LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Denny Crum, who took the reins of the University of Louisville males’s basketball program in 1971 and greater than three a long time led it, and in some methods the town, into the nationwide highlight, has died on the age of 86.

Crum had been in declining well being lately and had suffered strokes in 2017, 2019 and 2022 however continued to be an unabashed supporter of U of L sports activities and the town the place he got here to remain.

Born in San Fernando, California, on March 2, 1937, the son of an plane mechanic and a seamstress, Crum stated he discovered from his dad and mom “not to major in minors.” And he by no means did. Raised by his father after his dad and mom cut up when he was 10 years outdated, Crum’s first loves had been soccer and basketball. But a tall boy moved in throughout the road, and Crum started taking part in basketball with him.

Two easy acts of fatherhood left a mark on Louisville historical past. Crum’s father, Alwin, put up a basketball aim within the again yard. Then, together with his son ever passionate in regards to the recreation, he put up a lightweight. Denny would play effectively into the nice and cozy California nights till neighbors poked their heads out of the home windows to inform him to go to mattress. But a dream had been born.

Crum’s life accomplishments would fill a rolled-up program. Two-time nationwide champion. Six Final Fours. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994. He lived to see the courtroom that Cardinal groups play on, the Central Avenue overpass on campus, and a brand new dorm on the college named after him. In 2022, he welcomed one in all his former gamers, Kenny Payne, into the U of L teaching seat he occupied for thus lengthy.

But his legacy for the varsity and metropolis runs even deeper.

Louisville’s basketball success didn’t start with Crum, however he’s the central determine of the college’s sports activities historical past. And even that is not saying sufficient, contemplating that the expansion of the college, and for that matter, the emergence of the town of Louisville itself, had been concurrent with the expansion and success of Crum’s basketball program. Some have stated his program’s success was a catalyst for these issues. And Crum was the one who flipped the swap.

For thirty years, he was the face of U of L, and even in his retirement he maintained an honored presence.

At his eighty fifth birthday celebration, on March 2, 2022, mates, former gamers, followers and household gathered to pay tribute to his singular U of L life, consuming potato soup that he had helped put together, with proceeds from its sale going to The Denny Crum Scholarship Foundation, which raised greater than $1.5 million to endow scholarships on the faculty over the ultimate a long time of his life.

“He is U of L,” stated one in all his former gamers, Darrell Griffith. “Most people in this city can’t imagine the place or the city without him.”

Another former participant, Roger Burkman, stated, “Sometimes I think we take people for granted, and I think Coach Crum is one of those. And the reason I say that is he’s always been there for all these years, for all of us, for this university, and for this community. He’s that humble guy that you would never know was a legendary superstar of a basketball coach. He’s that loyal — let me repeat that, loyal — friend that’s generous and kind to everyone.”

COOL HAND LUKE

Al McGuire, who coached towards Crum for years at Marquette earlier than changing into a basketball commentator for NBC, known as Crum, “Cool Hand Luke.” And no one was cooler than Crum, particularly within the decade of the Eighties, when he rolled in astride faculty basketball’s hottest program and led it to 4 Final Fours and two NCAA championships between 1980 and 1986.

The college and athletic division that emerged from that interval had been markedly completely different from those that entered it. It’s not that the varsity hadn’t had success earlier than. But the Crum years modified its notion, first in its residence state, after which across the nation. The athletic division had a $2 million funds in 1980, and that was largely sponsored by the college. Coming out of these years, the funds was practically $6 million, and the athletic division was self-sufficient.

Behind the basketball program’s nationwide TV appearances, Louisville athletics director Bill Olsen constructed money reserves approaching $40 million, a warfare chest that was used to assist start the huge spherical of services spending that sparked the college to larger and higher convention affiliations.

“I don’t think there’s any question it changed a lot of things,” Crum instructed Louisville public radio station WFPL in April of 2013 when requested in regards to the basketball program’s success. “I think giving was way up to the university and it’s continued to be that way. I think nationally, it gave us a little foothold. In the eighties, I think we were in four Final Fours and won two championships. No one else did that during the eighties, so I think that really put us on the map.”

And it made Crum a Louisville icon, proper together with Muhammad Ali, Louisville Slugger and the Kentucky Derby. 

Longtime Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson, who went to Washington to serve below President Barack Obama after a stint as Kentucky’s lieutenant governor, remembered a automotive experience from the airport towards downtown with President Obama. Abramson stated he identified factors of curiosity from the interstate, and when he pointed to Freedom Hall, Obama piped up and stated, “Hall of Famer Denny Crum, he coached there. He had that guy Darrell Griffith with the 42-inch vertical.”

EARLY YEARS

Crum arrived at U of L earlier than the 1971-72 season after serving for 4 years as an assistant for legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, for whom he additionally performed and served as a graduate assistant.

He was youthful and assured — some thought cocky — however laid again and charismatic. Peck Hickman, then the Louisville athletic director and himself an completed basketball coach on the faculty, stated he did not know what to make of the younger Crum, together with his sideburns and leisure swimsuit.

