Pay Heed All Who Enter - A Tribute to Phog Allen



Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen
 

Thirty nine years ago today, September 16, 1974, legendary Kansas basketball coach, Phog Allen, passed away at the age of 88 in Lawrence, Ks.  While Dr. Allen was most known for his legendary coaching tenure at KU, and for the building at KU named in his honor, he was a most extraordinary man in many other ways.

To say that Phog Allen was perhaps the most influential and extraordinary person in basketball history would be an understatement.  Forrest Clare Allen was born in November, 1885 in Jamesport, Missouri, a community most notable today as an Amish community in north, central Missouri.  At an early age, he moved with his family to Independence, Missouri, where he grew up.  Allen graduated from William Chrisman High School (then Independence High) in Independence, Mo and as he pondered his college decision, he narrowed his choices to two schools:  the University of Missouri in Columbia and the University of Kansas in Lawrence.  Allen chose KU because at that time the city of Lawrence had paved roads and Columbia did not.  He took this as a sign that Lawrence was a more progressive, forward-looking city, and that KU would be a better place for him.

Allen lettered in basketball for 3 years and baseball for two years at KU.  It was also at KU that he launched his coaching career, first coaching at Baker University  in Baldwin, Kansas, about 10 miles south of Lawrence.  He coached Baker for 3 seasons (yes, while he was a student at KU and lettering in basketball at KU), and compiled a 45-9 record.  During the fall of 1907, he began coaching KU after Dr. James Naismith, the founder of the game, left KU.  Phog would coach both KU and Baker that year (this would be his third and final season at Baker), compiling a combined 31-12 record.  His record at KU was 18-6, and he coached the Jayhawks to a 6-0 conference record in the newly formed Missouri Valley conference.  KU would win the conference again in the 1908-1909 season, with a 25-3 record and an 8-2 conference record.  During the 1908-1909 season, Phog coached the Haskell Indian Institute basketball team, located in Lawrence, to a 27-5 record, in his only season as their coach.

After the 1908-1909 season, Phog left his positions in basketball to return to school and study Osteopathy at the Kansas College of Osteopathy.  Osteopathy is the study of manipulating bones and joints to treat injuries, particularly to the back, knees and ankles.  At that time, it was still considered a controversial form of treatment, but Dr. Allen would go on to have a successful medical practice as an osteopath after he retired from coaching. 

Dr. Allen resumed his coaching career after he completed his medical degree, coaching both football and basketball at Warrensburg Teachers College (today known as the University of Central Missouri), in Warrensburg, Mo.  He coached the football team for six seasons, compiling a 29-17 record, and in seven seasons as the basketball coach, compiled an 84-31 record.  After the completion of the 1918-1919 school years, Dr. Allen returned to Kansas.

Dr. Allen came back to KU in 1919 as the school’s first Athletic Director, a position he would hold until 1937.  Doc also coached the KU football team in 1920, compiling a 5-2-1 record.  But his greatest glory would come in basketball, where he would coach KU for the next 37 seasons.  In the end, Doc Allen would coach 50 seasons (39 at KU) and would compile a 746-264 record overall and a 590-219 record at KU.  The Jayhawks won 24 conference titles under Dr. Allen, as they played at various times in the Missouri Valley, Big Six and Big Seven conferences.  Phog would also win 3 national championships at KU, including the 1952 NCAA Tournament.

Contributions to Basketball Outside KU

A young Phog Allen with Dr. James Naismith

For reasons that are at best incomprehensible, the dribble was outlawed in basketball back in 1927.  This was a move that so infuriated Dr. Allen that he called a meeting of various coaches in Des Moines, Iowa after the Drake Relays.  He stirred up so much dissension with his protests that the dribble was re-instated, and out of that protest the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) was formed.  Dr. Allen served as the organization’s first president.  Today, the NABC has over 5,000 members, primarily high school and college basketball coaches.  The organization still serves as a “guardian of the game”.  Several years later, the NABC would dream up the idea of having a national championship tournament, sponsored by the NCAA.  Theirs would gather all the major conference champions, plus a few select independents.  Their first tournament was held in 1939 in Evanston, Illinois.  Oregon won the tournament, but it was a financial disaster, and the NCAA wanted to scrap it.  It was Phog Allen who stepped in and lobbied the NCAA to give this tournament another chance.  He requested that the NCAA move the tournament to Kansas City, and move their headquarters there as well.  He assured the NCAA that he could make the 1940 tournament profitable and he did just that.  The 1940 tournament was won by Indiana, beating Phog Allen’s Kansas team 60-42 in the championship game.  More importantly, the tournament was a financial success.  Today, the NCAA Tournament is one of the nation’s biggest sporting events.  For those of you who enjoy “March Madness” today, you can thank Phog Allen’s desperate lobby for a second chance.

Dr. Allen’s proudest professional contribution to basketball involved his efforts to make basketball an Olympic sport.  He was the leading voice in making basketball an Olympic sport and basketball debuted in the Olympics in the Berlin games of 1936.  All the medals were presented by Dr. James Naismith, the game’s inventor.  The United States dominated the Olympics, winning all gold medals between 1936 and 1968, and not losing a game.   As he neared death, Dr. Allen requested that he be buried in his “USA Basketball” outfit, signifying the prominence that he gave to this accomplishment in his life.



