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WORK TITLE: Phog
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
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WEBSITE: http://phogbook.yolasite.com/
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NATIONALITY:
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Phog,677257.aspx * http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2016/oct/30/e-clear-look-phog/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Everett Herald, sports writer.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Sports Illustrated, Washington Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune.
SIDELIGHTS
Scott Morrow Johnson is a freelance sportswriter who has worked for the Everett Herald for roughly two decades. He has also contributed sports articles to several well-known periodicals, Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, USA Today, Sporting News, and the Chicago Tribune. Johnson has covered everything from football to baseball and basketball, and he focuses on the later in his first book, Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball. The book offers a profile of famous basketball coach Forrest Clare “Phog” Allen (1885-1974), and while Johnson acknowledges Phog’s often racist attitudes, he notes that this attitudes diminished over the course of Phog’s career. From there, Johnson explores Phog’s most effective coaching strategies, including his sly instruction that his players should fall whenever they were close to the opposing team’s best player. This tactic was used to trim referees into calling for fouls in his team’s favor. Johnson then comments on Phog’s work in Kansas, his late-career recruitment of basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, and his lasting influence on the sport of basketball.
As Nick Krug reported in the online Lawrence Journal-World, “Johnson’s book has been long sought by Lawrence resident Judy Allen Morris, granddaughter to Phog Allen.” Indeed, Johnson told Krug: “When [Judy and I] talked about it, one of the first things as a journalist that was important to me was to show the man, warts and all . . . She was on board with that but, but I was just explaining to her that to really show all sides of a person, [you needed] the good and the bad.” Yet, a Kirkus Reviews critic felt that Johnson’s biography is overly admiring, asserting: “Unfortunately, cliche has a happy home in the text (clocks are ticking, emotions wash over people).” The critic went on to call Phog “a biography whose dough needs less honey and more salt.” Andrew McGregor, writing in the online Sport in American History, was far more positive, calling Phog’s biography “a book befitting his legacy.” McGregor then explained: “Johnson’s biography goes a long way toward helping fans and scholars understand the man behind the legend that built Allen Fieldhouse and his outsized influence of the sport. While it lacks the critical bite and broad contextualization that most sport historians demand, it is an important contribution to our understanding of Allen’s life and the game of basketball. And you can’t fully understand the game of basketball without knowing about Phog Allen.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2016, review of Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball.
ONLINE
Lawrence Journal-World, http://www2.ljworld.com/ (June 21, 2017), Nick Krug, author profile and interview.
Phog Book Web site, http://phogbook.yolasite.com (June 21, 2017).
Sport in American History, https://ussporthistory.com (January 7, 2017), Andrew McGregor, review of Phog.*
Phog
The Most Influential Man in Basketball
Scott Morrow Johnson
Foreword by Judy Allen Morris
376 pages
26 photographs
Hardcover
November 2016
978-0-8032-8571-2
$29.95Add to Cart
ABOUT
AUTHOR BIO
PRAISE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MEDIA
AWARDS
About the Book
Remembered in name but underappreciated in legacy, Forrest “Phog” Allen arguably influenced the game of basketball more than anyone else.
In the first half of the twentieth century Allen took basketball from a gentlemanly, indoor recreation to the competitive game that would become a worldwide sport. Succeeding James Naismith as the University of Kansas’s basketball coach in 1907, Allen led the Jayhawks for thirty-nine seasons and holds the record for most wins at that school, with 590. He also helped create the NCAA tournament and brought basketball to the Olympics. Allen changed the way the game is played, coached, marketed, and presented.
Scott Morrow Johnson reveals Allen as a master recruiter, a transformative coach, and a visionary basketball mind. Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Wilt Chamberlain, and many others benefited from Allen’s knowledge of and passion for the game. But Johnson also delves into Allen’s occasionally tumultuous relationships with Naismith, the NCAA, and University of Kansas administrators.
Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball chronicles this complex man’s life, telling for the first time the full story of the man whose name is synonymous with Kansas basketball and with the game itself.
Author Bio
Scott Morrow Johnson is an award-winning sportswriter whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune.
CRADLE OF BASKETBALL
About the author
Scott Morrow Johnson is a freelance sportswriter who has spent most of the past two decades covering college basketball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and Major League Baseball. He has contributed to Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Sporting News and The Chicago Tribune.
New book aims for a clearer look at Phog Allen
Phog Allen portrait, 1950s. Photo courtesy of University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU
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Phog Allen portrait, 1950s. Photo courtesy of University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU
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By Nick Krug
October 30, 2016
Most Kansas basketball fans can recall from memory the classic photo of the game’s creator James Naismith standing proudly on the left with the coach Phog Allen to the right.
