NY Post - How St John's Lost Abdul Jabbar to UCLA

[quote="fuchsia" post=386565]Given Lew/Kareem's clear awareness of civil rights issues, Coach Lapchick's role as a pioneer in those struggles might also have mattered.[/quote]

One of our great failures as a program is not giving Lapchick his due as one of the best and most respected coaches of all time. Even with a tournament named after him, and a statue (placed awkwardly in an obscure place) very few realize that Lapchick quite possibly is one of the 10 if not 5 best coaches of all time.
 
[quote="Beast of the East" post=386574][quote="fuchsia" post=386565]Given Lew/Kareem's clear awareness of civil rights issues, Coach Lapchick's role as a pioneer in those struggles might also have mattered.[/quote]

One of our great failures as a program is not giving Lapchick his due as one of the best and most respected coaches of all time. Even with a tournament named after him, and a statue (placed awkwardly in an obscure place) very few realize that Lapchick quite possibly is one of the 10 if not 5 best coaches of all time.[/quote]
As you know, Beast, it took forever to get that statue made and put on a campus. Maybe we can take it a step further by starting a movement to have it moved to its rightful spot: at the entry to CA.
 
[quote="newsman13" post=386519]Left out...the part about Sam Gilbert (later banned by NCAA) providing mucho dough as he did with other UCLA legends...Jackie Robinson recruiting him which would be hard to turn down...[/quote]

Let's be honest about the Lew Alcindor recruitment, like most St. John's basketball targets back then, recruiting out of state talent meant driving over the George Washington bridge and we at St. John's had nothing to offer in terms of campus life. It was a very sparse and gloomy campus back then. NYU was in the "City" and played regularly at the Garden. It was actually a more attractive destination back then. We love Lou but he was never a top recruiter even then. John Kresse was the real coach while Lou ran up and down the sidelines. That he lost most of the incredible NY talent in his career is well known. There was no way Alcindor was going to play for St.John's after meeting John Wooden who had just won the national championship. Comparing campuses back then I am sure it took only one visit to convince him that taking a train or bus to Jamaica was never going to be an option. Even though that was then and this is now, the post Carnesecca years have been just as filled with 2nd class effort in both upgrading facilities and selection of coaches by a very entrenched provincial administration.
 
1965 was five years before I was born so I can only go by what I read. I do think that it could have changed the trajectory of the program if they had won a national championship but whoknkows by how much. I was just awed by the baseball passes in the video. Finally cash or not if you have been to UCLA and St. John's even today it's hard to compare and if you are an adventurous person as Jabbar seemed to be then cash or not its tough to turn down UCLA. It does sound like Lapchick could have made a difference as I believe Lou did with Mullin.
 
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[quote="fuchsia" post=386565]Given Lew/Kareem's clear awareness of civil rights issues, Coach Lapchick's role as a pioneer in those struggles might also have mattered.[/quote]

I wish I was old enough to have met him or at least seen him coach and appreciate it.

I've heard Dr. Richard Lapchick speak about his dad, and he certainly has kept that memory of him alive.

I love reading Doc Butler's memories of being a friend of Richard's and being in the car with both dad and son. I'd like to hear if there was a consciousness of Lapchick as a civil rights advocate. I suspect that he wasn't at the forefront of a movement, but by deed and not word, he helped change college basketball.

Personally I love the stories of Adolph Rupp refusing to allow Solly Walker onto the floor at Rupp Arena in 1952. However, the guy who told Rupp to cancel the game if SJU's entire team wasn't allowed to play was Frank McGuire..

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...ker-died-broke-race-barriers-at-st-johns.html[/URL]

Stories such as these make me proud to call SJU my school.
 
Went to school with Richard and met his dad every year at Manhattan Prep annual hoops awards dinner when he was MC. Salt of earth guy and impacted racial relations in NBA also;

 
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[quote="Paultzman" post=386659]Went to school with Richard and met his dad every year at Manhattan Prep annual hoops awards dinner when he was MC. Salt of earth guy and impacted racial relations in NBA also;

[/quote]

That's really cool Paultz. Would love to hear more. You mean hs, right?

I know Lapchick had an 8th grade education but am dismissive of any attachment of that to intellect. My first job as a kid was working in a supermarket where the fulltime clerks were wwii and korean war vets who needed jobs and a ft union job.. i was just out if hs and these guys really respected that we were working hard at college degrees.

