KU’s promising 1960-61 season ends with disappointment and probation

While KU coach Dick Harp wanted his white players to “walk the extra mile” for their black teammates, he also hoped the black players like Maurice King would integrate with the whites and appreciate who they were as human beings. 

That happened one night when African-American player Butch Ellison “got on my knees to pray” as his roommate and white teammate Jerry Gardner looked on curiously.

“Jerry goes, ‘What are you doing?' Ellison recalled in 2007. “I said, 'I’m praying.’ He said, ‘We pray lying down in the bed.’ Since that time, I’ve been lying down in the bed praying. You do pick some little things up.”

Nolen Ellison, Butch’s younger brother, said that was one case where Harp would have rejoiced.

“Dick wanted these players to appreciate each other and to appreciate each other’s culture and to truly become brothers,” Nolen said.

Harp’s dilemma was even more difficult when the team was referred to in such ways as “four blacks and a brave (Dee Ketchum was a Native American).”

Nolen laughs at that reference now and said he didn’t hear that mentioned back when he played in the early 1960s. But the white players who belonged to fraternities such as Sigma Nu, whose chapter was known, Nolen said, as having the “most white right-wing conservatives in the country (and) notorious for racial attitudes, (they) “would hear that stuff.”

“(The white players were) getting mixed messages,” Butch added. “That never showed up on the floor, but they go back (to their frats) and hear that stuff.”

While Harp was doing his best to integrate his team off the court, he was also focused on making the 1960-61 squad one to remember. After starting just 3-3, KU won 12 of its next 14 games, including six-straight victories. The fifth-straight win was a convincing 88-73 victory over MU in Lawrence, where Wayne Hightower dominated with 36 points and 21 boards.

KU was now 7-1 in the league and tied with KSU for first place. The Jayhawks then took a one-game lead in the standings as Colorado beat K-State before KU blew out the Buffaloes, 90-62, in Boulder. K-State, though, crept back in a tie with KU after beating the Jayhawks, 81-63, in Manhattan.

With four regular-season games remaining, Kansas needed a strong push for its second-straight conference championship and third overall in the Harp era.

It didn’t happen. KU lost two of its last four, stumbling to a 10-4 record in the Big Eight (17-8 overall) and tie for second place as the Wildcats won the league.

The Jayhawks lost all life when they learned late in the season that they were put on probation and a one-year postseason ban after recruiting violations surrounding Wilt Chamberlain.

Assistant coach Ted Owens remembers the team’s sadness when they learned the news.

“The problem is we had a great team,” Owens told John Hendel in “Kansas Jayhawks: History-making basketball.” “We had Bill Bridges and Wayne Hightower and Jerry Gardner, who was an excellent guard. And Nolen Ellison and Dee Ketchum and Al Correll. We had dynamite talent.

“And I’ll never forget the day that Dick walked on the court and told them. It was a morale and spirit killer because that was a team that could done very well in the NCAA playoffs.”

Nolen Ellison, a sophomore, was quite angry with Chamberlain.

“(There were) strong feelings that Wilt had betrayed us,” Ellison said. “You take the car and you know that’s going to put the team in trouble. He couldn’t afford a ‘57 oldsmobile, flaming red. (He was a) poor kid. Where are you going to get money (for that car)? That started my career with being under a cloud. Dick called us all together and said we’ve been placed on probation. It was confusing and difficult to accept. (We didn’t have a) chance to stand on our own.”

Owens elaborated on the affects of the probation in his book, “At the Hang-up.”

“Although we finished second in the league, the 1960-61 basketball season was a bit of a disappointment because the expectations were so high after reaching the NCAA regional finals the previous year,” Owens wrote. “Knowing that the team was barred from the NCAA tournament, the players’ spirits had evaporated.”

The Jayhawker Yearbook noted the inconsistency of the team which plagued KU that season.

“When Kansas was ‘on,’ nobody could stop them; when cold the Hawks were a pushover. Consequently, the Jays bowed to two considerably weaker teams, thereby killing any hopes for a conference championship.

“The lack of a team drive at times, as well as the brawl at Missouri, could be in part attributed to the ... NCAA ban clamped on the KU basketball team. The ban hurt the attitudes of those holdovers from last year’s conference champs, who had dreamed of another NCAA tournament berth. Moreover, Missouri Athletic Director Don Faurot has been accused by many of instigating the NCAA probe — an accusation which has only heightened animosity between the two schools.”

1961 brawl between Mizzou and KU almost ended Border War

Many KU and Missouri fans would like to see the Border War revived after the series was discontinued after the 2012 season after MU bolted to the SEC. The two teams played in a charity Hurricane Relief game in 2017 at Sprint Center, which brought great excitement that day and renewed hope that the series might be continued. But don’t look for the series to be revived any time soon.

Here is a look back at my 2012 story in Phog.net before KU’s last basketball trip to Columbia about how the Border War almost ended in 1961 after the infamous brawl at Brewer Fieldhouse on national televison. Many thanks to Butch Ellison, a reserve guard on that 1960-61 KU team for this exclusive interview in 2007 near his home in Kansas City. I also interviewed his younger brother Nolen that day, who was on that 1961 team as well.

KU featured seven black players on that team (six that day at Brewer Fieldhouse since Ralph Heyward was declared ineligible after the first semester). That many number of black players didn’t set well with the hostile Mizzou crowd.

I also reported that Butch Ellison said then-MU assistant coach Norm Stewart spit on the KU players and called the team the N-word.

P.S. Butch Ellison sadly passed on Feb. 13 at age 79. He was a great person and did so much to better people’s lives in a lifetime working in education, public service and politics. A junior college All-American at Kanssas City Kansas Community College, Butch was a great sharpshooter off the bench for KU. I’m forever grateful for Butch and Nolen Ellison meeting me that summer day in 2007 for three hours for a most candid interview I’ll never forget. You’ll be greatly missed Butch. Much love and peace to all your friends, family and loved ones. RIP!

Here is that February 2012 story I wrote for Phog.net.

By David Garfield

Emotions will be at a fever pitch on Saturday night at 8 p.m as Kansas plays Missouri in Columbia at Mizzou Arena for the last time — at least in the foreseeable future — with the rivalry being discontinued as MU bolts to the SEC next season.

While it’s difficult to fathom KU and MU not playing anymore, this series actually almost ended 51 years ago.

Rewind to March 11, 1961 as Kansas and Missouri staged a bloody Border War battle at Brewer Fieldhouse in Columbia, Mo., on national television.

KU, which featured six black players on the roster (Ralph Heyward was a seventh black player on coach Dick Harp’s team who was declared academically ineligible after the first semester; that was a relatively unheard of number of blacks during that era when the national average per integrated squad around the time was just 2.2), was the target of racial slurs from the outset from the unruly fans and players. The MU band even played “Dixie” when the “Negro-laden KU squad was on the floor,” reported the Lawrence Journal-World’s Bill Mayer at the time.

KU started four black players in Wayne Hightower, Bill Bridges, All Correll and Nolen Ellison, with Butch Ellison and Jim Dumas being the reserves. Butch Ellison said in an exclusive 2007 interview near his home in Kansas City that “nobody really knows” what happened that day.

“They were calling us n----s, spitting on us with (assistant coach) Norm Stewart right on the bench,” Ellison said. “Norm Stewart was sitting on the side (with head coach) Sparky Stalcup yelling n----r and spitting on us.”

Stewart’s actions pained Ellison, who considered him an idol while growing up in Kansas City when Stewart played for Missouri.

“That was the most disappointing thing to me because we didn’t have black role models,” Ellison said. “If a kid was a good ballplayer, that was your model.”

As the hostility mounted during the Border War and tensions escalated after MU’s Joe Scott was called for a flagrant foul against Nolen Ellison (Butch’s younger brother) just before halftime, five minutes into the second half, KU’s Wayne Hightower threw a punch at MU’s Charlie Henke following his second straight hard foul at the Jayhawk star just by the Tigers’ bench.

Henke retaliated with a swing at Hightower. Then it was mayhem.

Both benches cleared and fans — including about 15 MU football players — stormed the court in what was one of the ugliest brawls in basketball history.

“When it (brawl) it broke out, I had one person in mind, that knuckle right there (Butch Ellison pointed to his fist); I was going right for Norm Stewart,” Ellison said.

The fight lasted nearly five minutes and the game (MU won, 79-76) was stopped for 10 minutes. 

Afterwards, Mayer wrote in the Journal-World about his thoughts over the melee in Columbia:

“The MU folks stress they think Saturday’s brawl was KU’s fault and that the calling of names and spitting on KU players by MU players was OK. Yet no matter how how MU tries to don a ‘holy’ mantle, the fact remains the Tigers basketball teams have a league-wide reputation as hatchet-men, have been in a number of jams involving physical violence in recent years; generally are among the nation’s fouling leaders, have a home court which because of the crowd is considered by many the loop’s top snake pit. It’s hard to believe that just happens. And if it does, why isn’t there some obvious effort to change it.

“More and more, MU appears to be to the Big Eight what bellicose Russia is to the U.N. If MU doesn’t give evidence of good faith in an effort to clean its own house, maybe severance of the series would be a good idea. Good conduct like this has to be a two-way street.”

The idealist Harp had deep regrets over what happened.

“This is a tragedy,” Harp told the Journal-World after the game. “Competition as such is not the factor here. It is a matter of attitude. Let me emphasize. I’m not singling out Missouri. This condition has been prevalent on all levels, including high school, junior college and college. As yet I do not know the answer, but something must be done.”

Like perhaps canceling the series as Mayer wrote might have to happen?

Then-KU athletic director Dutch Lonborg took on that issue with this statement to the Journal-World following the game:

“I feel that if this extreme bitterness continues between the two schools, we will have to discontinue playing each other, at least for a while.”

Despite the brawl, the two teams continued playing each other every year — at least once in Columbia and once in Lawrence. But now, over 50 years since that infamous game at Brewer Fieldhouse, the No. 8 and Big 12-leading Jayhawks (18-4, 8-1) will be making their last trip to Columbia to face No. 4 Missouri (20-2, 7-2), which is tied with Baylor for second place in the league. ESPN’s College GameDay will be there for the first time in MU history.

All those factors make this a can’t miss game. And there’s no doubt Mizzou Arena will be rocking in what should be the most hostile environment in Columbia since the “full-blown riot” in 1961, as reported then by the Journal-World.

That particular game left lasting wounds for some former Jayhawks, including Butch Ellison. He said he ran into Stewart one time years later when Ellison was an administrator at Washington High School in Kansas City and Stewart visited as MU head coach to recruit one of the black athletes.

“I said, ‘Norm, what are you doing here?’” Ellison recalled. “’Before any of our black kids ever go to Missouri, I will shoot him first. He will not come to Missouri.’ That was the last time I saw him (Stewart). He just turned and walked out. Turned red.”

For Ellison, seeing Stewart indeed brought back painful memories of that dark day at Brewer Fieldhouse in 1961.

“We were almost killed down there,” Ellison said. “I hadn’t been to Columbia since. When I’m on I-70, I don’t even look that way.” 

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.