Dick Harp sought a higher calling and purpose in coaching

Former KU coach Dick Harp dearly wanted to win, but he sought a higher calling and purpose in coaching. He believed strongly in sportsmanship, racial equality, and playing the game the right way. 

On Feb. 17, 1958 during a Border War game against Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse, Harp made a stand on principle that was actually a detriment to his team. It happened with 5:35 remaining in the game and Kansas leading 77-66. 

This was an important game for KU, which entered the game tied with Colorado in second place in the Big Seven at 7-4.

When MU guard Jerry Kirksey went to the foul line for his one-and-one, the crowd madly protested the call. The Lawrence Journal-World reported the “crowd started the feet stomping, shouting routine. ... The most obvious noise was the stamping of feet on the metal floor of the balcony, primarily on the west side of the arena.”

Upset and unable to concentrate with the noise, Kirksey handed the ball back to the referee. The noise persisted. After a third try and after assistant coach Jerry Waugh stood and tried to silence the crowd “to no avail,” Harp asked the referee to give KU a technical foul.

Afterwards, the noise “was quelled sufficiently” and Kirksey made the three free throws. “Later whenever MU boys were at the charity line, there were volleys of ‘shushes’ from the irate audience.”

KU went on to win the game, 84-69. Afterwards, MU coach Wilbur Stalcup commended Harp for asking for the technical. Stalcup told the Journal-World that Harp showed courage and that he admired him. It was “a great act of sportsmanship by a great sportsman.”

Harp, who won three Big Eight Holiday Tournaments and two conference championships while leading KU to the 1957 NCAA title game during his eight-year tenure, explained his actions.

“These people were our guests,” Harp told the Journal-World. “We sometimes find ourselves complaining about crowds on the road and yet how can we point the finger of guilt when we’re as bad as they are - maybe even worse? I kept waiting for the noise to die down so the Missouri boy could get his shots, but it didn’t. I finally decided that the only thing that would do it was a technical, so I asked for it.”

Even after losing the national championship game in 1957 to UNC — a defeat that would pain him the rest of his life, Harp — called the “fiercest competitor of all” by the Journal-World’s Bill Mayer — was a class act who put the game into perspective.

"We started out this year with two main goals," Harp told his players, as reported by the Journal-World. "We wanted to learn how to play basketball well and we wanted to learn how to be better people. You've done a wonderful job of both, regardless of tonight's outcome. Everyone in Kansas is proud of your behavior, and I'm the proudest of all. I think we've all learned what is right and wrong and that's more important than basketball. If you work hard, do your best and try to be gentlemen, you'll generally win and succeed. That didn't quite work out tonight, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep right on trying for those goals. Because it's been proved they're the best ones in the long run."

Like any good coach with honor and integrity, Harp took full responsibility for the loss.

"If anyone is at fault for losing, it is I, for I'm the one who told you what to do and when to do it,” Harp told his team. “The plays were my choices. You did all anyone could do to carry out the assignments and I'm the proudest man in the world. You musn’t waste time blaming yourselves. I know all of you feel that you might have lost it. That's foolish. No single play won or lost this game. If you feel you made an error, think of the times you've done good things this year and tonight, things that got us this far and kept us in it right up to the finish. Each of the 16 boys on our squad has contributed greatly to our success this year. Losing is painful, but you did the best you could. You're the greatest kids I've ever known and No. 1 in the world to me!"

Despite his remarks, Harp spent the rest of his life wondering what might have been.

“It was a disappointment to, of all people, Dick Harp,” Harp’s former assistant Jerry Waugh told the Kansas City Star in March 2010 about losing to North Carolina. “He really suffered with letting Kansas basketball down. It really hurt him. In his eyes, he had failed to keep the torch burning.”

But to Waugh and many of his players, Harp was a giant in his profession.

"Dick was one of the most underrated coaches the college game has ever seen," said Bill Lienhard (he was a member of the 1952 NCAA title team when Harp was an assistant under Phog Allen) after Harp died in 2000 at age 81.