The two figures of basketball royalty are both wearing fedoras and the only thing stopping them from holding hands is a basketball that they hold together. The image portrays the two as allies and collaborators in lock step, cradling the game in its fledgling years. But a new book on Phog Allen suggests reality wasn't nearly as picturesque.
According to the new book by Scott Morrow Johnson, “Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball,” the relationship between the two men was at times contentious, especially when it came to their respective visions for the game and its potential.
James Naismith and Phog Allen portrait, 1932. Photo courtesy of University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU
James Naismith and Phog Allen portrait, 1932. Photo courtesy of University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU by University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU
“There was about 15 or 20 years where the two of them were butting heads over the game,” says Johnson. “Naismith just wanted it to be this schoolyard game that kids played like bombardment, or something you just did to pass the time. Allen saw something greater and that sort of irked Naismith.”
PHOTO GALLERY
The 1926 University of Kansas basketball team. Photo courtesy of University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU
A photo gallery of Phog Allen through the years
View a gallery of famed University of Kansas basketball coach Phog Allen through the years.
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Now, if you’re beginning to fear that with every page turn, the happy bedrock of the nation’s most storied college basketball program will begin to crumble beneath your feet, don’t worry. Johnson’s book has been long sought by Lawrence resident Judy Allen Morris, granddaughter to Phog Allen. Johnson's own grandfather, William “Skinny” Johnson played for Allen in the early 1930s.
What the book does is aim to give is an honest portrayal of the famed KU coach, who could be described as ambitious, stubborn, good-hearted, a man of science, a competitor, a loving father and grandfather, and last but not least, a visionary.
“When [Judy and I] talked about it, one of the first things as a journalist that was important to me was to show the man, warts and all,” said Johnson, who lives in Seattle and previously worked as a sports writer for the Everett Herald for almost 20 years.
“She was on board with that but, but I was just explaining to her that to really show all sides of a person, [you needed] the good and the bad.”
Through anecdotes of his journey, from birth to death, Johnson gives attention to the various life experiences that shaped the man such as his first coaching job at Baker University — while still a sophomore at KU in 1907 — and the tragic death of his 14-year-old son, Forrest Clare Allen Jr.
To accurately provide the scope of Allen’s lasting influence, Johnson also highlights other historically important figures who followed the many tributaries of basketball that led to and passed through Allen, forever shaping the game which we know today. Some of them with names like Smith and Rupp, just like their mentor, went on to have basketball cathedrals named for them also.
Another such story includes a chance encounter with a 17-year-old from Indiana by the name of John Wooden, who was passing through Lawrence in search of work and met Allen, who put the young man to work as a laborer in the Memorial Stadium renovation of 1927.
Johnson makes the case that some of the modern institutions of basketball could look quite different without Allen. For example, the first ever NCAA tournament in Evanston, Ill. in 1939 was a financial disaster until Allen convinced organizers to move it to Kansas City the following year in 1940, with the promise of a profit.
“He was such a salesman,” recalls Judy Allen Morris, who also provided the foreword for the book.
“He was responsible for a lot of rules,” says Johnson. “There was a period there where they were trying to take the dribble out of basketball and Phog Allen was responsible for saving [it]. There were so many things that he had his hands in.”
Johnson also makes mention of a 1935 essay from Allen, titled “Dunking Isn’t Basket Ball,” and quotes Allen as saying the act “does not display basketball skill — only height advantage.” He goes on to tell how later, Allen was even a proponent of raising the goal to 12 feet in an effort to prevent the dunk. Whether or not he experienced a change of heart over the dunk could possibly be evidenced by Allen’s pursuit of Wilt Chamberlain, the biggest fish landed by KU to date and the sport’s most prolific dunker of the era.
Of all the heavy names that get dropped throughout the book, Johnson repeatedly brings the conversation full circle back to Allen.
“People talk about Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, John Wooden and all these people that have transcended the game over the years … but Phog gets lost in that,” says Johnson.
“Naismith invented the game, but Phog took that little seed and blossomed it into what it became,” he said. “He was hugely influential.”
Johnson will have a 3 p.m. book signing on Nov. 5 at the Lawrence Public Library.
