Yes, Joe B. Hall was keeper of the flame, but he deserves credit for much more
I was a student at the University of Kentucky, circa 1979-1980, writing for the student newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel, when I showed up at the head basketball coach’s office inside Memorial Coliseum for a scheduled interview.
When Joe B. Hall invited me inside and told me to have a seat, to say I was a little nervous and intimidated was an understatement. As I was asking my first question, Hall interrupted and said, “Before we get started, I want to show you something.”
He opened up a desk drawer, pulled out a folder, opened it and handed me a couple of documents. As I looked them over, it didn’t take long for me to get the gist. They were hate letters. They were disgusting, vile and racist, all objecting to the fact that the coach was playing Black basketball players at Kentucky.
At the time, young and naive, I thought I was special in that the coach had shared these letters with me. I later discovered he did the same with many reporters, so that they would know what he was dealing with. And he had every right to do so.
Joe B. Hall died early Saturday morning at age 93 and if there is one thing that we should remember about the coach, besides his accomplishments on the court — a 1978 national championship, three Final Four appearances — it is what he did off the court, integrating and modernizing Kentucky basketball.
Given the reputation of his legendary predecessor, that was not an easy task. Following Adolph Rupp’s success was one thing. Selling Black athletes on playing basketball at a school that had not accepted them in the past was something else entirely. Yet Hall successfully recruited and signed top-flight basketball players in a way that has never received quite enough credit.
As a fan and a student, I was among the mob at Blue Grass Airport in the early morning hours of March 28, 1978, that greeted the team on its return home after Jack Givens, a Black player from Lexington, scored 41 points to lead Hall’s Wildcats to their 94-88 victory over Duke in the national championship game.
And I followed and helped cover those later Hall teams with Sam Bowie, Kenny Walker, Melvin Turpin, Winston Bennett, Larry Johnson, Dirk Minniefield, Derrick Hord and many, many others. They were all players who would not have played at UK before Hall assumed the head coaching duties. That was a different time, a different place.
After Joe retired in 1985, he was a different person in a different place. Gone was the media-coach tension that came with the pressures of the job, the constant criticism. I remember the Joe B. Gone bumper stickers. When UCLA’s John Wooden retired in 1975, it was Hall who famously quipped that he should get the job, saying, “Why ruin two lives?”
In retirement, Hall was more friendly, relaxed, fun-loving. And appreciated. Kudos to John Calipari for playing a huge role in that, for using every opportunity to give Hall his due.
In later years, I would bump into Coach Hall at Windy Corner on a Sunday morning, eating and holding court with his large group of friends, and he’d talk fishing with my sons.
If you were a guest on Hall’s radio show with Denny Crum, the Louisville coach who was his rival and then friend, Hall would want you to come to the studios at WVLK, where he could sit and talk to you face-to-face, to share stories and laugh and have a good time. More than once, the coach would be talking to me or one of his guests right through the commercial break and onto the air of the next segment. He was having too much fun to stop.
Joe B. Hall will be remembered as the keeper of the flame. That meant something to him. He took it seriously. And he succeeded. To me, however, he should be remembered for something more than that, as a coach who was the right person at the right time and did the right thing.
‘The defender of the program.’ Former Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall dies at 93.
‘I was dreading this day.’ Joe B. Hall remembered by his Kentucky Wildcats family.
Kentucky point guard Sahvir Wheeler is back for game against No. 22 Tennessee
