Gene Bartow at UCLA felt it.  So did Sam Aubrey at Oklahoma State and Joe B. Hall at Kentucky and so will Bill Guthridge, who follows Dean Smith at North Carolina, and those who will follow John Thompson at Georgetown and Bob Knight at Indiana.

Nobody can be prepared for the pressure of following legends like John Wooden, hank Iba and Adolph Rupp.  Expectations are ridiculous.  Throw in the added factor of inheriting the game’s greatest player, and dick Harp had double the trouble.

Phog Allen wasn’t ready to retire.  Harp, Allen’s to assistant and former KU standout player, never asked for the job.  But when Allen was forced to step down because he had turned 70 before the 1956-57 season, Kansas Chancellor Franklin Murphy appointed Harp as his successor.  Allen wanted to stay on for an opportunity to coach his prize recruit, Wilt Chamberlain.

Now Chamberlain would be Harp’s player.  In their first season together, Chamberlain was everything advertised.  He averaged 29.6 points and the Jayhawks had little trouble with the competition.  Kansas wasn’t perfect, losing at Iowa State and Oklahoma A7M, but the Jayhawks were dominant.

Then came the game that unfairly established reputations for Harp and Chamberlain, the triple-overtime loss to North Carolina in the 1957 NCAA title game.

The Jayhawks had a lead in the second half and decided to stall, allowing the Tar Heels to come back.  In the third overtime, a pass to Chamberlain was battled away, sealing North Carolina’s triumph.

It didn’t seem to matter in Kansas that North Carolina completed a perfect season.  Harp was blamed for the defeat.  For all his talent, Chamberlain had trouble winning championships, and when his pro teams didn’t win, scribes were quick to remind that even in college Chamberlain didn’t win the big one.

Such criticism is unfair to both.  Harp went on to win another league title in 1960 and coached such stellar players as Bill Bridges and Wayne Hightower.  Harp had winning records in five of his eight seasons and won three Big Eight Holiday tournaments.

After a 21-year relationship with Kansas, harp stepped down at the end of the 1964 season and became head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.  He lives in Lawrence, attends Kansas games with his season tickets and remains one of the Jayhawks’ biggest fans.