Jim Price

Jim Price, an All-American on Denny Crum's first Louisville team, shares his memories of the coach at a Night of Memories celebration at the Frazier History Museum on Dec. 8, 2022.

 ERIC CRAWFORD

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Louisville basketball team had been through a tough time in the 1971 season, losing head coach John Dromo to a heart attack nine games into the campaign after a win at Tulsa.

Assistant coach Howard Stacy had finished out the year, and when the university decided to seek a new permanent head coach for the following season, the players had a definite idea.

Jim Price was a junior on that team and its leading scorer. He said the roster had 7 seniors coming back for the 1971-72 season, and that they weren't too keen on a dramatic change. During a Night of Memories honoring coach Crum held by the Frazier History Museum last December, Price shared his recollections.

Crum, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 86, went on to a Hall of Fame career. But when he was hired by Louisville, his players hadn't heard of him.

"We all wanted to keep Coach Stacy because we were familiar with him," Price said. "So we all we went to the president, spoke our piece, spoke our mind. We told him, 'We're seniors. There's no way in the world that we can function under a new person.' That's how we felt."

Of course, that's not how it worked out. A committee put together by the university interviewed and hired Denny Crum, who had been an assistant to John Wooden at UCLA. At the same time, Crum had gotten an offer from West Virginia. A more lucrative offer, in fact. But in the end, Crum judged Louisville to be a better opportunity.

"So Peck Hickman, who was athletic director at the time, came to us and said, 'We've appointed a person named Denny Crum,'" Price remembered. "And we all said, 'Crum? Who?' That's what we all said. And Mr. Hickman said, 'Yes, he's from UCLA.' And our eyes – my eyes – kind of lit up."

Crum was a young coach with no major head coaching experience, but he made a quick impression on the players. Price said the first thing he remembers about the meeting is that Crum had Wooden's now-famous "pyramid of success" hanging above him on the wall.

"I can remember our first meeting when I came to the office," he said. "And he said to me, 'I heard you're a pretty good basketball player. But you like to do things really flashy. I'm going to teach you how to do things simpler.' I would come down the floor, and my entry pass would be like Pete Maravich, I would bounce it. And he actually told me, 'I'm going to show you an easier way to do things. An easy way.' I remember that."

Price got a bit emotional talking about something he remembered from way back in his freshman year.

"I would come from training table and I'd would watch Pete Maravich play as a freshman. I'd watch North Carolina play. And I'd watch UCLA play at 11 o'clock at night," Price said. "And I'd pray, 'Lord, please let me play against North Carolina and UCLA before I graduate.' And a lot of stuff happened between those years. Needless to say, I should have prayed, let me play against both of those teams and beat them."

In Crum's first season, Louisville went 26-5 and reached the Final Four. Price was an All-American, averaging 21 points a game, doing things the simple way.

In the Cardinals' first game of the NCAA Tournament, they fell behind by double digits, and Price still remembers Crum's poise.

IMAGES | Denny Crum

"I remember, Coach Crum came in the spring of '71, so he was in his very early 30s inheriting 21-22-year-old seniors in his first job as head coach of major university," Price said. "And he came in with the conviction that 'I have a formula that will work.' But being on that first team, he too, there was no curfew. He said, 'I will treat you like men. If you act like men, we will treat you like men.' He never had a problem with anyone missing curfew. Not at all.

"... I can remember as a 32-33-year-old coach, out in the Midwest Region, we're playing against Southwest Louisiana. We're ranked, maybe No. 3 or 4 in the country in the time, but Southwest Louisiana was favored to beat us. And they were giving it to us. They were beating us like 32-16. And there was no shot clock. And we're like, man. So Coach Crum calls timeout. And we're walking towards the bench. He says, cool as a cucumber, 'What's wrong with you guys? We'll be OK. They're going to have to come out of their 1-3-1 zone.' And we're looking at him, because they're just offensive rebounding and putting the ball back in. These guys got muscles on top muscles and they were killing us. Needless to say, his coolness and poise, being a young coach — he believed — and all that had transfer value."

Louisville escaped that first-round game, then beat Kansas State to get to the Final Four, where a prayer was answered for Price. The Cardinals would face top-ranked UCLA. They lost that game, but in the days of the NCAA consolation game still got to play one more game. It was against North Carolina.

For Price, a prayer was answered.

"I thank you for that, Coach," Price said. "And I thank you, coach, for the lesson of not getting too high or too low, but being even-keel."

Price went on to be drafted in the second round of the NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. He was on the NBA's All-Rookie team in 1973. In 1974, he made the NBA's All-Defensive team. In 1975, he was an NBA All-Star, beginning the season with Los Angeles before being traded to Milwaukee, where he played with Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and averaged 16.1 points per game.

He went into coaching after his playing days, and for five seasons was a head coach of the IUPUI women's team. You can believe, the Pyramid of Success was right there with him. In 2008, he was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. His No. 15 jersey has been honored by the University of Louisville.

"It's amazing how God worked," Price said.

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