Very much off on a tangent but i find Lapchick a really compelling figure who doesn't get enough credit at st. Johns.
 
Something I shared with SS&G, my first job was as a stock boy with the company that marketed Japanese footwear for Mitsubishi in the USA. Many of the Mitsubishi staff had fought in the Imperial Army in the Burma Theater where SS&G's father served. One of the things they said with great respect was that there was no lower life form than a US Marine, meaning that Marines would appear out of jungle areas thought impassable even by experienced Japanese troops, and the Marines would systematically kill the Japanese officers first and then their men.

Also, the father of a friend of mine was a Marine slated to play football for Ohio State after the war, but when my friend's dad suffered an ankle injury, Woody Hayes helped him get a basketball scholarship at Marshall instead. May still hold the NCAA single season record for rebounds per game average and had a long career with Goodrich after playing for their AAU team.
 
[quote="Beast of the East" post=386666][quote="Paultzman" post=386659]Went to school with Richard and met his dad every year at Manhattan Prep annual hoops awards dinner when he was MC. Salt of earth guy and impacted racial relations in NBA also;

[/quote]

That's really cool Paultz. Would love to hear more. You mean hs, right?

I know Lapchick had an 8th grade education but am dismissive of any attachment of that to intellect. My first job as a kid was working in a supermarket where the fulltime clerks were wwii and korean war vets who needed jobs and a ft union job.. i was just out if hs and these guys really respected that we were working hard at college degrees.

Very much off on a tangent but i find Lapchick a really compelling figure who doesn't get enough credit at st. Johns.[/quote]

Yes, Manhattan Prep was on Manhattan College campus. Richard was two years ahead of me, but we served on Student Council together. In my Soph year, I was elevated to the varsity team for playoffs to be a teammate of his briefly. Btw, in CHSAA playoffs we were torched by Mike Riordan & Holy Cross HS & I sat entire game lol. Our star player, Billy Jones, a friend and neighbor, received a scholarship and played for Johnnies in reserve role for four years.
 
[quote="Paultzman" post=386675][quote="Beast of the East" post=386666][quote="Paultzman" post=386659]Went to school with Richard and met his dad every year at Manhattan Prep annual hoops awards dinner when he was MC. Salt of earth guy and impacted racial relations in NBA also;

[/quote]

That's really cool Paultz. Would love to hear more. You mean hs, right?

I know Lapchick had an 8th grade education but am dismissive of any attachment of that to intellect. My first job as a kid was working in a supermarket where the fulltime clerks were wwii and korean war vets who needed jobs and a ft union job.. i was just out if hs and these guys really respected that we were working hard at college degrees.

Very much off on a tangent but i find Lapchick a really compelling figure who doesn't get enough credit at st. Johns.[/quote]

Yes, Manhattan Prep was on Manhattan College campus. Richard was two years ahead of me, but we served on Student Council together. In my Soph year, I was elevated to the varsity team for playoffs to be a teammate of his briefly. Btw, in CHSAA playoffs we were torched by Mike Riordan & Holy Cross HS & I sat entire game lol. Our star player, Billy Jones, a friend and neighbor, received a scholarship and played for Johnnies in reserve role for four years.[/quote]

Thanks for sharing! I'm not surprised at all that you were both a student leader and an athlete.

Mike Riordan is another guy who never really was celebrated as a Queens product while in the capacity of give a foul Mike. He then flourished with the Bullets as a perceived throw in as part of the deal that brought Earl Monroel to NY. I wonder if the Bullets knew that they were getting?

Richard Lapchick seems very cerebral and a very serious person. His dad's public persona was affable. Were father and son similar or dissimilar?
 
[quote="Beast of the East" post=386678][quote="Paultzman" post=386675][quote="Beast of the East" post=386666][quote="Paultzman" post=386659]Went to school with Richard and met his dad every year at Manhattan Prep annual hoops awards dinner when he was MC. Salt of earth guy and impacted racial relations in NBA also;

[/quote]

That's really cool Paultz. Would love to hear more. You mean hs, right?

I know Lapchick had an 8th grade education but am dismissive of any attachment of that to intellect. My first job as a kid was working in a supermarket where the fulltime clerks were wwii and korean war vets who needed jobs and a ft union job.. i was just out if hs and these guys really respected that we were working hard at college degrees.

