have helped tremendously. Starting guard Dee Ketchum was also academically ineligible the second semester.

“That was unfortunate,” Donaghue once told me. “But in those days, we didn’t have an academic program that they have now where you knew where you stood all the time. You just didn’t know. I think Dee missed being eligible like I did by just 2/10th of a percent or something like that. It was very sad.

“In fact, Dick Harp used to say if the unfortunate thing hadn’t happened to me, we might have won the the whole thing.”

Donaghue, a two-time Kansas player of year at Wyandotte High School, ended a fine career after initially choosing KU over K-State. He actually grew up cheering more for the Wildcats than the Jayhawks. This all changed, though, when KU made an in-home recruiting visit his senior year with former head coach Allen (he had just retired due to mandatory age requirement) and current head man Harp.

“He (Allen) impressed my mother and father dramatically,” Donaghue said, “to the point that when they left, my mom said, ‘You are going to Kansas, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ That’s where she wanted me to go, and that’s what I wanted to do after meeting Phog Allen and Dick Harp.”

While the retired Allen impressed Donaghue’s parents, it was Harp who transformed Donaghue as a person and player during his KU career. After averaging just 5.0 points his sophomore year, Donaghue boosted that average to 10.6 points per game as a junior in 1958-59 and then a career-high 10.9 ppg his senior year.

Donaghue credits Harp for everything he accomplished, and said it was a joy to play for him

‘”Dick was a fine man,” Donaghue said. “He probably was a better human being than he was a coach. When you say that, that’s not to diminish his coaching ability. He was an excellent coach, but he was just a very saltable, God-fearing, very moral gentleman. Great guy to play for. I enjoyed playing for him. He probably did a lot for me in terms of of helping me grow and develop, and was instrumental in my development. He added a lot to my development as a person.”

While the 1959-60 campaign was a great season, little did Harp and the Jayhawks know they would never return to the NCAA tournament during his tenure.