Calvin Thompson’s childhood hoop dreams and his recruitment to KU

In my last blog post, I wrote about the KU basketball legacy of Calvin Thompson, Greg Dreiling and Ron Kellogg. Now, I write more about Thompson and his early childhood hoop dreams and how he always wanted to become a Jayhawk. I got great mileage from Pony during our 90-

minute interview at his home in 1999, some great candid information he shared with me. In fact, as I told Pony, it might have been the most candid interview I've ever had in my 31-year writing career. I'll always be grateful to Calvin for opening up to me. Not only was he a great player, he is even a better person!

The 6-6 high-flying guard was named a high school All-American by Basketball Times and Basketball Weekly, and was the most sought after player in Kansas in 1982 during his senior year when he averaged 21 points and 11 rebounds per game. Thompson led Wyandotte to a 22-1 record and third place in the Kansas state tournament. He shot better than 59 percent from field during his career and dished out four assists per game.

Here is Thompson’s recollections of his basketball life growing up in Kansas City and what brought him to Kansas. In his own words:

“Growing up, I was a little fat kid that wanted to be accepted by his peers so everybody was playing sports. I started shooting; I couldn’t run so I just started shooting. I would put marks on the ground and mark it good and just shoot, shoot, shoot it. Everybody wanted me on their team because I could score. I was in the fifth grade and I just started playing. And then eventually I got to running and losing weight and this and that. All my friends started to play Biddy Ball at a very early age, and I had some catching up to do. I started out late. But like I said, I would used to spend time shooting, and back then, I had to shoot well enough to be picked on somebody’s team to be accepted. Guys, now, they don’t practice on their shooting. I go out there 50 pounds overweight and I’m still going to shoot the ball.

“I always considered Nate Thurmond (a hero and 6-foot-11 NBA Hall of Famer). A lot of people didn’t know who Nate Thurmond is. My friend, whom I grew up with, he had given me Nate Thurmond’s nickname. I didn’t have any college heroes. My deal was I wanted to be the first to go to college in my family. I knew my family couldn’t afford to send me, so my deal was picking up a basketball and trying to earn a scholarship. My mother laughed at me, and that sort of hurt me. I wanted to get the last laugh. (My Mom said), ‘What do you know about a scholarship?' I was in the fifth grade and in my neighborhood, we didn’t talk about college. But I wanted to go to college. I didn’t have the desire to play professional ball afterwards or none of that. I just wanted to go to college. Looking back, she could have patted me on the back and said, ‘Yeah, baby.” But no, she laughed because growing up, they thought I was a comedian anyway, so she thought it was funny. You know, a little fat kid who had never played basketball in his life, here I’m telling her I’m going to go to college and play basketball and get a scholarship. 

“As a ninth grader, Cotton Fitzimmons (Kansas City Kings head coach), he invited me down to practice with the Kings. I started playing with those guys like Kevin Loder, who was a helluva jumper. I used to go at him, and dunk on him and Scott Wedman. They’re like, ‘Who is this kid?’  When I got their attention down there, Reggie King —I talk to him every day, he’s a good friend of  mine, Joe C. Merriweather, and Sam Lacey —they’re like, ‘You can play.’ Sam was funny.  He used to always tell me I was “child abusing Scottie Wedman.” I was like, ‘if I could do it to these guys, of course I can play in college.’

“Back then, all you’d hear in the news was Jayhawks.‘What’s a Jayhawk? I want to be a Jayhawk.’ So it was just seeing a Jayhawk everywhere and knowing it was close to home, I just wanted to be a part of it. Later on, I learned about the history. I committed when I was a ninth grader. Back then it was legal. I verbally committed as a ninth grader, and then again as a sophomore in high school. I said if KU wanted me, then I was going to go there from the very beginning. They sent me a  letter as a ninth grader. I said, ‘I’m going,’ so they didn’t have to recruit me anymore. As a 10th grader and 11th grader, Missouri’s coach Norm Stewart  and a couple of other coaches around the country had called my principal and said it wasn’t fair —the recruiting process — if I’m going to commit early. So why not deny my commitment and let some other players get seen and this and that. So he (principal) explained to me that although I thought personally that KU was my team — I didn’t want to waste anybody else’s time or my time and their money trying to get me to come on visits — I said, ‘I’ll deny my commitment but I’m going to KU, just so other players could get seen and coaches could still come in and visit and they could look at the other players.’ I had to go on record denying that I was going to KU, but they knew all along I was still coming.  