“Then we interviewed him, Hickman said. “And he blew us all away.”

Crum took Louisville to the Final Four in his first season.

“Having come from UCLA, I just thought that’s what you did,” Crum stated. “You played the season, then went to the tournament and went to the Final Four. I didn’t have a good appreciation for how hard it was.”

It did not take lengthy for Crum to stoke the flames of a rivalry with the University of Kentucky. Adolph Rupp, its Hall of Fame coach, had an all-white freshman class that included gamers like Jimmy Dan Conner, Mike Flynn, Bob Guyette and Kevin Grevey, and was rated No. 1 within the nation. When requested about Kentucky’s class, Crum stated, he was “not overly impressed” with any of them, and went on to say, “I wouldn’t trade any of them for our two best freshmen at Louisville – Allen Murphy and Junior Bridgeman.” He added that Murphy, “would eat any of the UK guys alive.” UK followers had been outraged, and the Lexington Herald, in an editorial, exclaimed, “Can you imagine the gall?”

Louisville followers beloved it. They rallied behind his confidence. His defiant name for respect resonated with them, and would for 3 a long time. And their numbers started to develop.

Crum coached man-to-man protection and mined the cities within the northeast and rural areas of the southeast for hidden gems. He favored huge guards he might put up up and lengthy, athletic, interchangeable gamers on the entrance line who might swap every part defensively. He instantly put in the UCLA high-post offense. He developed a 2-2-1 full-court zone press and his groups turned identified for making use of fierce strain throughout a time when faculty basketball was dealing with offenses that enjoyed to run the four-corner “stall” recreation.

Manning the Cardinal sideline together with his rolled-up program, Crum took the Cardinals to the Final Four twice in his first 4 years earlier than touchdown Louisville prep standout Darrell Griffith in 1976. After a first-round loss, the Cardinals would make back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances earlier than successful the 1980 NCAA championship.

THE DOCTORS OF DUNK

And that championship modified every part. From then on, there was a ready record for Louisville season tickets. The faculty was in a position to negotiate with the state for a renovation of its residence courtroom, Freedom Hall, on the state fairgrounds. When the varsity wanted state funding assist for educational buildings in its effort to keep up its accreditation, Crum was requested to talk to the governor. The funding was accepted.

From 1980-86, there was no extra trendy program than Louisville’s. “The Doctors of Dunk” made back-to-back Final Four appearances in 1982 and ’83. And in 1986, they received the championship once more.

While Crum was the most popular coach within the recreation, he by no means was voted one of many main nationwide coach of the 12 months awards. Maybe that was due to his laid-back fashion, or possibly it was as a result of his groups typically began slowly, battled their method by means of brutal early season schedules and peaked late within the season, typically after the award balloting had been settled. Whatever the case, he wasn’t all the time accorded the general public recognition to match his accomplishments. He battled the notion that he wasn’t teaching onerous, as a result of he did not rant and rave. His groups had been very athletic however some thought they had been undisciplined. Crum’s success in shut video games, nonetheless, and his uncanny skill to attract up profitable performs out of timeouts, stated one thing completely different.

Crum’s outdated mentor, Wooden, stated of him, “He’s not a showman. Some coaches want to be seen. I wanted people to come watch my players. I think Denny’s that way.”

Crum recruited athletic gamers who made up interchangeable elements on groups that wore down opponents. He excelled find proficient gamers, then giving them freedom to play. And he gave them freedom in different methods, too.

“He didn’t treat you like a little kid,” stated David “Pancho” Wright, the sumptuous sixth man for Louisville’s 1980 championship workforce. “He definitely let you be your own person.”

After the 1980 championship, Crum tried to strain Kentucky to play the Cardinals. No quantity of public strain might make that occur, however the 1983 NCAA Tournament did. In a CBS interview with John Tesh earlier than that assembly in Knoxville, dubbed, “The Dream Game,” as a result of the rivals hadn’t performed since 1958, Crum instructed Tesh, “They won’t play.” When Tesh requested if it was as a result of Kentucky was afraid, Crum stated, “Well did you ask them that?”

“Well, we asked coach (Joe B.) Hall,” Tesh stated.

“And he wouldn’t give you an answer, would he?” Crum stated.

“Well,” Tesh responded, “He tried to walk out of the interview, actually.”

“Yeah,” Crum stated. “Well that’s typical.”

The regular-season sequence with Kentucky lastly got here in regards to the following November, and it continues as we speak.

Crum by no means anticipated to spend his complete profession in Louisville. He thought he’d come for just a few years, then go to UCLA when Wooden retired. But after Wooden left within the mid-Seventies, Crum thought he had an excellent factor going. Then he received a title in 1980. More provides got here, however he did not depart. He received one other title in 1986. He wound up staying 30 years in Louisville, and retiring from teaching after just a few rocky seasons on the finish of his profession.

Crum’s last 12 months on the college was a tough one, with bitter behind-the-scenes infighting spilling into the general public in media exchanges. Only close to the season’s finish was a retirement settlement hammered out.

