Muleskinner

Issue date: 1/22/10 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Nate Taylor: Muleskinner Judy Allen Morris, the grandfather of legendary coach Phog Allen, visited Central Missouri in 2003 to learn more about Phog Allen's time in Warrensburg.

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of James C. Kirkpatrick Library Phog Allen (top row middle) coached football, basketball and baseball at Central Missouri for 7 years before his time at Kansas.

Media Credit: Nate Taylor: Muleskinner A statue of Phog Allen stands outside of Allen Fieldhouse.

Media Credit: Nate Taylor: Muleskinner Before Phog Allen became a legend, he coached a Central Missouri for seven years.

This drive to a small community in Missouri, it could mean very little. Or, something special might unfold. Either way, Judy Allen Morris didn’t really mind.

 

Morris knew her grandfather was an important person. He lived in this small town for seven years – seven years that shaped his life – and, now, people from this town wanted to talk to Morris and her brother, Mick Allen, about what their grandfather meant here.

 

So as Morris sat in the passenger’s seat while her brother drove them through this rural countryside to Warrensburg on a dark, chilly morning with heavy rain, she wondered what awaited them.

 

“What do you think they’ll do?” Morris asked her brother.

 

“I don’t know,” he said.

 

What led to her uncertainty was she and her brother didn’t know these people. They hadn’t spent significant time with anybody in town. And because their grandfather, the legendary Forrest “Phog” Allen, had died more than 25 years ago, how could he be so important to Central Missouri now?

 

Finding the answer was enough for Morris to join her brother on a one-day trip, and once the two arrived Jan. 24, 2003, they were surprised.

 

“I thought we were just passing the torch or something,” she said. “Instead, they treated us like celebrities.”

 

The University had prepared a luncheon, and in some ways, the occasion felt initially like just another event to honor her grandfather, Morris thought. But people kept asking her the same question: What was Phog Allen like?

 

She hadn’t heard that question in a while. To hear it now startled her – in a good way. Morris soon found the answer in each person’s eyes: The people revered her grandfather and wanted to learn more about him.

 

That was good enough for Morris. Their curiosity made her eager to open up about the legendary college basketball coach with the strong Central Missouri ties.

 

A GRANDDAUGHTER’S CONCERN

 

Judy Morris has lived most of her life in Lawrence, Kan., the city where her grandfather became one of college basketball’s biggest names.

 

She remembers a lot about her grandfather. She rattles off the time she sat behind her grandfather while he coached the Jayhawks; she mentions hearing him lobby for basketball to become an Olympic sport; and she describes seeing Wilt Chamberlain sitting on the family couch when her grandfather’s offered Chamberlain a scholarship to be a Jayhawk.

 

No one needs to remind Morris whose name is on Kansas’ arena. A nine-foot bronze statue of her grandfather stands tall outside Allen Fieldhouse. Inside, a banner hanging above the court reads, “Pay Heed, All Who Enter: BEWARE OF ‘THE PHOG.’”

 

Sure, the KU community recognized his records and achievements in athletics, but it wasn’t enough for Morris.

 

“My grandfather should be known for more than just basketball,” she said.

 

Morris kept wondering: Do they know the person or just the legend?

 

A COACH IS BORN

 

Basketball always had Phog Allen’s attention. Growing up with five brothers, he was addicted to the game, with friends to support his habit. In his youth, Allen developed his shooting skills to later become a two-time All-American at Kansas.

 

Allen also played for James A. Naismith, the inventor of basketball. In 1906, Naismith felt basketball was too spontaneous to be coached. Still, his philosophies helped to mold Allen.

 

As basketball was growing in popularity, Allen believed teaching the game’s nuances might have value, an idea that ran counter to Naismith’s.

 

“You can’t coach basketball, Forrest,” Naismith told him. “You play it.”

 

The conversation – and idea – could have ended there. Luckily for the sport, Allen had his own theories.

 

“You can certainly teach free-throwing,” Allen said. “And you can teach the boys to pass at angles and run in curves.”

 

Allen proved right. The following season, he replaced Naismith as coach and led Kansas to the Missouri Valley Conference title. Then, from 1919-1958, Allen became the best coach of his era. He won three national championships and 24 conference titles.

 

“He was the first guy to know coaching was important,” said Blair Kerkhoff, author of the book Phog Allen: The Father of Basketball Coaching. “He thought you could win games solely on coaching and strategy.”