“They (other schools) still recruited me, but I never took a visit. A lot of my letters went unopened, and after they started sending money to all these recruits, I went back and started looking for money. I just never opened my letters. My mother had fun with all that stuff. She had trash bags full of letters and boxes full of letters from other schools. There were over 250 different schools. My deal was why go on a visit and waste somebody’s time and money if I know where I’m going. It was KU all the way.

“Now, I’m friends with a lot of the older players. But before then, I had to go there to learn the tradition  — the Jo Jos, and the Wilts, and the Morningstars, and Clyde Lovellettes and Black.  Growing up, I didn’t know about any of that. Darnell (Valentine) was locally from Wichita and Lynette Woodard was big back then. Darnell, they were our nemesis in high school, those Wichita schools. We ended up getting beat by Wichita West my senior year in the state tournament. I was familiar with Darnell and Aubrey Sherrod, and Xavier McDaniel, Cliff Levingston, Antoine Carr. Especially the Carrs, they were big in Kansas. I was familiar with them. I wanted to stay close to home. After becoming good in high school and becoming an All-American, I realized it was something special going on and I wanted my family to be able to come and watch me play. 

“I broke my ankle in the state high school tournament (my senior year). I was invited to a couple of (all-star) games, but I wasn’t able to play. I couldn’t even finish the state championship game. ...We couldn’t afford to go to camp.  The only camp I went to was KU’s camp, and that was because they were recruiting me. That was the only camp I ever went to. That was the only I visited I’ve taken. I was an easy recruit.”

More about Calvin “Pony” Thompson

Thompson will never forget what a KU alumnus told him when the Jayhawks were recruiting the hoops sensation from Wyandotte High School in Kansas City.

“’You’ll be a Jayhawk for life,’” Thompson recalled. “That meant a lot to me, and it still stands.”

He never looked back on his decision to attend KU.

After all, Thompson helped lead Kansas to the 1986 Final Four, where he was named to the All-NCAA Midwest Regional Team and concluded his career as the fourth-leading scorer in school history (now No. 20 with 1,548 points). With most of his shots coming from long range before the three-point shot, Thompson was one of the best shooters in KU history and shot a blistering 53.4 percent from the field for his career, including 56.6 percent as a senior.

He also brought the alley-oop dunk to KU. Watching Pony catch a lob pass by point guards Cedric Hunter and Mark Turgeon and throw it down was an electrifying sight to behold.

Moreover, he set a school record with 33 consecutive free throws, which stood for 21 years.

Thompson’s road to greatness got off to a tragic start when his dad, Horace Young, died of a heart attack in Allen Fieldhouse during his first college game. While it was a heartbreaking loss, Thompson was at peace knowing his dad was able to “come watch me” fulfill a childhood dream of playing college basketball.

Thompson rebounded from adversity and was selected to the All-Big Eight Second Team his freshman season in 1982-83, which he earned again as a sophomore. He ended his career fifth all time at KU in assists, ninth in steals, 19th in rebounds, third in minutes, and 13th in blocks. 

He ranks No. 5 in school history in career free throw percentage (82.1) and No. 7 for single-season free throw percentage (85.9 in 1984).

Despite taking a backseat his last two seasons behind stars Danny Manning and Ron Kellogg, Thompson wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was the consummate team player who didn’t care about individual statistics.

“All I cared about was winning,” Thompson said. “If I go back in college and change, then Kansas is not Kansas now. We’re not 35-4 (in 1985-86). If I listen to all of my friends and say, ‘You got to be selfish if you want to go pro. You got to quit passing the ball so much.’ I got the ‘most unselfish’ trophy award. But if I’m not that Calvin, then we’re not Kansas. I rather win as a team. If I wasn’t the Calvin I was in college, then we wouldn’t be the Kansas we were then and we wouldn’t have put Kansas back on the map.”

Thompson played his freshman season for coach Ted Owens and his last three years for Larry Brown. Among his highlights and career accomplishments were scoring 26 points against Michigan State in the 1986 Sweet 16 and career-high 30 points (15-20 FG) in an upset win over Oklahoma in the first round of the Big Eight Tournament in 1983.

Thompson loved playing for Brown, although they had some rocky times together, especially when Brown took the head coaching job in 1983 after Owens was fired.

 

“He came in and wanted to know who the bitch was running things,” Thompson said. Thompson, who described himself as a “cocky, arrogant freshman,” spoke up.

