Jay Atkerson: Memories of a UK championship

1958 Men’s Basketball National Champions – University of Kentucky Athletics
Front Row: Coach Adolph Rupp, Adrian Smith, John Crigler, Ed Beck, Don Mills, Johnny Cox, Vernon Hatton, Assistant Coach Harry Lancaster
Second Row: Student Manager Jay Atkerson, Earl Adkins, Billy Smith, Phil Johnson, Bill Cassady, Lincoln Collinsworth and Harold Ross

No matter where you live in Kentucky or what month it is, Kentuckians are ready to talk a little basketball.

With summer all-star games, college recruitment and NBA playoffs in the news, it seems fitting to tell a basketball story that has been lost to the ages.

If you will step back in time with me to 1955 when a young man from Woodburn, Kentucky, in Warren County set out to enroll at the University of Kentucky know-ing his family would pay his way for the first two years and after that he was on his own.

Jay Atkerson began high school at Warren County High School as a freshman hoping to somehow make the basketball team. When he didn’t, his coach, Eddie Diddle, Jr., asked him to be the team manager.

“I was all in,” said Atkerson. “I’d get to go to all the games and still be a part of the team.”

By the time he was a senior, Atkerson knew he wanted to be a coach and teach-er someday.

“Eddie told me his dad would be needing a manager for his team at Western,” he said. “He said Hardin McLane (who went on to be a successful coach) would be leaving and I could step right in with a full scholarship. I talked to Coach Diddle … even spent a couple of nights in Diddle Dorm.”

Atkerson, almost in disbelief, turned the offer down. Instead he had his heart set on going to the University of Kentucky. He still had not lost sight of being a college basketball manager, and through a family friend arrangements were made for him to meet Wildcat coach Harry Lancaster, Adolph Rupp’s assistant.

“Coach Lancaster made the decision and he said I was the first to express an in-terest in the manager’s job for the season ahead. I was really surprised.”

One might think that students would be lined up to be a part of a basketball team that had won NCAA titles in 1948, 1950, and 1951. They weren’t, and the kid from Woodburn became the team’s student manager.

“That first day of practice when I walked in I was shocked at how much of a business affair it was,” said Atkerson. “Practices were tough. Rupp was very hard on his players … no clapping, cheering or laughing. No one spoke but Rupp and Lancaster.”

Jay Atkerson pictured holding his NCAA 1958 MEN’S BASKETBALL, DIVISION 1 CHAMPIONSHIP PLAQUE AND PROUDLY WEARING HIS 1958 NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP RING.

That first year Atkerson, far from a full scholarship, got books for his effort.

“My sophomore year I got books and tuition and by my junior year I was up to books, tuition and one meal a day, and had become head manager and with that I also got four tickets for every home game.”

The entire time Atkerson was at UK, Coach Rupp never called him by his name. Always, it was “manager.”

“One day Rupp said, ‘manager where are you from?’” “I told him Bowling Green. ‘That’s a damn lie, you’re from Woodburn.’”

By the time 1958 rolled around little did Atkerson know what was in store for him and the team. They had plodded their way to a 23-6 record and an SEC title, but despite that they were ranked no higher than ninth in one poll and fourteenth in another. This was one of the reasons Rupp referred to his team as “fiddlers.”

“They fiddle around and fiddle around and then finally pull it out,” he said. “They’d be good at a barn dance. You need violinist to play in Carnegie Hall and we don’t have any of these.”

From then on it was “The Fiddlin Five.” With Johnny Cox, John Crigler, Vernon Hatton and Adrian Smith, it would be a long time, if ever, before that many Kentucky boys would start for a Wildcat squad much less win a national title. Ed Beck from Georgia was the other starter. By 1958, the number of teams invited to play in the NCAA tournament had been increased from 16 to 24 teams and schools were usually assigned to play their games within their own geographic area. And did the Wildcats hit the jackpot.

Playing the first and second round Mideast Regional in the relatively new on-campus 11,500 seat Memorial Coliseum they disposed of Miami Ohio, and then Notre Dame to advance to the Final Four in, you guessed it, Louisville’s Freedom Hall.