"He developed the defensive scheme which led us to the national championship and which Dean Smith took and refined so productively at North Carolina after learning it as a KU player under Dick and Doc (Allen). John Wooden at UCLA used the same principles in his long run of championships.

"Dick never got enough credit for all the things he developed and he was a top-notch citizen and Christian gentleman along with all of it. You can't imagine the long list of players and students who believe Dick added countless positive things to their lives."

Waugh also speaks with reverence towards Harp. Waugh was also a player at KU when Harp was assistant coach.

"Dick was first my coach, then my head coach but most of all my friend,” Waugh said. “There is no way to describe how my life was enriched by my association with him. I was saddened by the way his health deteriorated (in his latter years) but I can bypass that by remembering the many great times we had. I never got up to go to work with Dick that I didn't feel excited and blessed. There were laughs, heartaches, successes and failures but he made my life so much better than it would have been without him. His sense of humor was inestimable.

"In my opinion, Dick was a basketball genius who never got enough credit as a strategist and innovator. He was ahead of his time in many, many respects and made a far greater impact on coaching than most realize. He was a key figure in the middle years of Kansas basketball. Dean Smith carried away a lot of good things from Dick, and passed them on to Roy Williams, so in a sense, we have seen a full circle from Dick to Dean to Roy. There is no way to express how my life was enriched by Dick Harp.”

“Dick had a great coaching mind,” Waugh added in “What it Means to be a Jayhawk.”

“As a technician, there were no superiors. ... But Dick didn’t have total control of recruiting at KU, and that troubled him. Dick wanted to exclude the involvement of alumni in the recruiting of athletes. He went to the administration at the time and asked for their support. He was turned down. They were people of great influence, not only in athletics, and keeping them away would be a hot potato the administration didn’t want to touch.

“In his own eyes, I think Dick saw himself as a failure. I don’t think he walked away from all of this feeling fulfilled.”

But to Waugh and the people that knew Harp well, he was a great coach and human being who made a huge impact on people’s lives. Floyd Temple, a former KU athlete, KU assistant football coach, and longtime KU baseball coach, said Harp was a superior person.

"Dick was one of the great people I've ever known,” Temple once stated. “There's something special about KU that turns out folks like that, and I've been blessed to know a lot of them like Dick. He was one of the most impressive, God-fearing guys I ever met and I often used him as a role model. So did a lot of others around the campus, athletes and otherwise.

"Dick seemed to have a good word for just about everyone even if they weren't too favorable to him. I only regret that he had some difficult times near the end. It had to be tough, but he surely left a great legacy for KU and KU athletics."

Mayer stated he left a great legacy to not only KU, but to society.

“He long has had one of the keenest basketball minds extant and is recognized for that. But like most of the great ones, Harp's best contribution to society is as a strong moral and ethical citizen,” Mayer wrote in 1994.

Al Correll, who played for Harp in the late 1950s and early 60s, said his former coach cared passionately about KU basketball.

“To Dick Harp, wearing the Kansas uniform has a special significance,” Correll told “Max and the Jayhawks.”

“One night we had finished practicing, and we were not doing very good. It was my senior year and I was the last one out of the locker room. As I was leaving, I looked out on the floor. The whole court was dark and there was one light on above the big scoreboard and it shined down on the big K on the floor. 

“Coach Harp was sitting there in a chair by himself on the big K with the light over his head. It was kind of an eerie thing, and I walked out to check on him. I looked at him  and asked, ‘Coach, are you all right?’ He said he was fine, but he just couldn’t understand why a player wouldn’t give his all and realize how important this game is and what it means to wear a Kansas uniform. He was real serious. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as strange as I did at that moment. It really hurt him.”

Harp had countless admirers, in addition to Waugh, Lienhard, Temple, Mayer and Correll.

Just listen to Bob Kenney, who who played on the 1952 national championship team. He said Harp taught the players about basketball and life.