“’Me,’” Thompson told Brown. “We needed a leader. I thought it was a good thing.”

Brown apparently felt otherwise.

“We got off on the wrong foot. (Things) weren’t very good at the beginning,” Thompson said with a chuckle.

“He said we were his stepkids and we were going to be really good when his kids came in,” he said. “So how does that look on us. ... (I’m) not going to sit back and agree with him.”

But Brown, Thompson, and the Jayhawks eventually saw eye to eye. 

“You see how good it got in 1986,” Thompson said.

Thompson said Brown wound up being a great influence on his life.

“He opened my eyes and prepared me for life after ball,” Thompson said. 

Emotional team meeting propelled KU to the 1986 Final Four

I'd like to thank Calvin Thompson, one of the best players and shooters in KU history, for this extremely candid interview in 1999 at his home. We talked for 90 minutes in one of the most candid interviews I've done in my 23-year writing career. This is a look back at how KU's run to the 1986 Final Four was all possible after an emotional team meeting in the spring of 1985, when head coach Larry Brown apologized to his players for the way he mistreated them during the 1984-85 season.

…

Kansas basketball's road to the 1986 Final Four 32 years ago all began when Calvin Thompson walked by Danny Manning on campus shortly after the Jayhawks lost to Auburn in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 1985.

“We started crying at the same time,” Thompson told me during an exclusive 90-minute interview in 1999 for Jayhawk Insider.

These were tears of frustration and heartache from handling coach Larry Brown’s verbal abuse during the season. Brown, who blamed a few losses on Thompson, Manning and Ron Kellogg, was so overcome with emotion that he actually told his three star players “not to come back — to transfer.” 

The team leader, Thompson knew something had to change that day he saw Manning on campus. After immediately holding a players’ meeting in the locker room, Thompson called the basketball office and asked Brown to come down. 

“He said he wasn’t coming,” recalled Thompson, “and I told him we weren’t leaving.”

So Brown reluctantly walked down to the locker room. Thompson described what transpired.

“’We’re here for you,’” he told his coach, who had been experiencing marital problems and taking “it out on us.”

“’We want you to be here for us. We need to get on the same page.’ We didn’t leave the locker room until he apologized to everybody.”

Brown did so and the Jayhawks got “on the same page.”

“He realized he needed to make some adjustment. You see the results in ‘86,” Thompson said about the 35-4 Final Four squad. “We’re one of the better teams in Kansas history.”

Indeed, they were.

Kansas won the most games in school annals at the time and still holds KU’s single-season field goal percentage record (55.6) while advancing to the national semifinals for the first time in 12 years. With Greg Dreiling (11.6 ppg) at center, Manning (16.7 ppg) and Kellogg (15.9 ppg) at forward, and Thompson (13.4 ppg) and point guard Cedric Hunter (9.1 ppg) in the backcourt, this was an extremely potent offensive team that shared the ball very well.

The Jayhawks, who boasted four career 1,000-plus point scorers (Manning, Dreiling, Kellogg and Thompson) for the first time in school history, went eight deep with post player and defensive presence Chris Piper, sweet shooter/swingman Archie Marshall, and fiery point guard Mark Turgeon coming off the bench.

And each player knew their role, including the last man on the team.

“Jeff Johnson (sophomore walk-on) or whoever was the last one on the bench ... but they were so important to our team because they made us practice,” Thompson said. “People don’t realize that. It’s not an individual game. Practice players and bench players are just as important. We wouldn’t have had the great success we had if we weren’t a team.” 

This was, indeed, a close-knit family who endured some rough times the first few years when Brown took over the head-coaching job in 1983 from the fired Ted Owens.

”I didn’t like the way he treated us when he first came,” Thompson said. “He said we were his stepkids and were going to be really good when his kids came in. So how does that look on us. Not going to sit back and agree with him. I was still a little smart-mouth kid ... It was just like a marriage; you already got a family established and here comes a new daddy. ‘Why should I do what you say when you’re not my daddy, you’re not my kid?’ It was the same thing. There were some growing pains initially.”

After a “year and a half, two years, team meeting after team meeting, things clicked.”

“The adversity we had to get through just to get adjusted to coach Brown, it brought a lot of us closer together,” Thompson said. “It helped us to grow. When we became close -- (we’d go to) movies, study hall (together). We could depend on each other on the court.”