Scott Morrow Johnson: PHOG
Kirkus Reviews. (Sept. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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Scott Morrow Johnson PHOG Univ. of Nebraska (Adult Nonfiction) 29.95 11, 1 ISBN: 978-0-8032-8571-2
A freelance sportswriter debuts with a generous, admiring account of the life of pioneering basketball coach Forrest Clare “Phog” Allen (1885-1974).The author, who has written for Sports Illustrated and other publications, has few negative comments about his subject, who acquired the nickname “Phog” because of his booming, foghornlike voice. Though Johnson briefly discusses Allen’s retro racial attitudes—though he relaxed them while recruiting Wilt Chamberlain near the end of his long coaching career at the University of Kansas—there is little else to distinguish the tone from a gung-ho 1950s-era sports biography. Unfortunately, cliche has a happy home in the text (clocks are ticking, emotions wash over people), and the author’s admiration is so firm that he comes near to praising Allen’s strategy in one key game of having his players fall down when they were near the star of the other team; foul calls ensued. Nonetheless, Johnson did his homework, and there is much to learn here, not just about Allen’s remarkable career (590-219 at Kansas) and enduring influence (he coached Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith, among other notables), but about his family history, his wife and children, and the early days of basketball, when each team picked one person to shoot foul shots, the heavy ball was difficult to dribble, and there was no shot clock. We see Allen as a coach obsessed with the fundamentals—and with physical conditioning, his own included—a man who earned a degree in osteopathy and operated a clinic, who was instrumental in forming the NCAA and in getting basketball included in the Olympics. A national legend when he retired, he nonetheless slipped away from public consciousness, his name now known principally to residents of Kansas and basketball cognoscenti. A biography whose dough needs less honey and more salt.
Review of “Phog”
Andrew McGregor / 07 January 2017
Johnson, Scott Morrow. Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. 376. 26 photographs, notes and index. $29.95 Hardcover.
Reviewed by Andrew McGregor
In Kansas, basketball is a religion. Allen Fieldhouse, opened in March of 1955, is widely recognized as one of its most hallowed temple. Its floor, where a giant Jayhawk looms at center court, is named for the game’s inventor, James Naismith. In the rafters hangs a sign that reads “Pay Heed All Those Who Enter, Beware of the Phog,” warning opponents of the mystical powers deep within the old barn. Outside of the building, which houses Naismith’s original rules in its newly added Booth Hall of Athletics wing, stands a twelve-foot tall statue, dedicated to Forrest C. Allen. If this doesn’t give you chills, just wait until the crowd of 16,500 fans starts the famous Rock Chalk chant.
University of Nebraska Press, 2016.
University of Nebraska Press, 2016.
Forrest C. “Phog” Allen is central to the lore of the University of Kansas (KU) basketball program, and, as Scott Morrow Johnson suggests in his new biography of Allen, the entire sport of basketball. In Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball, Johnson endeavors to tell the story behind the man whom everyone’s heard of but few truly know. The book recounts the life of “Phog” Allen from his youth in Independence, Missouri to his successful coaching career at the University of Kansas. A veteran journalist and freelance writer, Johnson’s great grandfather was an All-American on the KU basketball team in the late-1920s, helping foster a connection with Allen’s granddaughter, Judy Allen Morris. She encouraged his research and helped him to build on previously unpublished research by Arthur McClure to complete the much-needed biography of her grandfather.
Johnson follows Allen’s life chronologically, beginning each chapter with a brief anecdote before delving into the details of each period of his life. The book begins by outlining the Allen family history and Phog’s upbringing before quickly turning to his obsession with basketball. Early in his life it was a family affair, with each of Phog’s brothers joining him on a team that routinely beat local challengers throughout the Kansas City area. This success led the Allen boys to host a World Series of basketball against the Buffalo, NY YMCA team in 1904 at Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium. The event became a commercial success – foreshadowing much of Allen’s later career, and facilitated his introduction to James Naismith, who served as a referee.
Naismith quickly became Allen’s mentor, and the following year he enrolled at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS to study and play basketball under his tutelage. After just one season in Lawrence, Allen quit the team to pursue a coaching opportunity as well as a much-needed paycheck at nearby Baker University. Naismith did his best to dissuade his young protégé, but failed. Soon, Allen found himself coaching three teams, adding the Haskell Institute and KU to his busy schedule. During this time he also married Bessie Milton and started a family. Johnson does a solid job of describing this early period of Allen’s life, but the narrative is repetitive in places and shows a presentist bend that clouds his understanding of early college athletics in the state of Kansas. There are also small errors in the names of early figures and institutions. Few readers will notice these shortcomings, but they gloss over the contingency of Allen’s early career, suggesting a somewhat preordained path.
By 1909, Allen resigned his coaching duties at all three institutions and enrolled in Osteopathy school in Kansas City. After earning his degree, he returns to coaching, serving as Athletic Director, football and basketball coach at Missouri Normal School in Warrensburg (now the University of Central Missouri). While Allen’s medical training became a valuable asset later in his career and many high-profile athletes — such as George Halas, Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams — and coaches — like Knute Rockne, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Casey Stengel, and Pop Warner — sought out his remedies, it also caused a rift in the community while he was coaching in Warrensburg. Johnson fails to fully explain the controversial nature of osteopathic medicine at the time, missing a chance to connect Allen’s career with the early history of medicine.
