June 28, 1928: The Tragedy of Harry Kersenbrock

Left to right: Phog Allen, Harry Kersenbrock, James Naismith

June 28, 1928: Harry Kersenbrock dies from drowning in Crete, Nebraska. He was only 22 years old.

He was born on December 4, 1905, also in Crete, Nebraska. The last of 8 children, his father died when he was a toddler, and his mother had to raise all 8 alone. "High Harry" grew to a height of 7 feet, one-half inch. In the Final of the 1925 Saline County Basketball Tournament, he played for Crete High against DeWitt, and scored all of his team's points in a 45-9 win. This was when there was still a center jump after every basket, so 45 was a lot of points for a single player, at any level.

He played basketball at Doane College (renamed Doane University in 2016) in Crete, before transferring to the University of Kansas, coached by Dr. Forest "Phog" Allen, with his mentor, the inventor of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, still teaching on campus. (Both men were certified medical doctors.)

Like a later, even taller, basketball star at that school, Wilt Chamberlain, he was also an expert high jumper by the standards of his time. Unlike Wilt, he also played football, at least at Doane, using his height to stop any runner and bat down any pass.

On June 28, 1928, he and a former Crete High and Doane football teammate, Byron Horn, were canoeing on the Blue River, near Crete. As they approached the boathouse, the canoe tipped, throwing them both into the water. Kersenbrock took Horn down with him once before both gained a hold on the canoe.

Horn could swim slightly, and Kersenbrock not at all, friends said. Horn told him to hang on, as he tried to swim ashore pulling the canoe. But the hold slipped, and the football player went down, not rising again.

He has been forgotten. But, even had he lived, there might not have been much of a post-college platform for him. This was before the advent of college basketball doubleheaders at Madison Square Garden in New York, the NCAA Tournament, the NIT, or any professional basketball league that could be called "major."

Harry Kersenbrock never got to become a Kansas Jayhawk basketball legend like his predecessors Paul Endacott, Charlie T. Black or Tusten Ackerman; or his successors Charles B. Black (no relation to Charlie T.), Ray Evans, Clyde Lovellette, B.H. Born, Wilt Chamberlain, Walt Wesley, Jo Jo White, Dave Robisch, Darnell Valentine, Danny Manning, Jacques Vaughn, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Drew Gooden, Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison, Thomas Robinson or Frank Mason III.

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June 28, 1928 was a Thursday. Patrick Hemingway, writer and wildlife manager, was born on this day, to writer and adventurer Ernest Hemingway and 2nd wife, Pauline Pfeiffer. This was also the day that Governor Al Smith of New York was nominated for President by the Democratic Party, making him the 1st Catholic major-party nominee for the office. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 10-4 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. George Pipgras went the distance for the win, while Rube Walberg only pitched 2 innings. Babe Ruth went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs, a walk and 3 RBIs. Bob Meusel went 2-for-4 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs. Lou Gehrig went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

Playing out the string with the A's, Ty Cobb went 1-for-5 with an RBI, Eddie Collins struck out as a pinch-hitter, and Tris Speaker did not get into the game. Jimmy Dykes went 3-for-4 with a home run, a walk and 3 RBIs. Al Simmons went 1-for-4. Jimmie Foxx went 0-for-3 with a walk. He was catching, and Mickey Cochrane did not get into the game.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 at the Polo Grounds. Bill Terry and Mel Ott each went 0-for-2 with a walk.

* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Washington Senators won the opener, 4-3. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 8-7.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-2 at Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Frankie Frisch and Chick Hafey hit home runs. For the Pirates, Paul Waner went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI, and Pie Traynor and Lloyd Waner each went 0-for-4.

* The Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds were rained out at Redland Field (later renamed Crosley Field) in Cincinnati. The game was made up on July 2. The Cubs won, 8-2. Hack Wilson went 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs. Kiki Cuyler also went 3-for-5, but had no RBIs.

* And the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves were not scheduled. 

April 4, 1988: Kansas' "Hometown" Upset

Danny Manning (left) and Larry Brown

April 4, 1988: The NCAA Final Four was held in Kansas City to celebrate its 50th renewal (although not its 50th Anniversary, which would come the next season), going back to the city that had hosted the most Final Fours.

