Eddie Sutton Recalls Coaching at a Campus When It Didn’t Exist

Kentucky basketball coach Eddie Sutton, approaching his 400th major college victory, calls it his adventure.

The adventure--his first college coaching job at Southern Idaho Junior College--began in 1967. Sutton, then coach of the largest high school in Tulsa, Okla., got a call from Dr. James (Sleepy) Taylor.

“He said ‘I’ve got the greatest community college in North America and I’m looking for a basketball coach,’ ” Sutton said. “ ‘I hear you coach a pretty good game.’ ”

Sutton told the stranger he was happy in Tulsa, but Taylor insisted on seeing him. Sutton agreed to meet him for 30 minutes while Taylor was in Tulsa.

“It ended up being a four-hour conversation,” Sutton said. “He convinced me in a weak moment that I should come to Twin Falls, Idaho, to look at his campus.”

Sutton packed his car and he and his wife Patsy made the long drive. They pulled into the town of 25,000 and stopped at a gas station for directions. They found a building downtown, and among the offices for lawyers, dentists and architects was the office of the president of Southern Idaho Community College. Sutton and Taylor exchanged small talk.

“Finally I got up and said, ‘Let’s look at your campus,’ ” Sutton said. “Then he said, ‘You know, that’s one thing I forgot to tell you. We haven’t built it yet.’ Then he whipped some plans on me.”

Once Sutton got over his surprise he became enchanted by Taylor’s dream for his school. He followed him down the streets of Twin Falls, knocking on doors and selling charter memberships in the Golden Eagle booster club for $25. Taylor purchased an old house and renovated it into a players’ dormitory.

“We had a den mother who couldn’t drive, so I had to run all the errands, buy all the groceries,” Sutton said.

While the campus was being built the college used a high school for classrooms. Sutton’s players attended class from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., and then practiced at the high school from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

“There were probably four black people living in that town then, and we brought in four black players,” Sutton said. “The John Birch Society was strong back then and they thought it was a conspiracy between Taylor and myself to integrate Idaho.”

Sutton posted an 83-14 record before leaving three years later for Creighton in 1970.

“The year I left they opened the campus, and it probably is the nicest community college in America,” Sutton said. “I often look back and think, boy, that was an adventure.”

Sutton went 82-50 at Creighton, 260-75 at Arkansas and 50-15 in his first two years at Kentucky. He made the Final Four with Arkansas in 1978 and the final eight with Kentucky two years ago. The Wildcats went unbeaten the first month of this season.

Sutton, 51, studied as a player under Coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma A&M.;

“If you had to pin me down,” he said, “I guess the most important things he taught me were, one, you cannot coach character, so you always want people who are sound, who listen and who go out and play hard. And second, you must play defense in a sound manner. Defense is the stabilizing factor. Shooting is an art that varies from day to day, but defense will always be there.

“My coaching philosophy is very much the same. You pick up some things along the way, how to teach better, but it’s still much the same.”

In any case, Sutton would never choose another profession.

“I’ll coach as long as it is fun,” he said. “They’ll have to use a bulldozer to push me off the court in my wheelchair.”