“If Harp had a fault, he was too nice a guy. The only thing I can tell you is he was as close to a father as I’ve ever had,” Kenney told “Kansas Basketball: Legacy of Coaches.”

Just ask Bill Hougland, who also played on the 1952 title team.

“He was happy to do what he was doing (as an assistant) and let Doc take all the credit,” Hougland told “100 Things KU Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” 

“Dick scouted (opposing teams). He’d go to games, come back, and have it all written up. Dick was really good at that. Doc was the motivator. Dick was the one who really got us playing the way we had to play to win.”

Just listen to Everett Dye, another member of the 1952 championship team.

“He knew what he wanted, he knew how to communicate it and he did in such manner as you wanted to listen. I have all kind of affection for that man, always have, always will,” Dye said.

And just ask Dean Smith, the legendary Hall of Fame coach and still another player on the ‘52 title team.

“Dick had the brightest basketball mind of anyone I’ve ever known,” Art Chansky quoted Smith as once saying about Harp in his book, “Dean’s Domain.”

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 prejudices.

"Doc Allen had his biases," said Jerry Waugh, Harp's assistant coach from 1956-60 and a great defensive player under Allen who was nicknamed "The Sheriff."  "

"It was the times. It wasn’t that he was different from anybody else at that time. When I was playing there, we had a meeting, maybe ‘48 to decide whether we would accept a black player on our team. Doc discussed and presented to the team that there was to be a vote whether we could take them. (Allen said), 'This changes the travel arrangements, changes eating accommodations and it presents so many problems.' Most of us, I didn't give any thought to that. I thought we’d go with Doc. Later on, I thought about it, why what was the problem then, and I didn’t see a problem, when maybe I should have seen the problem.” 

A revolution changed when Harp replaced Allen.

“How adamant Dick was when he took over the black athlete would not be denied,” Waugh said in 2008. “Dick was just adamant that we will go after (blacks in recruiting). He was a forerunner, a great guy and felt very strongly about (recruiting the black athlete and keeping the team together on road trips).

"When Dick took over," Waugh said, "that ended," he added about players all staying together.

Indeed, 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 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 and black walk-on Jerry Johnson left KU in 1958, thanks to Harp, black players followed in droves. Players like Bill Bridges from Hobbs, New Mexico, 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 guards Eddie Douglas (he scored 84 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 prejudiced KU boosters, Harp was making a statement about giving blacks an 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 (former KU student and first African American to graduate from KU in 1936 with a physical education degree) 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 having two African Americans (Chamberlain and walk-on Jerry Johnson from Chanute) and 58-59 (Bill Bridges) teams comprising just one black 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 Lawrence 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 during a Where Are They Now? interview. “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 after Harp was previously burned in effigy on the KU campus, little did he and the Jayhawks know they would never return to the NCAA tournament during his tenure.

More about why Dick Harp quit as KU head coach in 1964

Dick Harp made a huge statement and gave blacks an equal opportunity to succeed by starting four black players in the 1960-61 season (Nolen Ellison, Bill Bridges, Wayne Hightower and Al Correll), three years before the Civil Rights Act and five years before Texas Western made history by starting an all-black lineup in beating all-white Kentucky in the 1966 national championship game.

Harp’s starting of four blacks didn’t set well with many KU boosters and fans. Harp actually had seven black players on his 1960-61 team (Butch Ellison, Ralph Heyward and Jim Dumas were the others), an unheard of number at that time. In 1962, the national average of blacks on integrated teams was just 2.2 and blacks represented only 10 percent of players throughout the country.

Sports Illustrated reported in 1968 that “sometimes an alumnus would come to Harp and refer to the team’s black athletes as n----s, ‘and I’d get so mad I wanted to kill him.'"

Harp also became conscious of what he heard from fans during KU home games.

SI writer Jack Olsen stated that Harp “heard certain sounds from the cheering section whenever they started a few Negroes.”

