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BOZICH | Who was first Cardinal to believe in Denny Crum? Junior Bridgeman

  • Updated
  • 4 min to read

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Before there was Darrell Griffith, Pervis Ellison or any other recruit who believed in Denny Crum's basketball vision at the University of Louisville, somebody had to be first to commit to a rookie coach.

That player was Junior Bridgeman.

That time was spring of 1971, weeks after Crum left an assistant coaching job at UCLA for U of L and Bridgeman won an Indiana state high school title for East Chicago Washington.

Crum was 34 then. He was 86 when he died Tuesday at his home in eastern Jefferson County. Bridgeman, along with Griffith and U of L coach Kenny Payne, will speak at a celebration of Crum's life  at 7 p.m. Monday at the KFC Yum! Center.

Bridgeman should go first because he was first to believe in Crum. His recruitment story remains as remarkable today as it was in the spring of 1971.

Crum was in the coaches' office at ECW watching film of that unbeaten team, long considered the state's best team of all time. Crum had made multiple trips to northwest Indiana from Los Angeles that winter but not to see Bridgeman. Crum wanted Pete Trgovich, the team's best player, to sign with UCLA. And Trgovich, a floppy-haired Serbian in the mold of Pete Maravich, wanted to play for UCLA. So he signed with the Bruins' dynasty.

Bridgeman was going to be an Indiana all-star. He had a better college career than Trgovich and then played more than a decade in the NBA. But, in high school, Crum and Wooden did not consider Bridgeman UCLA material.

Plot twist. Crum needed players at Louisville. He dispatched assistant coach Bill Olsen to Birmingham, Alabama, to recruit Allen Murphy. Crum returned to east Chicago for another look at Bridgeman and two ECW teammates.

"He said he was going to be the coach at the University of Louisville and that he didn't need to see any more film," Bridgeman said. "He wanted to talk to me about coming to play for him at Louisville."

Bridgeman had just spoken with Bob Knight, who was weeks into taking over at Indiana. North Carolina State wanted him and the Wolfpack signed one of his teammates, Tim Stoddard. Bridgeman visited Texas Western, which beat Kentucky for the national title five years earlier. Other Big Ten programs called.

But Bridgeman agreed to the visit, flying from Chicago to Louisville on a Friday afternoon. After dinner, he spent the night at the Executive West hotel before he was brought to Crawford Gym on Saturday morning for a game of pick-up basketball.

"Coach Crum actually played in the game," Bridgeman said, laughing at the memory. "Bill Olsen (then Crum's top assistant and later the U of L athletic director) played.

"I couldn't believe how physical they were. I mean, they were just pounding on each other. For coaches, I was like, 'This is a little strange.'

IMAGES | Denny Crum

"I remember we kind of stopped the game because Denny's arm was bleeding.

"So I said, 'If coaches practice like this, how is regular practice going to be?'"

Bridgeman had a decision to make. He grew up in Big Ten country. Those programs were closer to home. Don Haskins won that national title at Texas Western as the first program to start five Black players. North Carolina State had David Thompson and Tom Burleson, the foundation of a team that would win the 1974 national title.

But Crum had an ally. He built a friendship with ECW freshman coach Frank Kollintzas. Although others pushed Bridgeman toward N.C. State, Kollintzas kept telling Bridgeman that Crum was a terrific young coach, and, with mostly upperclassmen on the Cardinals' roster, immediate playing time would be available at Louisville.

That was enough to swing the opinion of a guy who has grown into one of five most successful Black businessmen in America. After a long run in the restaurant business, Bridgeman has transitioned into owning multiple Coca-Cola bottling operations in the U.S. and Canada, an aluminum mill, Ebony and Jet magazines and a stake in Valhalla Golf Club. Bridgeman said he learned a valuable lesson in the recruiting process.

"It was absolutely a little bit of a leap of faith (coming to U of L) and a little bit of being hoodwinked, I think," Bridgeman said with another laugh.

The campus Bridgeman experienced on his visit seemed different from the campus he saw when he moved in a dormitory for his freshman year at U of L.

"The guys that took me around and some of their stories," he said. "I'd asked them about how big the campus was, how many students, the diversity and all that stuff.

"The numbers they gave me were so far out of line. But that was all in the recruiting scheme. Once you sign and you're here, you're here. And you just kind of figure out how to make the best of it."

Bridgeman figured it out and absolutely made the best of it. The NCAA did not allow freshmen to play for the varsity until the 1972-73 season, so Bridgeman starred for a freshman team that Crum persistently insisted was more talented than the freshman class Adolph Rupp brought to Kentucky that included Mr. Basketballs from Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois.

He scored 1,348 points in three seasons as a Cardinal as the program won 72 of 89 games. He led the team to the 1975 Final Four, where they lost a gut-tearing game to UCLA in overtime in San Diego, California. With a victory, U of L would have played UK for the championship.

The Lakers selected Bridgeman with the No. 8 pick in the 1975 draft and included him in the four-player package they traded to Milwaukee for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Over a dozen seasons, he scored 11,517 points, crediting the coaching he received from Crum and his staff for his successful career.

"I didn't really understand what it meant to be with a Hall of Fame coach until you get away and you look back and you're with some other coaches," Bridgeman said.

"The first time I really realized how much of an influence that (Crum) had had and how much I had learned was when I got to the pros.

"The fundamentals that he had taught us were a big, big part of being successful in the pros. Positioning on the floor. I could go through a whole list of things.

"I remember thinking how thankful I was that I had gone through that here at the university because it was a big leg up on on a lot of guys coming into the pros at that time."

One more thing. I asked Bridgeman if he ever asked Crum why he recruited him to Louisville but did not recruit him to UCLA.

"No," Bridgeman said with a final laugh.

"That's one of those questions that I guess we'll have to wait until the afterlife to get an answer for you."

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