Losing Gene Bartow to stomach cancer Tuesday at age 81 is losing an executive with the Grizzlies and a coach and administrator in the college ranks, but more than anything is losing one of the gentlemen of the game at any level.
That Bartow had so much professional success but is being remembered for his class says everything about the heights of his personality and the respect that followed him around the country. That is especially true around the South and Memphis, where he led the program then known as Memphis State to the 1973 championship and returned in 2007 as president of the Grizzlies’ parent company. Whatever moves owner Michael Heisley made before or makes later, adding Bartow to the organization will always be one of the most popular.
“When you consider what a gentleman Gene was, in addition to what he did for this city in the early 70s when this city was so racially divided after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he might be the top sports figure in Memphis history,” George Lapides, his long-time friend and the former sports editor of the now-defunct Memphis Press-Scimitar, told the Memphis Commercial Appeal after the passing was announced.
Bartow coached exactly 1,000 college games at Central Missouri State, Valparaiso, Memphis State, Illinois, UCLA and Alabama-Birmingham, going 647-353 with 14 tournament appearances and was inducted in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. He was also athletic director in Birmingham, the city he called home even while working for the Grizzlies.
He was the ideal successor to John Wooden at UCLA as a continuation of dignity and kindness, but otherwise a bad personality fit. Nice-guy Bartow could not stand up to the unrealistic expectations, just as the pressure from Bruins fans drove the great Wooden into retirement, and bolted for UAB after two UCLA seasons that included a 52-9 record, a pair of Pac 8 titles, one trip to the Final Four and another to the Sweet 16.
He is survived by his wife and three children.
Great coach and a really nice guy. I was a UCLA student in the years Coach Wooden retired and Coach Bartow took over. No denying he was extremely successful, and truly a nice guy. He surely did not deserve the treatment he got from so many of the UCLA fans that demanded championship after championship.
Gene was one of a kind! My father had the privlage to play high school basketball at St. Charles High School in St. Charles, MO when Gene led them to the 1957 State Championship. He motivated his players to go higher not only on the court but challenged them to do great in life.