“They’d play Sweet Georgia Brown, the Harlem Globetrotters theme song, when our boys came on the court, or they’d take the Kansas yell --’Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, KU,’ and change it to ‘Rock Chalk, Blackhawk, KU,’” Harp said.

This troubled Harp deeply.

Olsen stated that “Harp first began to think of quitting his job as Kansas coach on the day he found himself wondering whether it would offend the Kansas spectators if he started four Negroes.”

“All four of them deserved to start, but the mere fact I had to think about whether I should start that many brought me up short,” Harp said.

Olsen wrote that “Harp played the four and kept on playing them, but the insults of the fans and digs from alumni wore him down. ...He could feel the pressure for a quota system and he did not want to be a part of it.”

Three years after the 1960-61 season, Harp quit as KU head coach. There were other reasons he stepped down besides the "pressure for a quota system."

Max Falkenstien wrote in his 1996 book, “Max and the Jayhawks,” “that there was a decaying undercurrent in college basketball that troubled Harp, a coach whose honesty and integrity were deep-rooted. The pressures of recruiting and competing for the top players made the job of coaching an unhappy venture for him. There couldn’t be a more moral, idealistic, straight-shooter in the world than Dick Harp. He didn’t like what he saw in the profession.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t have any control over the trend of cheating that was rampant all over the country. He didn’t believe in it and didn’t participate in it.”

Harp’s former players understood why he resigned.

“That state of college basketball in the early 60s, the various pressures, the recruiting pressures, the way things were being done, were at odds with Dick’s sense of values. I think that was a struggle with him,” Harry Gibson told "Kansas Basketball: 'Legacy of Coaches.'"

“He was a very religious man and the times and things that were changing in athletics were kind of bothering him,” former All-American Walt Wesley added.

While Harp kept to himself when he resigned, his emotions exploded during his retirement dinner when he pointed and lashed out at specific alums for his decision to quit. To make matters worse, Phog Allen spoke at the dinner and had some unkind words about his former assistant.

Monte Johnson served as master of ceremonies that night.

“I introduced Doc that night, and he went to the microphone and he had not said hello before he mentioned that Dick Harp was not his choice to be basketball coach at Kansas following him,” Johnson told “Max and the Jayhawks.”

“He said it was Ralph Miller and in case they didn’t hear him, he repeated it. I reached up, and as best I could, pointed back to his notes, hoping he would return to talk. You could have cut the air in that room with a knife. Up until then, I didn’t realize the feelings Doc had. Dick kind of had a smile on his face during Doc’s remarks.

“There was no one more loyal to the University of Kansas than Dick Harp. I don’t think to this day I’ve heard anything come out of Dick’s mouth about what happened at that dinner.”

Johnson talked more about that dinner in an interview with the Kansas City Star’s Blair Kerkhoff in 2007.

"You could have heard a pin drop," Johnson said after Allen’s remarks. "I was sitting next to Dick, and you could see the hurt on his face. He had been so loyal to Doc as an assistant coach, and this was his thanks."

While Allen’s remarks obviously pained him, Harp took the high road.

“Dick turned the other cheek on that one and accepted it,” Waugh told me in 2015. “He took that from Doc, and yet he cared so much about Doc. Doc was an old man and he had an ego. Dick would have done anything for Doc Allen. Doc was as close as a father as Dick was concerned. Dick was so supportive of Doc, cared so much about him. ... That was a hard one”

Harp was a man who just didn’t get his respect, even at his own retirement dinner and even from the man who hired him as his assistant, the one who launched KU to the national championship in 1952 with his innovative defensive strategy that revolutionized college basketball.

Dick, you will never be forgotten and will always have my greatest respect and admiration. You left a lasting legacy on KU basketball and college hoops history. The world needs many more people like Dick Harp, a man who believed so strongly in racial equality. Dick made society a much better place.

Bill Bridges was a three-time NBA All-Star and explosive rebounder and double-double machine

I am finally down to the top-five former Jayhawks who had the best NBA career. This player easily deserves recognition at the No. 5 spot, one of the great rebounders in not only KU history, but also NBA annals. Bill Bridges was a true warrior who made a huge impact on the game.

