Ralph Beard and Kentucky Basketball

Billy Reed has written a terrific piece today on SI.com about the imminent Kentucky/Louisville Final Four game that has raised the level of fan intensity throughout the entire state of basketball-mad Kentucky. There’s nothing really new, though, about the fans’ passion for the sport, which has been raging for over 100 years.

Back In 1995, Street & Smith's College Basketball annual ranked Kentucky No. 2 in its preseason poll. The outcry from Lexington was heard in the magazine's New York office: “How could you underestimate the ’Cats and rate us so low?” lamented one disgruntled caller.

This season, the Wildcats, the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, are led by the precocious freshman Anthony Davis and his classmates Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague. They are simply the latest in a long line of talented players in the Commonwealth.

Among the hundreds of players and dozens of All-America honorees who have worn the University of Kentucky colors, none is more revered than native son Ralph Beard. The 5-10 guard from Male High School in Louisville was a first-team consensus All-America three times and a two-time Player of the Year. He was a member of two NCAA championship teams and one NIT finalist.

To commemorate a century of Wildcat basketball, the Lexington Herald-Leader conducted two polls in December 2002 to determine the top players in school history. Beard received the most first-place votes from a panel of writers, broadcasters, and former university coaches and personnel, and finished No. 2 overall (to Dan Issel). In a fan survey that reflected an emphasis on the previous 25 years, Beard (born Dec. 2, 1927) placed No. 8.

The legendary Adolph Rupp, who won 876 games in 41 years at Kentucky, called Beard “the best player I’ve ever coached.” Former Wildcat star and long-time college basketball analyst Larry Conley said that Beard remained the standard for Kentucky guards.

The lightning-fast Beard made a quick impression on the Wildcat faithful. As a freshman he sank the winning free throw in the last 18 seconds to give UK a 46-45 victory over Rhode Island in the 1946 NIT final. A year later, Kentucky finished second to Utah in the same tournament.

About the ’47 final, former Utah All-America Arnie Ferrin said, “We had never seen the scouting report until we went to the NIT. Our coach [Vadal Peterson], after seeing tapes and then watching him in person, said Beard never had his feet out of place. Coach said he had never seen anybody better.”

As a junior, Beard was a member of the “Fabulous Five,” the 1948 Wildcat team that went 36-3 and won the first of Kentucky’s seven NCAA championships (over Baylor in New York). Beard shared team-high scoring honors that season with center Alex Groza. Kentucky’s starters—Beard, Groza, Wah Wah Jones, Cliff Barker, and Kenny Rollins—were part of the U.S. gold-medal team in the 1948 Olympics in London that defeated France 62-21 later that year. Bud Browning, coach of the U.S. team, called Beard “the best I ever saw.”

The following season the Wildcats went 32-2 and successfully defended their NCAA title by beating Oklahoma A&M in Seattle.

Beard played with Indianapolis in the NBA—and in the league’s first all-star game in 1951. But before the start of the next season he was among a group of Kentucky players who were implicated in a point-shaving scandal and was banned from the game. He talked passionately about the decision that sidelined him for life from the game he loved.

“My career was over at 23,” Beard told me in 2003. “I took the $700 because I came from a dirt-poor family. My dad left when I was [young]. I never really did know him. My mom had a sixth-grade education. She gave her life to her two boys. I never saw $700. But never, never did I ever do anything to influence the score of a basketball game. I wouldn’t even know how to do that.”

Beard’s No. 12 Wildcat jersey was retired by the university. In 1989, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the NCAA basketball tournament, a panel of distinguished college coaches named Beard to the all-1940s team. Beard died on November 29, 2007, three days before his 80th birthday, in Louisville.