Scoundrels still on my mind

Some longtime college basketball fans may think the game-fixing and point-shaving scandals of the 1950s don’t look so bad in comparison to outlandish things happening today. That’s faint praise, but for all its faults, the game may not have been quite as corrupt then as it seems to be now.

In this context, folks around here should have even greater admiration for the quality of the program Roy Williams operates. Lordy, the Jayhawks look like Sir Galahad gleaming in the middle of a dreary group photo including the sleazy Sir Mordred and the slutty Morgan LeFay.

College basketball, but not KU’s visionary and savvy Phog Allen, was jolted hard in 1950 after City College of New York won both the NCAA and National Invitation Tournament titles. That’s when many still coveted the NIT crown more than NCAA hardware. NIT supporters contended the NCAA was out to break their hold on New York-oriented tourney ball. They were right. And it did.

The NCAA was en route to superiority with the emergence of such luminaries as Kansas, San Francisco and North Carolina with their Clyde Lovellettes, B.H. Borns, Bill Russells and K.C. Joneses, Lenny Rosenbluths and Wilt Chamberlains.

The unprecedented CCNY ’50 double, however, was poisoned by the fact that at least three on that team were found guilty of fixes and point-shaves. KU’s Phogger long had been speaking out about the evils of too close an alignment with the Madison Square Garden crowd. Few listeners.

Such crookery also had a southeast flavor, notably in Kentucky. The Bluegrass Bandits didn’t get nailed quite as quickly as CCNY’s crooks, but rumors began to fester.

Kansan Adolph Rupp’s Wildcats waltzed to NCAA titles in 1948 and 1949 with guard Ralph Beard and center Alex Groza sparkling. Beard and Groza also starred as the United States breezed to the 1948 Olympic championship.

In 1951, Rupp became the first coach to win three NCAA titles — beating Kansas State in the title game in Minneapolis. Center Bill Spivey was the hub of that Kentucky club.

Rumors grew and talk persisted that some of the Lexington Boys in Blue might also have manure on their shoes. Sportswriters asked the Bluegrass Baron if there was a chance some of his players tilted the table a time or two.

Replied the bombastic Rupp: “Why, they couldn’t touch any of my guys with a 10-foot pole!”

After Beard and Groza and others — and later Spivey, though he was never indicted — were labeled as less than chaste, the writers found an 11-foot pole and had it delivered to Rupp. The note: “Hey, Adolph, they must have used this.”

Beard, Groza and Spivey had what loomed as brilliant NBA careers wrecked. Kentucky denied Spivey his final year of competiton. Some felt that Beard, a 5-foot-11 magician who could score as well as distribute, might have become as great a pro star as Boston’s Bob Cousy. Ralph had one year in the league. He made the all-star first team along with George Mikan, Ed Macauley, Groza and Bob Davies — before the fix fecality hit the fan. Then banishment and disgrace.

When they asked Cousy, a contemporary, for a comparison, he said he was a playmaker, Beard a point guard who could score, apple vs. orange. Once asked who was the better, Beard replied, “I was.”

The 1950 consensus All-America team listed by the NCAA includes not a single City College player. Beard and Groza earned their honors earlier. Spivey is tabbed A-A for 1951 but his name is not officially posted in some records as the ’51 NCAA tourney’s most valuable player, an honor he was voted.

The handwriting about corruption was clearly on the wall by 1951, just as Phog Allen had been warning. CCNY appeared to have had a little transcript tampering, too. These, and worse, are ongoing diseases. There have been regular reminders of consistent bookie behavior and miscreance.

Other fix and shaving scandals occurred through the years. The 1961 season created big dirt. Not long back, Minnesota had that disgraceful paper-writing and test-taking scandal. Now with the likes of Fresno State, Georgia and St. Bonaventure involved in such stuff as cash payments, grade-fixing, gift-giving, rape-a-dope behavior and heaven knows what else, some naive apologists could say mere fixes weren’t all that bad.

What’s most disgusting is that so many college administrators have allowed such messes to develop. As the immortal Dave Barry says, I’m not making this up: A kid named Jamil Terril transferred to St. Bonaventure from a junior college with, instead of a degree, a certificate in welding. Attention, admissions office!

Now the Bonnies have decided to terminate competition for the season, their officials are going to let them punish other schools with such selfishness and the Jim Harricks, Jr. and Sr., at Georgia keep protesting they’re being shagged. Shark-eyed Jerry Tarkanian seems always on the under-table scene

Harrick Sr. got fired at UCLA for “lying about an expense account.” Wanna bet there was more to it than that? Then he had questionable antics at Rhode Island, where he beat Kansas in NCAA play. Now there are all sorts of accusations at Georgia, where Jim and his fired son built another strong team.

Harrick, once labled the Lizard of Westwood, is good. He sits there in an interview, says everything will bleach out in the wash and, in effect, tells probers like Dick Vitale: “Do you believe me or your lying eyes?” To Vitale’s credit, Old Yeller didn’t back down. He pressed hard for solid answers. Not many so far.

Writes Mike Wilbon in the Washington Post: “The first week in March, normally the time used to set the stage for the grandest four weeks of the college sports calendar, must now be devoted to scandal. Seeing as how there appear to be so many scoundrels and brats and nincompoops … things could get a lot worse before they get any better.”

Man, does the Roy Williams operation at KU glisten in comparison? I’ll take that over fleeting NCAA glory any day. Our guy can look at himself in the mirror without squirming.