This was K.C.'s 10th. The 1st 9 were held at the Kansas City Municipal Arena. This one was held at the Kemper Arena, just over the Missouri side of the Kansas State Line, and now named the Hy-Vee Arena. Only once more, in Denver in 1990, was the Final Four was played at a building with less than 20,000 seats.

Opened in 1974, the arena was named for local banking executive Rufus Kemper, who donated $3.2 million of the $23 million it took to build the arena. In 2018, it was renamed the Hy-Vee Arena, for a Midwestern supermarket chain.

As part of the 50th Tournament celebrations, many of the sport's icons showed up for a pregame ceremony, including University of Kansas legends Wilt Chamberlain (lost the 1957 Final to North Carolina) and Clyde Lovellette (won the 1952 Final over St. John's); UCLA coach John Wooden and some of his stars, including Bill Walton (but not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was still active with the Los Angeles Lakers); and Howard Hobson, coach of the winners of the 1st Tournament in 1939, the University of Oregon. (Hobson lived until 1991.)

Having a virtual home-court advantage, the Kansas Jayhawks, based 40 miles to the west in Lawrence, pulled a big upset of the University of Oklahoma, 83-79. Danny Manning was the star for the Jayhawks, and Larry Brown, frequently mocked for how he never stayed at any coaching job for too long, won the National Championship, having previously lost the Final with UCLA against Louisville in 1980.

Brown would later coach the Detroit Pistons to the 2004 NBA title, and remains the only coach to win both an NCAA and an NBA title. Manning went on to play 15 seasons in the NBA, including under Brown on the Los Angeles Clippers and the Pistons. He later returned to Kansas as an assistant coach, and has been the head coach at the University of Tulsa, Wake Forest and Maryland.

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April 4, 1988 was a Monday, as NCAA Tournament Finals tend to be. As they also tended to be in the late 20th Century, they coincided with Major League Baseball's Opening Day, and these games were played:

* The New York Mets beat the Montreal Expos, 10-6 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Dwight Gooden outpitched Dennis Martinez. Darryl Strawberry went 4-for-4 with 2 solo home runs and a walk. One of the homers was the longest ever hit at Le Stade Olympique, crashing into the right field roof, 535 feet from home plate.

Lenny Dykstra (3 RBIs), Kevin Elster and Kevin McReynolds (4-for-5 with 3 RBIs) also hit home runs. Former Met Hubie Brooks homered for the Expos.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Jack Morris and Roger Clemens both went 9 innings, but the game went to a 10th, where Lee Smith gave up a home run to Alan Trammell. Mike Henneman mopped up for Morris. Matt Nokes also homered for the Tigers. For the Sox, Wade Boggs went 2-for-5, and Brady Anderson went 3-for-5.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 12-0 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. It was a bad omen for the O's: They lost their 1st 21 games of the season, an all-time record, and 107 games over the course of the season.

Teddy Higuera outpitched Mike Boddicker. Dale Sveum went 3-for-5 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Robin Yount went 1-for-4 with a walk. Paul Molitor went 1-for-4 with 2 walks. Eddie Murray went 0-for-4. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-4 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Jeff Treadway led off the bottom of the 12th inning with a walk, and eventually scored on a single by Kal Daniels. Joe Magrane was the starting pitcher for the Cards, and hit a home run, but did not figure in the decision.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the California Angels, 8-5 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ricky Horton outpitched Mike Witt. Ken Williams, later to be the general manager who built the White Sox' 2005 World Series winners, went 2-for-3 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Jimmy Key outpitched Bret Saberhagen. George Brett went 2-for-5 with a home run and 2 RBIs.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Pete O'Brien hit 2 homers, to make a winning pitcher out of Charlie Hough. He and the Indians' starter, Tom Candiotti, were both knuckleballers, but it would be Chris Codiroli who blew the lead for Candiotti.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Dave Dravecky outpitched Fernando Valenzuela. Brett Butler went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs. The only Dodger run came on a home run by Steve Sax.

The Giants had won the National League Western Division the year before, and would win it the year after, and the Pennant, too. Not this year: The Dodgers went on to win the World Series.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 4-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Dave Stewart outpitched Mark Langston. José Canseco and Dave Henderson hit home runs for the A's.