No. 5 Bill Bridges

A rugged, relentless rebounder and double-double machine, this undersized 6-6 power forward was all passion and heart when it came to crashing the glass. Bill Bridges, who played for the love of the game, had a very memorable 13-year NBA career from 1963-75 for the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.

Amazingly, Bridges ranks with Wilt Chamberlain as the the only former Jayhawks to average a career double-double in the NBA. Bridges accomplished this rare feat with 11.9 points (11,012) and 11.9 rebounds (11,054) per game. Bridges, who also averaged 2.8 assists, made three All-Star appearances in 1967 and ‘68 with St. Louis, and in 1970 with Atlanta, highlighted with a 15-point, seven-rebound performance in 21 minutes during the 1968 game.

A third-round draft pick (No. 32 overall) by the Chicago Packers (now the Washington Wizards), Bridges ranks No. 27 in NBA history in career rebounds and No. 17 in career rebound average, while listed No. 25 in career playoff rebounds with 1,305 boards in 113 games. He finished in the top-10 in rebounding during seven seasons, while ranking in the top-10 in minutes during three campaigns (1966-67, 1967-68, 1969-70).

Bridges, who is second behind Chamberlain among former Jayhawks in all-time NBA rebounding and sixth in career scoring, was a consistent player who averaged a double-double for nine-straight seasons from 1964 to 1973. His best year statistically came in 1966-67, when Bridges averaged career highs in points (17.4 ppg) and rebounds (15.1).

Bridges, who made the All-NBA Defensive Second Team in 1968-69 and 1969-70, was also a workhorse who played in at least 78 games for 10-straight seasons from 1963-73. Four times, he played in all 82 games.

Wait, there’s more. Bridges played over 40 minutes per game in five different playoffs, where he shined in the postseason. He averaged 20.3 points and 14.9 rebounds in the playoffs in 1966, 15.7 points and 18.8 rebounds in 1967, and 9.8 points and a whopping 20.8 rebounds in 1971.

His numbers decreased the last two seasons of his career, and Bridges was waived by Los Angeles during his last campaign on Dec. 6, 1974 before Golden State signed him on March 1, 1975 for the stretch run. Bridges played 15 games for the Warriors during the regular season and 14 contests in the playoffs while winning his first NBA championship, a most fitting end to a remarkable and magical career.

Bridges played in 926 games while shooting 44.2 percent from the field and 69.3 percent at the free throw line in 33.3 minutes per contest.

After his KU career ended in 1961, Bridges began his professional career with the Kansas City Steers in the American Basketball League (ABL). He played 1 1/2 seasons with the Steers before the league folded. However, Bridges was a star who won a championship and led the ABL in rebounding both seasons while pacing the league in scoring (29.2 ppg) during his second year. He established the ABL single-game scoring record with 55 points on Dec. 9, 1962.

Kansas City native and future Jayhawk standout Ron Franz (1964-67) used to follow those Steers’ games closely and viewed Bridges as a hero.

“He was pretty unique in the fact for his size, he was probably one of the toughest rebounders,” Franz once told me. “He played in the NBA for quite a few years. I guess if anybody that I would recall or remember or think about in that particular time frame, it probably would have been him because I did go to the old Kansas City Steers’ game. He was an interesting player.”

A Hobbs, New Mexico, native, Bridges first made his mark at Kansas, where he was a three-time All-Conference pick and an All-American his senior season in 1961 after averaging 16.1 points and 14.1 rebounds (third-best single-season average in school history). He became the first player in a Big Six-Seven-Eight career to score more than 1,000 points (1,028) and grab more than 1,000 rebounds (1,081) in just 78 games, while his 580 boards in conference games is still a record.