The rest is history as Kentucky and Rupp won their fourth title with wins over Temple and then Seattle and the great Elgin Baylor in the championship game. For Rupp, who was forced into retirement at the age of 70 in 1972, it would be his last.

That championship game has been talked about and discussed for decades and Jay Atkerson had a hand in what happened.

“The Final Four back then was played on back-to-back nights, Friday and Saturday,” recalled Atkerson. “Right after we beat Temple, Coach Rupp and Coach Lancaster already had their game plan on how to beat Seattle and especially Elgin Baylor. It was Saturday afternoon when Coach Rupp called my room. I think we were staying at the Kentucky Hotel, and said, ‘manager go over to the Seelbach Hotel and get some film a man has for us.’ That film and the man Rupp spoke to showed how Kentucky could beat Seattle by getting Baylor in foul trouble.”

Everything Rupp had planned went out the window once they placed the film in the projector and turned it on. What the mystery man told and showed proved to be the key to the Kentucky win.

Atkerson is full of memories of being a part of one of the greatest basketball programs in history and he enjoys passing them on in hopes they are not lost to passing decades.
“Coach Rupp never seemed to get close to any of his players and small talk was out of the question,” says Atkerson. “During my time there we were at his house, maybe twice during the holidays to watch a football game.”

The stories kept coming.

“Coach Rupp asked me one time to go with him to the TV station where he did his Sunday night coaches show,” he said. “He drew a play up for TV and told the audience all about it, and then on the way home he said, ‘you know that play I drew up … let’s try it out tomorrow and see how it works.’”

Atkerson says two of his big responsibilities were keeping the gate, and referring practice scrimmages.

“The gate was a big thing for Rupp. It was one of those accordion gates and I had the key. At 3 p.m. it was locked and if one of the players wasn’t on the floor he missed practice. The only player I remember getting locked out was Roger Newman.”

Once the gate closed it didn’t open again until practice was over.

One afternoon Atkerson heard someone banging on the gate to get in. It was Louisville Courier-Journal sportswriter Larry Boeck. He was late and wanted in.

“I let him in and Coach Rupp was upset with me,” said Atkerson. “So sometime later, Boeck was late again and this time I wouldn’t let him in. Rupp got upset with me this time for not letting him in. ‘He’ll kill us with what he writes, he screamed at me. Let him in.’”

After that 1958 championship year, Atkerson still had one more year of college. Majoring in physical education and biology, he still wanted to be a coach. Every opportunity he had he spent with Harry Lancaster, who also served as the Wildcat baseball coach. Atkerson, when asked, became the team’s student manager and it gave him some quality time to spend riding to the games with the coach.

Keeping his eye on his goal, after graduation he landed a coaching job at Bristow High School, a small school on the outskirts of Bowling Green.

“I couldn’t believe it, the Carrier twins were there and they were real good,” he said. “Darel was a great scorer and Harel was like glue on defense. And then there was an eighth grader coming along … Rich Hendrick and he turned out to be a great player, too.”

The kid from Woodburn ended up coaching four years at Bristow and seven in Chattanooga.

“I learned a lot from Coach Rupp,” he offered. “Being on time, discipline, responsibility, and having a plan. I appreciated it years later.”

In 1959, Jay married his wife Caroline whose family had moved to Chattanooga.

“I didn’t want to send Coach Rupp an invitation,” Atkerson said. “I didn’t want him there. But my mother sent him one anyway.”

However, to his surprise, a silver casserole bowl arrived in the mail from Adolf Rupp and his wife Esther.

“I would never have thought he remembered me or would ever acknowledge me,” laughed Atkerson.

Today Jay and Caroline live on a picturesque 32-acre piece of heaven that backs up to Drakes Creek in Simpson County.

With scrapbooks full of pictures and old newspaper articles waiting to be re-read, Jay Atkerson enjoys the story behind his unlikely journey from Woodburn to the top of the college basketball world.

Get up, get out and get going! Gary P. West can be reached at west1488@twc.com