Out and About Kentucky Style: Joe B. Hall

Joe Beasman Hall had a way of making ordinary people feel like they were his best friend. But it wasn’t always like that.

A gathering several years ago in Deborah and Gary P. West home in Bowling Green are from L-R: Jeff Derrickson (Joe B’s Grandson), Joe B. Hall, Gary West, Larry Conley, Denny Crum, Kelly Coleman and David Wiseman. Seated is Wes Strader.

The former Kentucky Wildcat basketball coach who followed Adolph Rupp died January 14. Even though he stepped away from the program 37 years ago at the age of 56, he was still connected to the team just as he was in 1978 when he won an NCAA title.

The affection that basketball fans, not just U.K., had for Joe B. is something that took time.

“I’m not sure many Kentucky fans liked me back then,” Joe B. told me several years ago. “What’s funny is that some of them love me today. I guess that’s what not coaching can do for you.”

Terry Meiners, of WHAS radio in Louisville for several years, featured a comical spoof on Joe B. Meiners referred to the coach as “the Beasman.” Joe loved it.

I’ve known who Joe B. was for a long time, even when he had his first coaching job at Shepherdsville High School in 1957, and I was a high school student in E-town.  But we didn’t really become friends until around 2005, shortly after I had written a book about King Kelly Coleman.

One day my phone rang in Bowling Green.  It was Joe B. telling me he had seen the King Kelly book and wondered if he could get Kelly and me on his Joe B. and Denny Crum radio show via a phone hook-up?  What if I could get him there in person I asked.

Since Kelly and I were going to be signing books at the State Tournament in Lex-ington in a couple of weeks, and Joe B. and Denny would be doing their show from Rupp Arena, I felt like I could get Kelly on the show.

It was a good show, the first time Kelly had been back to the State Tournament in years, and Joe B. and Denny were very appreciative. Later when I asked if they would do their radio show in Bowling Green as part of the annual Kentucky-Indiana High School All-Star Basketball game, they obliged.

Joe B. Hall and King Kelly Coleman became fast friends, even sharing personal cell phone numbers. It was there at the state tournament that the former Wildcat coach told me that, “Kelly Coleman is the only autograph I ever wanted.”

Later on when Kelly and I were doing a book signing at Joseph Beth Book Store in Lexington, I looked up and Joe B. was standing near the end of the line that wrapped around near the front door.

Immediately I brought the coach over to where we were and made him a part of our book signing. It was a natural. Everyone there knew him and the fact that he had written a snippet for the back cover of the book only added to the event’s success.

As the Kentucky basketball coach, he had an edge, suspicious to a degree, rarely forgetting what was expected of him and whose big shoes he was following … Adolph Rupp’s.

Few people knew that the rolled up game program he carried on the sidelines had been altered as Joe B. would rip out what he considered unnecessary pages in order to make it easier to slap from one hand to the other depending on how his Wildcats were playing. Before it was Big Blue Nation it was Wildcat Fever, and Joe caught it early growing up in Cynthiana.

He dreamed of playing for Rupp, and he did, though not much. Playing in the era of the Fabulous Five, his bench time led him to Sewanee College in Tennessee where he once scored a school record 29 points in a game.

Eventually Joe B. was back home when Rupp brought him in as an assistant in 1965 and seven years later at the age of 44, he was named to follow Rupp who had been forced out when he reached the university’s mandatory retirement age of 70.

There were many who thought Joe B. would never be up to the job. He once wrote that, “every year I’ve been at Kentucky it was reported I would be fired or quit.” Hanging over his head was a suspicion that his teams were not always what they would be. These Wildcat fans were a tough crowd.

By the time the 1977-78 season rolled around the pressure was on for a national title, after all, it had been 20 years since a new NCAA title banner had been hung in Lexington.

Kyle Macy had transferred in from Purdue, and with seniors Rick Roby, Mike Phillips, Jack Givens, and James Lee, there was lots of hope and even more pressure to win.

Joe B. was described by the media as crusty, and prone to outburst after a lack-luster game … even when he won. There were times he even admitted to being uptight.

The Kentucky coach owned a 160-acre tobacco farm between Cynthiana and Paris, but it was mainly the fishing stream on it that he frequented. Fishing was the one way he could relax.

As the Wildcats advanced in the NCAA tourney there were no locker room celebrations. Nothing short of a championship would be accepted. Joe read a lot of newspapers. His Wildcats weren’t having fun … they were cold … emotionless. But that’s the way the coach wanted it. No distractions. Having fun would come late.

And, it did.

When Kentucky showed up in St. Louis at the Checkerdome, I was there to see many of the Wildcat Fever supporters with large lapel buttons that proclaimed “I’m a Joe B. fan.” It was about time.

Kentucky defeated Arkansas in the semis and Duke in finals.

Following the championship season, Joe felt like his basketball team deserved an upgraded place to live, so he set about to raise some $700,000 for a new modern dorm for his players. After ceremoniously seeing his name put on the structure, it was unceremoniously removed when the university told him proper rules and regulations were not followed when naming a building.

Joe B. coached seven more years before retiring in 1985. Following Adolph Rupp he had reached three Final Fours, six Elite Eights, eight SEC titles, one NIT title and averaged 23 wins a season.

“I didn’t want to be an old coach,” he said. “I stretched it a bit because I said 55-years-old would be it.”

Over the years he proved that, yes, you can reinvent yourself. As a beloved grandfatherly figure he was wildly cheered wherever he went, rarely refusing a photo or autograph. His fan base not only ran deep, but equally wide.

I was on Joe B. and Denny’s radio show another time. While in Lexington doing  the “Boys From Corbin” book signing at a couple of book stores, Joe asked me if I would come by the studio and do a segment with him.

“It will only be a 15 minute segment,” he said.

When I got there he told me the book was the most interesting sports book he had ever read. We took phone calls, and he kept me on the air for an hour and forty-five minutes.

He enjoyed doing that show with Crum, the former Louisville coach. The two had been perceived as adversaries, but it was a love for fishing and hunting that proved to be common ground. Basketball took a backseat.

After a ten year, seven month run the show ended in 2014.

“I loved doing the show,” Joe told me. “Gave me a reason to get up in the morning … get out of my pj’s. Denny enjoyed it, too.”

Joe was a story teller deluxe. He had thousands. But the one I liked best of all was when he thought about investing in a race horse.

“I went out to one of our farms to look at it,” he said. “I noticed a slight hitch in his gait, and a bit of a sag to one side, but other than that the horse looked okay. I had a few more questions, and then I asked if I could race him? ‘Yes, and there’s a good chance you could beat him,’ the groom told me.”

Joe laughed and laughed. And so did I.

In 2012 Joe Beasman Hall was elected into the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. That same year they dedicated a bronze statue of him in front of Wildcat Coal Lodge where the basketball players live.

For Joe it was an honor, but no more so than the street named for him in Shepherdsville, or a bridge in Cynthiana, and a bourbon bottle with his picture on the label.

There’s no excuse, get up, get out and get going! Gary P. West can be reached at westgarypdeb@gmail.com.