“It was not a good process,” Griffith stated on the time. But within the phrases of then Courier-Journal columnist Pat Forde, “With every move and mannerism under acute scrutiny, Cool Hand Luke never betrayed a negative emotion,” within the press convention to announce his departure.

After Crum’s retirement from teaching in 2001, the varsity signed him to a job as particular assistant to the president, which he held till he was let go in 2017. He remained a frequent customer at basketball video games and labored enthusiastically in assist of the college.

Any correct understanding of U of L athletics has to start with what Crum did, for 30 years, and with the place the college was earlier than he got here and the place it stood after he left.

There had been tough occasions. There had been a few NCAA run-ins in his later years. But Crum obtained his greatest honor in 1994, when he was voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

POST-COACHING CAREER

For 10 years, he hosted a day by day radio present together with his outdated nemesis, Joe B. Hall, and spent his retirement fishing and looking at his Montana ranch, touring, and supporting quite a few charity occasions in Louisville. He even took up aggressive poker, the place his opponents discovered what his basketball opponents might already inform you — he might learn a recreation and play the chances in addition to anybody going.

And his funding in Louisville, typically a footnote to his basketball accomplishments, moved to middle stage. 

Crum’s connection to the town ran deeper than many in all probability knew. Much of his charity work went unpublicized. All anybody needed to do was ask. One former participant, Phil Bond, lately remembered that after the twister tremendous outbreak in April, 1974, Crum had the workforce go to the house of Bob Allison, a person whose home had been destroyed, to assist with the clean-up.

“It really moves me and it moved all of us and we spent the whole day just helping clean up and pick things up,” Bond stated. “And Mr. Allison was so touched that we had a bond that lasted way past basketball his whole life.”

Bond, who led Louisville in assists for 3 straight seasons earlier than giving method to Griffith within the beginning lineup his senior 12 months, helped Crum to his second Final Four in 1975.

“One of the things I’ll always remember was after we went to the Final Four and came back, Coach Crum had an offer to go back to UCLA,” Bond remembered. “He had just bought a farm, and he took me out there to try to learn how to drive a stick shift, which I never learned how to do. But he told me, ‘Phillip, I’ve decided to stay in Louisville. I’m not going to go to UCLA, because I really love this place, and I’m going to stay here and build something.’ And that’s what he did.”

Crum didn’t construct the modern-day U of L single-handedly. But he made a hefty down fee on it.

In his later years, the college and metropolis discovered new methods to rejoice him. At the dedication for Denny Crum Hall on campus in 2022, followers young and old sat subsequent to him, snapping pictures. Crum, his well being already failing, did not communicate, however smiled by means of all of it.

In March of this 12 months, a brand new “Louisville Legends” banner was hung throughout from the KFC Yum! Center alongside Second Street for all to see as they enter the town’s downtown. It says, “Denny’s Louisville.” It definitely is. Crum, by then unable to seem in public, was not current.

“But I know,” Griffith stated, “Coach would appreciate all the love he’s been shown.”

He suffered a stroke whereas in Alaska in 2017 whereas on a fishing journey together with his spouse, Susan, and mates. But he bounced again from that and continued an lively life that included fund-raising and showing at varied college occasions.

After athletic director Tom Jurich and coach Rick Pitino left the stage, he loved a renewed relationship with the boys’s basketball program, first below performing coach David Padgett, then below new head coach Chris Mack. He hosted workforce gatherings in his residence and was a frequent customer to follow.

Crum suffered a second stroke in mid-May 2019, and was hospitalized for a number of days in Louisville.

Just days into the rehab for that occasion, Crum checked himself out and completed at residence. Doctors instructed him he wanted occupational remedy. “I don’t need a job,” he quipped. “I just want to go home.”

And, as he did every part else, he completed his rehab on his personal phrases. In this case, it was at residence in Eastern Jefferson County, together with his deer stand out in a discipline past the home, the place he favored to climb and watch the deer and birds transfer throughout his property.

It was there that he spent his last months, with Susan, and a parade of former mates and gamers visiting his bedside.

In one in all Crum’s final appearances within the KFC Yum! Center, he got here right down to the courtroom to current retiring Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski with a Louisville Slugger bat. Krzyzewski, himself a Hall of Famer and five-time nationwide champion, stated he was extra moved by seeing Crum than by the reward. The two confronted one another within the 1986 NCAA championship recreation.

“You could not have honored me in a higher manner than to have Denny — I’m going to get emotional,” Krzyzewski stated. “He’s one of the true icons of the game and someone that I’ve admired my entire life, when he worked for Coach (John) Wooden, and then the amazing job he did here. And anyway, that was really — I hugged him a few times you guys, you don’t get a chance to be with people of that level. But that was really a great thing. … He’s one of the iconic coaches in the history of our game. And, look, he stayed with you all in Louisville, right? I mean, he helped build this culture, or built it, and what class and dignity, and he stayed here.”

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