Once Allen lands back at KU as athletics manager and head basketball coach for the 1919-1920 season, the narrative takes off. The reader is treated to an intimate portrait of Allen’s family life, personality, health habits, and game day routine. Indeed, he earns the nickname “Phog” for his foghorn like voice, and constant outspokenness. Throughout his career Allen speaks his mind and often clashes with those around. He has a brief falling out with both James Naismith and former player and famed Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp over differences of opinion and their vision of college athletics. He also sparred with the AAU and NCAA, though he later claimed, “I am too busy to hold a grudge! And especially with the ‘Asinine and Unfair’ or the ‘Nationally Confused Athletic Absurdity’” (p. 256).
The importance of Allen to the game of basketball is evident throughout the book, especially in his coaching tree – which includes the likes of John Bunn, Dutch Lonborg, Ralph Miller, Adolph Rupp, and Dean Smith – and friendship with Naismith. He founded and presided over the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and helped form the NCAA tournament. Allen was also involved in petitioning to have the sport included in the Olympics, despite Avery Brundage’s disagreement, and ensuring that Naismith was present to see it played at the 1936 Olympics. Allen also played an important role in having the basketball hall of fame named in Naismith’s honor.
Between these accomplishments, Johnson chronicles Allen’s coaching and administrative career at Kansas. As the Jayhawks’ coach he made them perennial contenders in their conference, nurtured rivalries with Kansas State and Missouri, and continued experimenting with sports medicine techniques and nutritional supplements. The book shares the stories of recruiting stars like Clyde Lovellette and Wilt Chamberlain, enlisting a young John Wooden to help build Memorial Stadium, and key NCAA tournament games like the 1952 and 1953 championship games. Discussions of the legality of recruiting and critical analyses of Allen’s attitude towards race are largely absent in the book, however, as Johnson neglects to dig deeper into many of the contradictions within Allen’s life. For example, while Allen resented the NCAA for making money off of players, he also appeared confused as to why Naismith never sought to trademark or cash-in on his invention. Instead, Johnson positions Allen as an iconic and somewhat eccentric, entrepreneurial coach who was well-networked in the profession, and willing to capitalize on his reputation to travel giving motivational speeches as well as holding clinics that shared his coaching lessons and sport medicine remedies. While Allen’s influence on the game’s history is unmistakable, his significance remains largely tied to his career at Kansas.
Venerated as the “Father of Basketball Coaching,” the Kansas legislature voted to name the new field house at KU in honor of Allen in 1955. A year later, he was forced into retirement at the end of the 1956 season because of Kansas’ mandatory retirement law. Although he was initially promised an extension, it failed to materialize. The antiquated law cost him the chance to coach rising sophomore Wilt Chamberlain in 1957. The forced retirement strained his and his family’s relationship with KU.
Johnson offers an intimate portrait into Allen’s later years. The old Jayhawk coach continued to live in Lawrence throughout his retirement. He practiced medicine, gave speeches, and occasionally took in a basketball game at the Fieldhouse. He also remained as fiery as ever, writing letters to the editor and calling on Senators to investigate the NCAA and AAU’s handling of money. As his health declined, he fought to remain independent and slowly became a recluse. Allen outlived several of his children, and his wife, dying at age 88 in 1974.
The chilly relationship between Allen and KU lingered after his death. The Allen family resented KU’s attempt to capitalize on the coach’s nickname. Then the Athletic Department initially rebuffed efforts to build a statue in his honor in 1997. Eventually they acceded to the request, but offered little help in raising the money for its construction. Today, the legend of “the Phog” is a permanent fixture inside and outside of Allen Fieldhouse, and now there is a book befitting his legacy. Johnson’s biography goes a long way toward helping fans and scholars understand the man behind the legend that built Allen Fieldhouse and his outsized influence of the sport. While it lacks the critical bite and broad contextualization that most sport historians demand, it is an important contribution to our understanding of Allen’s life and the game of basketball. And you can’t fully understand the game of basketball without knowing about Phog Allen. Phog is perfect for the general reader, and supplants Blair Kerkoff’s 1996 biography of Allen as the best book about Phog Allen available.
Andrew McGregor is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at Purdue University, where he teaches courses in history and African American studies. He is also the founder and co-editor of this blog. As a native Kansan and former interim archivist and an alum of Baker University, he grew up steeped in the lore of “Phog” Allen. You can reach him via email at amcgrego@purdue.edu or on Twitter: @admcgregor85.