* The New York Yankees opened the next day, April 5, beating the Minnesota Twins, 8-0 at Yankee Stadium. Rick Rhoden pitched a 3-hit shutout, beating Frank Viola. Mike Pagliarulo and Rickey Henderson hit home runs. Willie Randolph and Roberto Kelly each went 3-for-4. Dave Winfield went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Don Mattingly went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates also opened the next day. The Pirates won, 5-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Dunne outpitched Shane Rawley. Barry Bonds hit his 13th career home run. There would be 749 more. Mike Schmidt hit his 531st career home run. There would be 17 more.

* The Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves also opened the next day. The Cubs won, 10-9 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Rick Sutcliffe and Rick Mahler started, but neither lasted into the 6th inning. Manny Trillo hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the 13th inning, to score Vance Law with the winning run, making a winning pitcher of Mike Bielecki.

* And the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres also opened the next day. The Astros won, 6-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Mike Scott outpitched Ed Whitson. Glenn Davis hit a home run. Tony Gwynn went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

Football was out of season. No games were played in the NBA. And the NHL was between its regular season and the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

This was also the day that Evan Mecham of Arizona became the 1st Governor of any State to be removed through impeachment by his State's legislature. I have a separate entry for that event.

March 26, 1952: Kansas Phogs Out St. John's

March 26, 1952: The University of Kansas wins the NCAA men's basketball championship for the 1st time, defeating St. John's 80-63 at the Hec Edmundson Pavilion, on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Their head coach was Forrest Allen, known as "Phog" for his "foghorn voice"; and as "The Father of Basketball Coaching," having learned the game at "KU," from the literal inventor of the sport, Dr. James Naismith, playing for him in 1905, '06 and '07. He then succeeded Naismith as head coach, in the 1907-08 and 1908-09 seasons. He went to other schools until 1919, when he returned to Kansas, and remained their through the 1955-56 season. The Kansas Jayhawks were named National Champions by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1922 and 1923, before there was an NCAA Tournament.

The reason Allen went to other schools was that he was going to medical school. After graduating, he integrated numerous concepts of healthy eating, efficient exercise regimens, and proper body alignment into his coaching. A section on sports medicine was included in his book, My Basket-Ball Bible. Among the athletes he treated at his downtown office at 13 East 8th Street in Lawrence, near the KU campus, was a high school football player from Commerce, Oklahoma, who developed osteomyelitis from an injury 1946: Mickey Mantle.

Clyde Lovellette and Dr. Forrest "Phog" Allen

Allen's '52 Jayhawks were led by All-Americans Clyde Lovellette and B.H. Born. Lovellette went on to to win NBA Championships in 1954 with the Minneapolis Lakers, and in 1963 and 1964 with the Boston Celtics. Born returned the next season, and helped Kansas reach the Tournament Final again, but they lost to Indiana. Born only played in the minor leagues, never in the NBA.

The 1952 title led to enough income and alumni donations to fund the building of the Fieldhouse that bears Allen's name, one of the great locations in the history of basketball. Its 1st season, 1955-56, was Allen's last as head coach in Lawrence. He won 24 Championships in the league that would become the Big 8 Conference.

Frank McGuire coached St. John's into this Final. It remains the closest they have ever come to winning the National Championship, and no other New York Tri-State Area school would reach the NCAA Final again until 1989.

McGuire, however, would win a title: The University of North Carolina hired him away, and his "Underground Railroad," taking Irish Catholic and Jewish players off the streets of New York and bringing them South (the opposite of the original Underground Railroad, especially since the players were all white) won him the National Championship in 1957.

Allen died in 1974, McGuire in 1994, Born in 2013, Lovellette in 2016.

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March 26, 1952 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were scheduled for this day.

There was 1 game in the NBA: The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 88-87 at the Boston Garden. Bob Cousy scored 34 points in defeat. Max Zaslofsky led the Knicks with 21.

March 23, 1957: North Carolina vs. Kansas In Triple Overtime

March 23, 1957: The past met the future in the Final of NCAA Tournament basketball, at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. The past won this battle -- but the future would be back.

The University of North Carolina came into the game undefeated, 31-0, and ranked Number 1 in the country. Head coach Frank McGuire was from New York City, and played at St. John's University before coaching there, leading them to what would later be called the Final Four in 1952.

