A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. — Obrey Brown.
There was 1948 and 1951. Again in 1961 and 1966.
All four of “Black” Jack Gardner’s trips to NCAA’s Final Four came without a national championship – 1948 and 1951 coaching at Kansas State, then 1961 and 1966 at his next stop, University of Utah. Three times his squads lost in semifinals. It was in 1951 that his team came closest. That season, though, was a disaster for college basketball. It involved point shaving.
Kentucky, coached by legendary Adolph Rupp, beat Gardner’s K-State team by 10 points, but there was more to it. K-State had beaten Arizona, Brigham Young and Oklahoma A&M to earn its spot in that season’s NCAA championship game.
Kentucky’s involvement in that point-shaving mess was later to be uncovered when No. 1-ranked Wildcats arrived in Minneapolis in search of their third NCAA championship in four years. Gardner’s No. 4-ranked Kansas State, the champion of the Big Seven, awaited.
Led by 7-foot junior All-America Bill Spivey and sophomore Cliff Hagan, the Cats beat Gardner’s K-Staters, 68-58. Kentucky’s celebration didn’t last long. Shortly after winning the title, that point-shaving scandal broke in New York.
REAL REASON FOR KANSAS STATE’S LOSS
Five of Kentucky’s players, including Alex Groza, Ralph Beard and Spivey were implicated. Groza and Beard, stars of USA’S 1948 Olympic basketball team and eventual professionals, were thrown out of the NBA. Spivey fought those charges, but never played another game in college or pros.
Gardner, he told me, “bit his tongue” in suffering such a setback. There was, he said, “nothing he could do.” Fifteen seasons later, in 1966, was Gardner’s last in leading his team into that NCAA Tournament. It would be a memorable achievement.
Gardner, upended by Rupp in ’51, nearly squared off against him in ’66 when Texas Western hit stride, inspiring that future 2006 movie “Glory Road.”
In “Glory Road,” Rupp was portrayed by Academy Award winner Jon Voight. Don Haskins was played by Josh Lucas. Tons of actors portrayed various roles – reporters, rival players, boosters, racists, students, you name it. There were no roles to depict Gardner, or even Chambers.
As for Utah, there was a consolation game in those days. After losing to third-ranked Texas Western, the unranked Utes lost to second-ranked Duke, 79-77, to finish a 21-8 season. None of that was portrayed in “Glory Road.”
In 1966, after Utah beat Oregon State, 70-64, the Utes found themselves up against that rather historical team – Texas Western University, later known as Texas-El Paso. In that 2006 motion picture, “Glory Road,” its story focused on Haskins’ decision to lead an all-black team into that 1966 Texas Western season.
There was no mention of that NCAA semifinals between Texas Western and Gardner’s Utes in that movie. Though Jerry Chambers, of Utah, was selected as that year’s Final Four MVP despite losing, 85-78, to Kentucky, “Black Jack’s” role was curiously absent in that movie.
Haskins may have changed the way basketball was played, but Gardner’s career seemed far deeper.
GARDNER TOOK ON COLLEGE HOOPS’ BIGGEST NAMES
Marquette’s legendary coach, Al McGuire, brought his team into Madison Square Garden (N.Y.) to beat “Black” Jack’s Utes by 20 at that 1970 NIT. Marquette capped a 24-3 season with that NIT championship. A 24-3 team? NIT? Remember, NCAA tournaments had just expanded to 32 teams a year earlier.
Gardner’s final career game from the sidelines was a loss – by 11 points. Against rival BYU. A few seasons earlier, at home in his Utes’ Huntsman Center, Dean Smith’s North Carolina Tar Heels got him in 1965. By five points.
Speaking of North Carolina. In 1956-57, Frank McGuire’s unbeaten Tar Heels beat Utah on Dec. 27, 1956 by 21 points en route to their own NCAA championship a couple months later.
That was a crazy tournament in which UNC beat No. 11 Michigan in the semifinals before knocking off Wilt Chamberlain’s Kansas team in that season’s finals – both triple overtime victories.
“I watched all those games,” Gardner recalled, chuckling. “I won’t say it. I won’t say if we could’ve beaten Kansas, Wilt’s team. I just won’t get into it.”
There was a 1964 game in which Utah knocked off a Cal-Berkeley team by 25 points. On that Golden Bears’ team was another Redlands product, Danny Wolthers, who averaged 17.7 points that season. A few years earlier when he was in high school, Wolthers played for Jerry Tarkanian during their Redlands days.
A couple years earlier, though, Cal tagged Utah with a 72-66 loss in that 1962-63 season opener at Berkeley’s Harmon Gym. Wolthers averaged 6.7 points that season..
That must’ve been a nice win for No. 5 Utah when it outdueled No. 8 Utah State on Feb. 27, 1960 in Logan, 77-75. Aggies’ coach Cecil Baker had a 24-5 team that season while Gardner’s squad finished 26-3. It was a big basketball night for Utah.
No. There was never a collegiate matchup with Tarkanian, that ex-Terrier coach who took a similar pathway to major colleges as Gardner – through junior college ranks, namely Riverside and Pasadena. Tark wound up at Long Beach State during Gardner’s final years in Salt Lake City.
Long Beach State never played Utah in that five-year span.
“The Fox,” meanwhile, had quite a career.
Even Sports Illustrated got into the mix on Gardner.
That magazine once wrote that “he could win with an old maid on the post and four midgets.” A proponent of fundamental basketball, Gardner was an expert in fast break basketball. His Utah teams were accordingly known as the Runnin’ Redskins, later the Runnin’ Utes.
Part 3 next.