 

By rejecting Naismith’s philosophy, Allen, in the most unlikely way, became the most influential figure of his time.

 

OLD STORIES REVEALED

 

This luncheon wasn’t just a bunch of people sitting at tables talking about Phog Allen. No, Judy Morris sensed a family atmosphere. After all, if you knew her grandfather, you’re considered family.

 

Judy McClure had made the phone call. If anything, she was the reason Morris and Mick Allen were in Warrensburg. McClure’s late husband Arthur, a KU grad, fell in love with Phog Allen’s history. As UCM chair of History and Anthropology for 30 years, Arthur McClure wanted to write Phog Allen’s biography, but when he died in 2002, Judy McClure knew what do to next: donate all the items her husband found on Phog Allen to James C. Kirkpatrick Library.

 

There were a lot of materials for the archives, too: boxes of old photographs, newspaper articles and letters Phog Allen wrote to players during the war years – letters detailing aspects of his life.

 

Judy McClure knew her husband had visited Morris and Mick Allen, thus to celebrate the donation, she made sure they attended the luncheon.

 

Throughout the day, Morris learned her grandfather had refereed Central Missouri’s first-ever basketball game in 1905. She also found out he played forward for Central Missouri – even though he was the coach. Morris was beginning to see the historical link between her grandfather and Warrensburg.

 

“The appreciation that was shown,” Morris said, “you could tell they cared.”

 

The person who sifted through all the materials was Vivian Richardson, the assistant director of archives. Richardson showed Morris and her brother all the research on their grandfather.

 

“They were excited over the amount of information we had on Phog,” Richardson said. “They were very happy that we as a college still remember him so well.”

 

Tales about her grandfather traveled around the Union Ballroom for what seemed like a decade. With each conversation Morris had, she saw people paint a more vivid picture of her grandfather.

 

For Morris and her brother, it was as if they had gone back in time.

 

WARRENSBURG ACCEPTS PHOG

 

Phog Allen and Central Missouri needed each other.

 

For Central Missouri, they wanted a lot of things: A person who could take their young athletic program to the next level, build new facilities and win conference titles. Allen had to find a school that allowed him see if his two passions could coexist: coaching and medicine.

 

After leaving KU in 1909, Allen enrolled at the Kansas City College of Osteopathy. There, he learned taking care of the body could be a key part in athletics. Allen immersed himself so much in human health that he turned down coaching jobs at Washburn, Westminster College, West Point and William Jewell in order to graduate with the only degree in his life in 1912.

 

Anxious to treat patients, he wanted to put his work into practice. But with doctors waiting an average of two years to find work back then, Allen couldn’t wait.

 

Coaching had been his backup plan, and he decided to put it into use.

 

At the age of 26, Allen accepted an offer from State Normal School No. 2, known now as Central Missouri, to become the head of physical education. His salary was $1,600 per year.

 

The hiring created a buzz in Warrensburg, and Allen didn’t take long to build a winner.

 

In his first year as coach of football, basketball and baseball, Central Missouri won all of its conference games. Allen learned in his first year that his medical background gave him an advantage – he could keep his players in better shape and heal them quicker than other coaches.

 

“Warrensburg,” Morris said, “is when he realized these two things fit well together.”

 

Allen was also one of the best coaches.

 

In his book, Better Basketball, Allen theorized a shot from around the free-throw line – either from the field or the foul line – was responsible for more victories than any other two shots combined. His philosophy was to have his players hear his message in their sleep: “Guard as if your arms were cut off at the elbows. ... The knees are the only springs in the body – bend them! ... Pass at angles. … Run in curves.”

 

“This was at a time when people were still learning how to play the game,” Richardson said. “He brought a winning spirit to the school.”

 

Allen won the fans over with a 23-22 win over the Kansas Aggies, known now as Kansas State. Playing against an Aggie team that had beaten KU twice that year, Allen led the “Normals” to what the student newspaper at the time called, “The most thrilling game of basketball ever seen on the Normal court.”

 

In the 1913 upset, Allen used his medical training to keep one of his players in the game after treating him for an ankle injury. The fact his team was better conditioned than the Aggies proved even more important as the Normals scored four of the game’s final six points.

 

It marked the school’s first victory over a bigger school.

