RIP Coach Gene Bartow, 1930 - 2012
by Achilles on Jan 3, 2012 8:49 PM PST
in Basketball
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PrintDrJay32 put up a fan shot about Coach Bartow earlier, but it's worth a front page post. Former UCLA head coach Gene Bartow has passed away.
Gene Bartow succeeded Coach John Wooden as UCLA's head coach; Coach retired after the 1975 title game.
Prior to coming to UCLA, Coach Bartow had a number of collegiate head coaching positions, most notably at Memphis State (now the University of Memphis), where his 1973 Tigers squad finished as the national runner-up to Coach Wooden's Bill Walton-led squad. He left Memphis State for Illinois, coaching in Champaign for one season before being tapped by AD J.D. Morgan as UCLA's coach.
Bartow only lasted two seasons as coach of the Bruins. His first team went to the Final Four, where they fell to Bobby Knight's Indiana squad. Indiana went unbeaten that year on their way to a national title. His second UCLA team went to the Sweet Sixteen. Overall, Bartow had a 52-9 record as UCLA coach.
After leaving Westwood -- it's been said that Coach Bartow was never really comfortable in Los Angeles -- he became the first athletic director and head basketball coach at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. He would coach the UAB team until 1996, winning 340 games in the process. UAB's basketball home is named Bartow Arena.
He was inducted to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.
Bruins Nation sends it's most sincere condolences to the Bartow family. RIP Coach Gene Bartow.
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Sad to hear this.
Coach Bartow was the coach my first two years at UCLA. He carried on the winning tradition. My thoughts are with his family and friends.
Go Bruins!
Thoughts to Coach Bartow's family and loved ones
Rest in peace.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
Bartow was a class act
Went to the sweet 16 and it was not good enough for the UCLA tradition. Howland currently has the program in the toilet and feels he still deserves to stay,
RIP, Coach Bartow
He was nice enough to sign this for me a few years back.
I wrote him a letter when he was coaching UCLA.
Just expressing my support and hoping he’d stay on as coach. Got a nice note back in return. Still have it somewhere. But a little while later he went on to UAB. It was nice to see the success he had there. He was a good guy and an excellent coach.
Yep
I suspect he thought he would have to replicate Coach’s impossible record to be truly accepted. When he realized that no one could do what Coach had done, he moved on. I wish he had stayed. He was a very classy guy.
It was also the hysteria. He was getting hate mail.
I always wondered what would have happened if he had not started off with that blowout loss to Indiana on the supposedly neutral St Louis Arena. The condensation from the ice rink below made the footing treacherous and we were the team that most relied on quickness.
Still. Even Coach had to put up with abuse after the NC State loss (I was there, at the game, by the way. We got jobbed by the officials). Coach liked to tell the story about how, after the Bruins defeated Kentucky for the championship the next year, someone came up to him to congratulate him, saying, “You let us down last year, but you came through for us this year!”
There was a pretty insane ambiance around the program. Cunningham quit for the same reason.
by Seth Chandler on Jan 4, 2012 9:39 AM PST up reply actions
Sad to wake up to this
RIP Coach Bartow.
by Nestor on Jan 4, 2012 4:59 AM PST via mobile reply actions
9 losses in two years not good enough?!!?
What were we thinking? All Clean Gene did after leaving westwood was build UAB’s program from scratch and turn it into a force to be reckoned with in a few short years. Imagine what Bruin Basketball might have been like in the 80s had he stuck around . . .no doldrum years, no mediocrity. RIP Gene. You were another humble genius.
The Mad Bruin
Cunningham left for the same reason, didn't he? And his teams were 50-8.
Whoever followed Coach needed to have a very thick skin. I was a UCLA student when Cunningham was there. Th atmosphere was still crazy. People expected national championships just because we were UCLA or something.
by Seth Chandler on Jan 4, 2012 9:57 AM PST up reply actions
Gene Bartow at UCLA
His was the impossible task and the audience was still reeling from the JW retirement. He did a good job, and could have stayed for a long time, if he could adjust to the scrutiny from the media and fans expectations. BTW, notice that JD Morgan hired a guy who had “been there, done that”…. Had been to a final four final game…. long time college coaching resume… Interesting idea for hiring a HC….
Mensgym
I think Denny Crum would've succeeded best
I thought Bartow and Cunningham were excellent coaches but didn’t have the thick skin to deal with the outside forces. I know this has been discussed ad nauseum previously, but I will alway believe that if J.D. Morgan had come hard after Denny, he would’ve come back home to succeed Coach.
Morgan's biggest mistake
He didn’t want to hire Crum because Crum IIRC was living with his then gf (his future wife).
It sure was a mistake
but it wasn’t a Lavin mistake. Gene Bartow was a great coach, someone who I think would have continued the Wooden Way, and I think could have eventually won a NC…just not at the previous pace.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Coach Wooden requested Denny Crum, but the AD put in Bartow.
This made most of Los Angeles angry, that the Administration wouldn’t take coaches advice! Denny Crum was better! That sparked most of the Los Angeles critisism!
That being said though:
Bartow was a class act, and a very admired and respected Gentleman.
He’s still a Bruin in my eyes……….RIP……….
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