Very much off on a tangent but i find Lapchick a really compelling figure who doesn't get enough credit at st. Johns.[/quote]

Yes, Manhattan Prep was on Manhattan College campus. Richard was two years ahead of me, but we served on Student Council together. In my Soph year, I was elevated to the varsity team for playoffs to be a teammate of his briefly. Btw, in CHSAA playoffs we were torched by Mike Riordan & Holy Cross HS & I sat entire game lol. Our star player, Billy Jones, a friend and neighbor, received a scholarship and played for Johnnies in reserve role for four years.[/quote]

Thanks for sharing! I'm not surprised at all that you were both a student leader and an athlete.

Mike Riordan is another guy who never really was celebrated as a Queens product while in the capacity of give a foul Mike. He then flourished with the Bullets as a perceived throw in as part of the deal that brought Earl Monroel to NY. I wonder if the Bullets knew that they were getting?

Richard Lapchick seems very cerebral and a very serious person. His dad's public persona was affable. Were father and son similar or dissimilar?[/quote]

In high school Richard was very nice to me & other underclassmen and a very bright, pleasant guy. President of Student Council btw. The handful of times I met his dad he also struck me as very humble and unassuming.
 
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SJU is one of the few schools to have been associated with three HOF basketball coaches, although most casual fans only know Louie. Frank McGuire and Joe Lapchick were giants in college basketball, but SJU has almost gone out of its way to avoid highlighting them.
The easiest way to have remembered Lapchick would have been to rename the campus venue after him. The court would then be named for Louie. It was from the fertile brain of the departed Father Harrington that both arena and court would be named for Louie, which has no precedent that I know of in college basketball. A statue of Frank McGuire could have been placed in the Lapchick Arena lobby. That would have honored all three of our HOF coaches.
 
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[quote="Las Vegan" post=386689]SJU is one of the few schools to have been associated with three HOF basketball coaches, although most casual fans only know Louie. Frank McGuire and Joe Lapchick were giants in college basketball, but SJU has almost gone out of its way to avoid highlighting them.
The easiest way to have remembered Lapchick would have been to rename the campus venue after him. The court would then be named for Louie. It was from the fertile brain of the departed Father Harrington that both arena and court would be named for Louie, which has no precedent that I know of in college basketball. A statue of Frank McGuire could have been placed in the Lapchick Arena lobby. That would have honored all three of our HOF coaches.[/quote]

Well, I think the folly was to do it a little backwards. They announced they were renaming the court and planned an evening in Lou's honor. It was done in 2004, in the aftermath of the firing of Mike Jarvis, the night in Pittsburgh, and allegation that players were paid. I'm guessing it was done in part to divert attention away from that sideshow.

There was a growing sentiment that simply naming a court after Carnesecca was cheesy, so with no sense of history since Lapchick was "retired" 40 years earlier and had been dead for 35 years, they remedied the cheesy act of renaming the court to renaming the building. No one really objected at the time.

If we are ever to move the status of Lapchick to a rightful place outside of the arena, there will also be statues of Looie and Kaiser. Not sure McGuire will ever be honored in that fashion. He coached just 5 seasons here before departing for UNC where his salary was raised from about $6,000 per year to around $7500. St. John's wouldn't budge in his salary demands so he left (purportedly he had a sick kid with medical needs) McGuire built the ACC into the powerhouse it is.
 
Frank McGuire only coached at SJU for five years, but had us in the NCAA Championship game, in 1952, a loss to Kansas. We've never been to another championship game. He won the NCAA championship, in 1957, at NC, with mostly NYC players, and he had great success at South Carolina. I believe he was also a SJU alum. He deserves to be remembered at each of those schools. If anyone was the coach that built Alumni Hall, it was Joe Lapchick. Louie didn't take over until 1965. Alumni Hall opened in 1961. At this point, it's probably more likely the arena will be named for a generous donor.
 
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When Frank McGuire left SJU for NC in 1952 the reason given was to move to a cleaner climate to benefit his son who had cerebral palsy. At that time the air five miles outside NYC was as clean as in NC.
Everyone knew the 1951 scandals was the reason. CCNY and LIU dropped basketball, the garden cancelled forty per cent of their double headers and attendance was down two thirds. For the prior ten years SJU was a top five program and has never been the same. Nobody blamed McGuire for leaving.
 
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