You say they had another Super Bowl? Been there and done that.
In 1976, three days before game X in Miami, I found a briefcase resting comfortably in a restroom. Inside were file folders and a rubber band around a full handful of tickets. There was a little plastic window displaying a business card.
I interrupted my stadium reconnaissance mission to track down a slightly frantic NFL employee.
“You just saved my life. How can I thank you?”
“Don’t need a thing. I have press credentials and even a party invitation.”
“Amazing,” he said.
Never figured out what amazed him, that I wasn’t soliciting a reward or that somebody from Powell had the right connections.
***
This is basketball season. Kentucky is coming for a rematch. A reader who sometimes writes asked if there was a link between the Wildcats’ January romp in Lexington and the death of Joe B. Hall.
Maybe.
She asked if I had known the old coach well enough to add perspective.
Maybe.
There were at least two Joe B. Halls. Basketball fans saw one, very serious, often stern, a brave man who replaced a legend, a man hardened by unimaginable pressure.
Stokely Center faithful did what they could to make matters worse.
“Sit down, Joe, sit down” was the chant when the coach roamed the sideline, doing his best to help officials blow their whistles at the correct time.
Very bright UT students once brought a thousand school newspapers to a game and pretended to be reading when Joe B. came out with his team. They ignored him. He was of no interest, suddenly a nobody. They didn’t even bother to boo him.
Before his 13 seasons atop the UK program, Hall worked seven years as an assistant to Adolph Rupp. He excelled as recruiting coordinator. He helped sign All-Americans Dan Issel, Mike Pratt and Kevin Grevey.
Rivals wondered about Hall’s hand-written letters to prospects. They didn’t know he didn’t have a secretary.
Hall established an off-season conditioning program that became a pattern for dozens of other teams. He was better than the boss at public relations. He found time for coal mine owners, whiskey barons and the horse racing crowd.
When asked what the “B” in his name stood for, Hall often replied “Basketball.”
When he finally admitted his middle name was Beasman, everybody understood why he went by Joe B.
It was sad to hear Hall eventually admit that none of his several accomplishments ever drew so much as “nice going” from Rupp.
As Uncle Adolph approached mandatory retirement age of 70, as Hall emerged as the obvious “coach in waiting,” Rupp appreciated him less. The old coach suddenly favored another assistant, newly hired Gale Catlett, as his replacement – if there really had to be one.
Hall got the job. Rupp did not vacate the big office. Hall kept quiet and found a cubbyhole.
Rupp turned to radio and TV commentary. He didn’t know why Hall used this or that lineup or why he sometimes played a 1-3-1 zone. Second-guessing became a second sport.
I liked Rupp. He returned my calls. This other stuff is new to me.
Nothing came easy but Hall’s 13 seasons were actually more productive than Rupp’s last 13. The Wildcats won 297 games from 1972 to 1985. They made it to three Final Fours. They won an NCAA championship, first in two decades for the Big Blue.
Hall did something else Rupp couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t do. He smoothly integrated the team. Sam Bowie, Jack Givens, Melvin Turpin and Kenny Walker became all-Americans.
Some praised Joe B. Hall for his quick grasp of the changing world. Some in the Commonwealth cursed and clung to the Rupp concept. That was just another stumbling block.
Hall once summed it up: “The pressure of following somebody like Adolph Rupp can absolutely eat you up like acid, just destroy your whole system.”
Former Hall assistant coach Jim Hatfield, from Knoxville, said “Joe stuck with what he believed. He had the inner toughness to withstand criticism and controversy.”
There were some scars. Kentucky lost scholarships during a two-year probation. The Lexington Herald-Leader won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that 26 former players said they received cash from boosters during Hall’s tenure.
The coach denied any knowledge of transgressions but resigned after deciding enough was enough. NCAA investigators were unable to prove the allegations.
“Another” Joe B. Hall was more than an acquaintance, sort of like a friend. He once invited Sarah and me on a fishing trip, to a lake on a golf course that conveniently adjoined the hotel when SEC leaders were meeting. All we had to do was bring our own rods, reels and tackle box.
Sarah caught a medium-large bass. It jumped twice and broke the line. She smiled. I was devastated. Coach Hall rushed to the rescue. He had a new handy-dandy replacement lure.
Upon inspection of the monofilament line, Hall found it was not broken. The knot had come untied. With the patience of a Boy Scout master, he demonstrated for Sarah how to tie the perfect knot. She covered for me. She never hinted who had tied the one that failed.
On a day off at a little tournament in Las Vegas, Sarah and I tentatively approached the gambling pavilion at the host hotel. We looked both ways to see if anyone would recognize us.
As fate would have it, Sarah hit a jackpot on a nickel or dime slot machine. What must have been a thousand coins tumbled into the catch basin. A small crowd joined in celebration.
Joe B. Hall suddenly appeared with two large plastic cups to scoop up the riches. He said one cup was enough if all you wanted was a drink. He said two cups were much better when filled with money.
A few days before a Kentucky Derby, Joe B. Hall invited the great Tom Siler and me to breakfast at the track kitchen, a few tables and chairs for the working class on the backside of Churchill Downs. There was no menu, just sausage, gravy, biscuits the size of your fist and coffee, lots of coffee.
Everybody knew Joe.
He next led us on a tour of the barns. Our shoes were muddied but we met jockeys and hot walkers and the gritty guys who mucked out the stalls. Everybody knew Joe. He introduced us as if we were celebrities.
Soon, a real celebrity appeared. A limo delivered Howard Cosell. Two associates rushed ahead with a wheelbarrow and a bale of straw to build him a nice, dry walkway.
Joe B. Hall leaned in close and whispered: “Watch this.”
Cosell, filled to overflowing with Cosell, strided past without so much as a side glance at one of the more famous basketball coaches in the country.
Joe was easy to like. Howard? Not so much.
Marvin West welcomes reader comments or questions. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com