That was certainly the case during the 1985-86 season. KU stormed to a 12-1 start with its only loss to Duke in the Big Apple NIT in Madison Square Garden on Dec. 1, 1985. After losing a heartbreaking 83-80 overtime game at Memphis on Jan. 4, the Jayhawks took their play to a higher gear, winning 23 of 24 games and capturing the Big Eight Championship and conference tournament title before advancing to the program’s first Final Four since 1974.

While the Final Four seemed KU’s destiny since the season kicked off with Late Night with Larry Brown in October, the players weren’t just satisfied with being one of the last four teams standing at Reunion Arena in Dallas.

“We’ve wanted to win it all from day one,” Marshall told the Lawrence Journal-World at the time.

Standing in KU’s way of a date in the national title game was No. 1 Duke, the team which had given the Jayhawks just one of their three losses during this magical season. Plagued with foul trouble (Manning, who scored a career-low four points, fouled out, along with Hunter and Dreiling), KU still found itself tied with the Blue Devils 67-all when Duke forward Mark Alarie missed a shot in the final minute. However, Kansas missed a box out and Danny Ferry grabbed the offensive rebound and scored a layup to give Duke a 69-67 lead with 22 seconds left.

Kansas had a final chance to tie the game with four seconds left when Kellogg pulled up from 25 feet and released a jumper that all Jayhawks prayed would hit nothing but net.

The shot bounced harmlessly off the rim, and KU’s national championship dreams were over.

Thompson called the setback a “devastating loss.” And he still can picture Ferry grab that critical offensive rebound and putback.

“How many times have I seen that over and over?” Thompson lamented.

Louisville went on to beat Duke in the national championship game. KU had beaten the Cardinals earlier that season, 71-69, on Jan. 25 in Allen Fieldhouse.

“We knew we were the best, but the best team really seldom wins it,” Thompson said of falling short of a national title.

While Thompson and the Jayhawks were devastated, Turgeon took the loss especially hard. A diehard KU fan growing up in Topeka, the 5-10 point guard was the only KU player seen crying in the locker room afterwards.

“I’ve been a KU fan all my life,” Turgeon told the Wichita Eagle at the time. “I guess I took it like a fan would.”

The Jayhawks’ spirits would be lifted soon afterwards as fans turned out to fete the team during a parade on campus along Jayhawk Boulevard. KU could also be consoled knowing it was one of the best teams in school history.

Brown, who led UCLA to the national title game in 1980 and guided Kansas to a national championship in 1988, has said time and again that 1985-86 team was the best squad he ever coached in college.

“From top to bottom, it was as talented as any team I’ve ever been around,” Brown told ESPN Regional Television’s “Kansas Basketball: A Century Of Tradition” in 1998. “Night in and night out, I think that team played up to its potential as much as any team I’ve ever been associated with.

               

“I think if any team deserved to win a national championship, that team probably deserved it as much as any.”

                

While the ‘Hawks fell short at Reunion Arena, that dream team put Kansas back on the national map to stay. KU’s continued to build off that squad’s success and reached eight more Final Fours since then, including winning the 1988 and 2008 national championships.

                

The 1985-86 team’s legacy lives on over 30 years later.

               

 “That’s where we are where we are now,” Thompson said.

But to get to that Final Four in ‘86, the Jayhawks and Brown first had to resolve their issues after that turbulent 1984-85 season. Kellogg cried when Brown told him, Thompson and Manning to transfer. 

“’This is my home, (Brown) will leave before me. Danny’s not going anywhere,’” Thompson told Kellogg. "(Kellogg asked), ‘But what about me?’"

Although Thompson said “we’d laugh about it,” the Jayhawks were hurting inside. Thompson stressed that he wasn’t going to sit back and let Brown “walk over us and treat us like crap.”

The KU players weren’t the only ones upset with Brown. Some alumni told Thompson that “until he apologizes, they wouldn’t be affiliated with the school anymore.” 

Thompson said Brown “got caught up in his emotions. ... Maybe that was his way to get the fire lit under us.”

In any event, Brown apologized to his players during that emotional team meeting in the spring of 1985. That was, indeed, the defining moment which made the journey to Dallas and the Final Four all possible.

“You can ask anyone who played for Larry, and everybody thanks him for that,” said Thompson, who has since become good friends with Brown and laugh with each other about their old conflicts.

“We all learned from it and grew. Larry grew from it, and not only made us better players, but better people. We were blessed to have him.”