Doc and Dean Smith

Dr. Allen also coached many players at KU who would go on to contribute to the game of basketball at other schools.  At KU, he coached Hall of Fame coaches Adolph Rupp, Dutch Longborg, Ralph Miller, and Dean Smith.  At one time, Allen had coached 3 of the 10 winningest coaches in NCAA history (and Doc himself was a fourth in that top 10 list).  Both Rupp and Smith would retire from their respective jobs as college basketball’s all time winningest coach.  I think it is fair to ask where would the Kentucky and North Carolina (two of the three all-time winningest programs in history, with KU being the third) programs be today without Phog Allen.  And he would coach Hall of Fame players Paul Endacott, Bill Johnson and Clyde Lovellette.  He would coach KU to the 1952 NCAA Championship and to two runner-up finishes in 1940 and 1953.  He would also successfully recruit to KU the most dominant player in the history of the game to that point, Wilt Chamberlain.  In what has to be a tribute to the reach he had on the game of basketball, Miami Heat General Manager Pat Riley, a 5 time NBA Championship coach, once said that he was in a sense, “of Kansas.”  Significant because Riley never played at Kansas, never coached at Kansas, never played against Kansas, never coached against Kansas.  Riley did play at Kentucky for Adolph Rupp, who played for Phog Allen at Kansas.  And to this, Riley traces his basketball heritage.

Allen Fieldhouse



Phog Allen in Allen Fieldhouse

For most of Dr. Allen’s career at KU, the Jayhawks played their games in a theater, Hoch (pronounced hoke) Auditorium.  There was even a place where the baseline intersected with one of the theater’s walls.  In the late 1940’s, Kansas State University Athletic Director Michael Ahern successfully lobbied the Kansas Legislature for funds to build a new basketball facility on the Wildcats’ campus.  Completed in 1951, Ahern Fieldhouse seated 11,220 fans and was certainly a sparkling addition to the K-State campus.  Doc decided that KU needed something even bigger and better and he lobbied the Kansas Legislature for funds to build a new basketball facility for the Jayhawks.  His only request of the Legislature was that the KU facility be bigger than K-State’s.  What he got was not only bigger than K-State’s, but bigger than almost anybody else’s at the time.  Doc always maintained that the fieldhouse held 17,000 fans (though the official capacity was more like 16,000.  The building was named in his honor, and the Jayhawks debuted it March 1, 1955 against Kansas State with a 77-67 Jayhawk victory.  Doc would also get to coach the Jayhawks for one full season in its new facility before he was forced to retire by law (Kansas required state employees to retire by age 70, which Allen reached in November 1955).  K-State’s Ahern Fieldhouse was retired in 1988 as a basketball facility.  KU still plays in Allen Fieldhouse, nearly 60 years after it was built.  And it remains one of the best college basketball venues in the nation.

Pay Heed All Who Enter – Beware of the Phog

The Original "Pay Heed" Banner

Allen earned the nickname “Phog” early in life because of his voice, which people said sounded like a foghorn.  He never really cared for the nickname, and much preferred “Doc” reflecting his profession.  Although quite a colorful character himself he did not tolerate nonsense from his players.  If he heard that you were carousing in Lawrence late on a Saturday night, he would roust you out of bed at the crack of dawn Sunday morning and make you play handball with him (Doc was quite a handball player).  Many a player got his butt whipped at the game by the coach, who also used the opportunity to lecture his player on the evils of late nights.  One of his former players, Otto Schnellbacher, also recalled the time he took a girl out for a Coke date in Lawrence, and was soon summoned to Dr. Allen’s office.  He was told thttp://www.rockchalk.com/john/john/banner.htmlhat he could do 3 things at KU:  go to class, play ball, and chase girls.  Doc told Otto that he could do 2 of those things very well.  But not all 3.  And Otto was there to go to class and play ball.  Message was received.

Today, a very familiar banner hangs in Allen Fieldhouse advising all visitors to “Pay Heed All Who Enter – Beware of The Phog”.  This banner was first unfurled in Allen Fieldhouse in February 1988 when KU hosted Duke University.  It proved to be popular that day, so the creators brought it back for the Senior Night game against Oklahoma State a couple of weeks later.  Somewhere in there, Doc Allen’s granddaughter saw this banner and demanded of the KU Athletic Department that this banner be made a permanent fixture.  If you want the full story of the banner, the creator of the banner tells it much better than me (http://www.rockchalk.com/john/john/banner.html).  The original was replaced sometime in the late 1990’s (it had grown quite old and was falling apart).

Unfortunate Incident

Doc Allen was also at the center of one of the most embarrassing and unfortunate incidents in KU history.  After Allen’s successor, Dick Harp, retired in 1964, a banquet was held in his honor and Dr. Allen was invited to make some remarks.  Well, the 77-year-old Doc got up and told the audience that he thought Ralph Miller (one of Allen’s former players at KU, and a Hall of Fame Coach) should have succeeded him at KU.  He may have been trying to say that he thought Miller (coaching at Wichita State at the time – he would lead the Shockers to the 1965 Final Four) should have succeeded Harp.  Instead, Harp’s assistant, Ted Owens, was promoted in 1964 and would coach the Jayhawks through the 1983 season.  Harp never commented on the incident and remained the epitome of a first class gentleman throughout.

Postscript

Statue of Phog Allen Outside Allen Fieldhouse
 

Doc Allen was credited with being the father of basketball coaching.  When he sought out Dr. Naismith’s advice on being a coach (way back when he was a student at KU), Naismith told him, “Forrest, you don’t coach basketball, you just play it”.  After watching Allen’s KU teams for many years, Naismith became a convert and presented Allen a plaque that said “From the Father of Basketball to the Father of Basketball Coaching.”  Today, this is stuff of KU legend. 

Dr. Allen married the love of his life, Bessie, way back in the early 20^th century and they enjoyed over 60 years of marriage until her death in 1970.  Dr. Allen was also inducted into numerous halls of fame, including the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959, and a Charter Inductee into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1961.  He is also a member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame.  He also served as a President of the Lawrence Country Club and was a long-time Sunday School teacher.  Truly an extraordinary life.