Moreover, Bridges holds the Kansas record for most rebounds in a three-year career. Bridges, who grabbed 30 rebounds versus Northwestern on Dec. 3, 1960 (third best at KU for single game and most by a senior), averaged a double-double every season at KU and left his mark with a 13.2 scoring average and a 13.9 rebound average (No. 2 in school annals behind Chamberlain). 

Forty-three years after he ended his tremendous collegiate career, Bridges’ No. 32 jersey was retired in Allen Fieldhouse on Dec. 9, 2004.

The Lawrence Journal-World reported on that historic event.

“I feel I belong here,” Bridges told the crowd during his speech. “It’s always been a privilege to be a Jayhawk. People come up to me and Jayhawks have great name value. To have my jersey retired in this place, it’s an honor.”

He died on Sept. 25, 2015 in Santa Monica, California, at age 76 after a prolonged battle with cancer. A moment of silence was given to him during Late Night in Allen Fieldhouse a few weeks later on Oct. 9.

Bridges always took great pride in rebounding.

"I maintain there's nothing you can do to create that kind of player. It's an art form," Bridges told the Journal-World in 2004. "You learn to anticipate situations and make it happen. You've got to want it."

Ted Owens, who was an assistant under Dick Harp when Bridges played at KU, said the former Jayhawk All-American was an exceptional rebounder.

“He was truly one of our greatest players. He was the finest rebounder for his size of anybody I’ve ever seen,” Owens told the Journal World on Oct. 8, 2015. “He taught me a lot about rebounding. He had an incredible career in the NBA, winning the championship with Rick Barry and that bunch.”

Former KU standout Al Donaghue also had great respect and praise for Bridges. The two were teammates for two seasons (1958-60) as KU won the conference championship in 1960 with Bridges and Wayne Hightower leading the attack.

“Bridges was probably the most intense rebounder I’ve ever met in my entire life,” the late Donaghue once told me. “He was just animal. I use that as a lovable form. He was just great on the court as an intense rebounder.”

Donaghue had the great fortune to also team with Chamberlain during the 1957-58 season.

“It was interesting to play with them,” Donaghue said about Wilt and Bridges. “It was a real treat to battle against them in practice. They made you better.”

Bridges truly blossomed under Harp after arriving at KU as a raw prospect. The late Al Correll, who teamed with Bridges, spoke about the New Mexico native in Max Falkenstien and Doug Vance’s 1996 book, “Max and the Jayhawks: 50 years on and off the air with KU Sports.”

“Bill is probably the strongest non-athletic person I’ve ever known,” Correll said. “He had the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. He had no other thought on the floor but go get the ball. He knocked me out about three times with his elbows. He was so brutal under the basket. People want to talk about coach Harp and his coaching ability ... let me tell you ... Bill Bridges couldn’t have made my high school team. Coach Harp made Bill Bridges. There is no question in my mind. From what he learned from coach Harp, Bill was able to play at the pro level for a very long time. He worked with him every day on basic fundamentals. What a strong man Bill Bridges was. What a fighter. I doubt if you could find anyone that worked harder.”

Bridges was so strong he helped shatter a backboard in the NBA playing for the Hawks. In Terry Pluto’s 1992 book, “Tall Tales,” former player Rudy LaRusso related this funny story from official Richie Powers.

“Bill Bridges drove to the basket on Gus Johnson of Baltimore,” LaRusso said. “Bridges went up for the dunk, slammed it through and Johnson came down on Bridges’ back. The force of those two guys hitting the backboard caused the whole thing to shatter. Now, there’s glass everywhere, absolute chaos. Then Kerner (Ben, flamboyant Hawks’ owner) came running out of the stands screaming, ‘It’s a three-point play. Richie, he got fouled, it’s a three-point play.’”

Bridges, who certainly made a lot of great plays during his career, will best be remembered by his relentless work ethic, rebounding, and the grace he carried himself.

He was, quite simply, a gentle person off the hardwood who touched countless lives.

“Bill was a great person, an incredible person, one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. He was a wonderful man with a great, sweet spirit about him,” Owens said.