He built his Carolina team around players from in and around New York. Lennie Rosenbluth was Jewish and from The Bronx. Danny Lotz was Jewish, and from Northport, Long Island. Most of the others were Irish Catholics like McGuire: Bob Cunningham from Manhattan, Pete Brennan and Joe Quigg from Brooklyn, Bob Young from Queens, and his best player, Tommy Kearns from Bergenfield, New Jersey. There were only 3 North Carolinians on the Tar Heels' roster: Ken Rosemond from Hillsborough, Roy Searcy from Draper, and Gehrmann Holland from Beaufort.

The University of Kansas had won the National Championship in 1952 and reached the Final again in 1953. Their legendary coach, Forrest "Phog" Allen -- who had coached Dean Smith, who would eventually succeed McGuire at UNC -- had retired, and in 1955, Allen Field House opened. In 1956-57, Dick Harp took them to a 24-2 record, and the nation's Number 2 ranking. Their only 2 losses, each by just 2 points, were to Iowa State and Oklahoma State, coached by the legendary Henry Iba.

The reason the Jayhawks were this good was Wilton Norman Chamberlain, a 20-year-old sophomore from Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia. He stood 7-foot-1-and-1/16th inch, and weighed 275 pounds. He excelled, as you might guess, in the high jump for Kansas' track team. But in basketball, he was revolutionary. The lane was widened to make it harder for him to operate inside, and it failed.

Forty years later, when the NBA celebrated its 50th Anniversary by naming its 50 Greatest Players, there was a gathering of 47 of them -- 1 was dead, 1 was ill, and the other just didn't show up -- and Michael Jordan, who had played at North Carolina, was telling everyone that he was the greatest player ever. Sure, it's easy, when no one calls traveling on you.

Chamberlain called him out on this: "Michael, my man, when you played, they changed the rules to make it easier for you. When I played, they changed the rules to make it harder for me, and it didn't work."

No one had scored like Wilt. No one had rebounded like Wilt. No one had blocked like Wilt. Kansas' game was simple: Get the ball to Wilt. And, in 24 out of 26 games, it worked. As a result, the sports books made Kansas a 3-point favorite.

McGuire had what sounds like a crazy strategy: Have Kearns, only 5-foot-10, guard Chamberlain. At first, it worked well, as the Tar Heels jumped out to a 19-7 lead. But the Jayhawks came back, and at the half, Carolina's lead was down to 29-22. Kansas took the lead, and the game went back and forth to the end. It went to overtime, and to a 2nd overtime. In the closing seconds of the 3rd overtime, Quigg made 2 free throws to give Carolina a 54-53 win, and the National Championship.

For the Tar Heels: Rosenbluth scored 20, Brennan and Kearns 11 each, Quigg 10, Young 2, and Cunningham and Lotz played without scoring. For the Jayhawks: Chamberlain 23, Gene Elstun and Maurice King 11 each, John Parker 4, Lew Johnson and Ron Loneski 2 each, and Bob Billings played without scoring.

Brennan played 1 season in the NBA, for the New York Knicks. Kearns played 1, for the Syracuse Nationals. Rosenbluth played 2, for the Philadelphia Warriors. That was it.

Kansas went 18-5 in 1957-58, and did not make the NCAA Tournament. Chamberlain forewent his senior year, and played the 1958-59 season with the Harlem Globetrotters, making more money that season than any NBA player did.

Eligible to be selected by an NBA team for 1959-60, he was a territorial pick for the Warriors, and singlehandedly rewrote the league's record book. In 1961-62, he averaged 50.4 points per game, including a 100-point game against the Knicks; and 25.7 rebounds, including a 55-rebound game against Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics (who won the game, anyway). The Warriors' coach that season? Frank McGuire. 

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March 23, 1957 was a Saturday. Actress Amanda Plummer was born on this day. She was the daughter of actors Christopher Plummer and Tammy Grimes.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There was 1 game played in the NBA: The Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 120-105 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-0 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

And in English soccer, Arsenal, having fallen from their heights of earlier in the decade, held Birmingham-area team Wolverhampton Wanderers, then one of the top teams in the country, to a 0-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.