 

“We owe a lot to him,” Richardson said. “KU had him for a long time, but he certainly helped build this program.”

 

The people of Warrensburg loved Allen. They supported his side business as well. With his medical office in the basement of his three-room house on Broad Street, Allen helped anybody who needed treatment.

 

“Taking care of people always intrigued him,” Morris said. “Being a coach gave him the chance to connect with people in a way being a doctor just couldn’t.”

 

Both parties had succeeded. Allen won with his medicine and became the most public figure in town. And for Warrensburg, they thought Allen would never leave, only to turn Central Missouri into a big-time place for college sports.

 

CONTROVERSY LEADS TO KANSAS

 

There are certainly myths when it comes to legends, and with Phog Allen, this one wasn’t answered for 55 years: Just why did he stop coaching in Warrensburg?

 

There were a lot of candidates – the MIAA expelling the Normals for five years, the Normal School at Kirksville accusing Allen of using football players who were not students or the University of Illinois, who signed Allen to become its assistant football coach in 1917 before World War I cancelled the season. Each theory seemed to have some merit, but none were completely true.

 

H.H. Russell knew the answer.

 

As a football player for Allen, Russell let the truth out after his coach, 88 at the time, died Sept. 16, 1974.

 

“His last year at Warrensburg was terminated because there were two medical doctors on the Board of Regents,” said Russell, who told The Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal in an interview. “They apparently disliked the fact that ‘Doc’ maintained his osteopathic practice in his spare time, after school, on weekends and holidays.

 

“So … in the spring of 1919, the board delivered an ultimatum to Dr. Allen. He would have to be their full-time coach and give up his practice or else give them his resignation; which, of course, he did.”

 

Turning down a $400 raise, Allen left Central Missouri with an 84-31 record as basketball coach. That June, Allen told school officials he would devote his time to his medical practice, seemingly in an effort to get back at the board.

 

“One thing we know about Phog was he had an ego,” Kerkhoff said. “Early in his life, Phog set out to prove Naismith wrong. He thought he could be a coach, so he became coach. He thought he could be an AD, so he became an AD. I think that ego was a reason people in the MIAA didn’t like him, either.”

 

Even if multiple issues ruined Allen’s time at Central Missouri, he never had a negative thing to say about Warrensburg. Even after he had become the iconic figure at Kansas, Allen returned to Warrensburg often – mostly to spend time with Russell, who shared the same birthday with Allen.

 

“It was the greatest opportunity that ever happened to him,” Russell said of Allen’s resignation, “because then the position of athletic director became available at KU.”

 

But it was the work Allen did at Central Missouri that landed him the job. 

 

“What Phog learned most from his time in Warrensburg was being an athletic director,” Kerkhoff said. “That is what served him really well and what led him back to Kansas.”

 

That was the point Central Missouri showed Judy Morris and Mick Allen – without Phog Allen’s seven years in Warrensburg, their grandfather might never have become a college basketball legend.

 

DRIVING HOME AS MULES

 

Serious basketball fans know the rest of the story – that Phog Allen rejoined Kansas one month after leaving Central Missouri and built the Jayhawks into a powerhouse.

 

Still, that knowledge wasn’t enough for Morris.

 

Since Jan. 24, 2003, she has tried to make certain her grandfather’s legacy never leaves this small town in Missouri. All the Phog Allen artifacts she left remain in the library for people to see. Morris wants her grandfather’s connection with Central Missouri to stay strong.

 

“It just felt like they knew more about him at the university level there than a lot of people do here in Lawrence,” she said. “It just seems like people in Warrensburg had more knowledge of the man.”

 

To end the luncheon, Morris and Mick Allen were asked to stand at the front of the ballroom. Men’s basketball coach Kim Anderson and athletic director Jerry Hughes presented the siblings with commemorative jerseys – “Allen” stitched on the back.

 

On that day, Morris and her brother became Mules, just as their grandfather had been.

 

Only Morris didn’t know she would be taking a piece of Warrensburg back with her to Lawrence.

 

On the 90-mile drive back home, Mick Allen was still the driver. The cold rain was still coming down, too. So as Morris sat in the passenger’s seat, she looked to her brother and smiled.

 

He smiled back.

 

There was no music. No talk radio, either. There were just two grandchildren talking about how much their grandfather meant to the people of Warrensburg.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools