BOZICH | Denny Crum came, conquered, stayed, becoming Louisville icon

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Denny Crum wasn’t supposed to become the most beloved basketball coach to blaze through the University of Louisville.

Louisville was going to be two sentences on Crum’s career achievements. A brief connecting flight. Arrive from UCLA in 1971. Return to UCLA the moment John Wooden retired. Many people wrote it. Everybody believed it.

But Crum stayed.

And he won, taking the Cards to the NCAA Final Four his first season. And he stayed.

Then he won even bigger, including the school’s first NCAA men’s basketball title in 1980. And he stayed. And he won even more, adding another national title in 1986, establishing Louisville basketball as a national brand.

And he stayed, making Louisville a program known for fearlessly playing anybody, anywhere, any time.

Stayed for the rest of his Hall of Fame career and life, which ended after an illness Tuesday morning. Crum was 86.

He worked with charities. He raised money for the university. He established a scholarship fund. He golfed, hunted and fished. He owned horses. He picked more Kentucky Derby winners than any handicapper. Crum embraced this city and this state as eagerly as it embraced him.

The excellence of his work and the force of his personality maneuvered the University of Kentucky into an annual series that the Wildcats tried to avoid.

Crum was just warming up. In his second act, he turned a rival (UK coach Joe B. Hall) into one of his best friends while creating admirers, red and blue, with a delightful radio show after he stopped coaching.

Everybody wanted a handshake, an autograph or a picture. And you know what? Crum obliged, with a smile, an encouraging word or his signature wink.

Pushed into retirement to make room for Rick Pitino in 2001, Crum set aside some bruised feelings and cheered for the Cards from his seats at Freedom Hall and the KFC Yum! Center. His name wasn’t only in the record book. It was on the floor.

He lived an iconic Louisville life with his wife, Susan, on their wooded farm in Eastern Jefferson County, where they entertained and celebrated with Crum’s former players on a regular basis.

The coach who was only supposed to be here for a dribble or two, stayed for more than 51 years. Once California cool, Crum became Kentucky proud, living a rich and remarkable life.

Some observers will focus on the basketball — the two national championships as well as the six Final Fours the Cardinals reached in Crum’s first 15 seasons. That’s reasonable.

From 1971-through-1986, Crum did it as well as it could be done in the college game. That was the stretch that defined Crum as a Hall of Famer. After Wooden retired with his 10 national titles, Crum, Dean Smith of North Carolina and Bob Knight of Indiana ruled the college game.

If the talent was close to even on both benches, I’d take prime-time Crum in a coach-off against anybody from his era. Crum had the best out of bounds plays. He had a system — high-post offense; tall, athletic guards and persistent defensive pressure — that he trusted. Crum had the poise and confidence of a safecracker. Nobody saw him sweat.

That first Crum team, the one that battled all the way to the national semifinals before losing to UCLA in 1972 didn’t include any players Crum recruited. It had one starter taller than 6 feet 6. Only Jim Price, a guard, made much of a stir in the NBA.

But it foreshadowed what was coming at Freedom Hall — a basketball force, usually built with guys who could play multiple positions. Crum shaped a program that had played in three straight National Invitation Tournaments and made Louisville a consistent threat to play on the final weekend of the season.

Crum never flinched or lost his poise. His first NCAA championship team won its first two tournament games in overtime. Former Marquette coach Al McGuire was an unflappable as they came. But McGuire ceded the title to Crum, nicknaming him “Cool Hand Luke.” Even after he retired and moved into his job as a television analyst, McGuire marveled that Crum never seemed to worry.

Crum made Louisville a national brand, trendy across the nation with the Doctors of Dunkenstein approach, logo included. Crum’s Cardinals did it organically, without a push from a marketing department or social media.

Word simply spread. Have you seen Louisville?

Darrell Griffith, Derek Smith, Poncho Wright, Rodney and Scooter McCray, Jerry Eaves, Wiley Brown, Milt Wagner, Lancaster Gordon, Charles Jones, Pervis Ellison, Billy Thompson, Herb Crook, Jeff Hall who was cooler than those guys?

Sociologists will note that Crum never blinked at the idea of starting five Black players during a period when starting one or two Black players made many fans, administrators and coaches uncomfortable south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Crum did not see color. He saw players. If you earned your minutes, you played. If the competition was better, you sat. Any questions?

Crum was not the coach who integrated U of L basketball. That happened in the mid-60s under Peck Hickman. But Crum recruited the best players he could sign, regardless of race, hometown, media hype or other criteria.

They came from Louisville, like Griffith, Eaves and Crook, But they also came from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Indiana and New Jersey.

He hired Wade Houston as the program’s first Black assistant coach. Last March, not long after his 85th birthday party, Crum was first in line at Bowman Field to welcome Kenny Payne, one of his former players, back to town as U of L’s first black head basketball coach.

Despite his health issues, Crum made certain he came to the KFC Yum! Center for two of Payne’s first three games. In his final appearance, he sat in a wheelchair at the baseline and cheered.

The basketball component of Crum’s run was terrific. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame summoned him to Springfield, Mass., for his induction ceremony in 1994. Even though Crum did not take the Cards back to the Final Four over the final 15 years of his career, he achieved things nobody else achieved at Louisville.

But for me the most compelling part of the Denny Crum story is that he came to Louisville and stayed in Louisville. He didn’t run for more money or a bigger stage as too many Louisville football coaches have. He did not chase the NBA or the bright lights of a bigger market.

Crum became as much a part of this community as the Bardstown Road restaurants or Waterfront Park. His name belongs up there with Muhammad Ali, Pee Wee Reese, Paul Hornung, Wes Unseld, Griffith on Louisville’s sports Mt. Rushmore.

The basketball success was supposed to happen. Louisville had a terrific program before Crum arrived to replace John Dromo in 1971. Charlie Tyra, Bud Olsen, Unseld, Butch Beard. They all played here before Crum.

Crum made Louisville basketball better, building on the wisdom that he learned from Wooden, who considered Crum his most valuable assistant.

Crum picked Louisville over an offer from Virginia Tech. He was 34. He had four seasons as a head coach at Pierce Junior College. He had four seasons as a UCLA assistant. He was the guy who recruited many of UCLA’s signature players.

Crum was born in California. He grew up in California. He went to college in California. He coached in California. He had family in California.

And when UCLA basketball floundered, repeatedly, after Wooden retired, Crum was needed in California.

But Denny Crum stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed.

Louisville was his program, his vision, his home. And this city and state benefited greatly from it.

If you'd like to print off a commemorative version of Eric Crawford's obituary of Crum, click here.

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