COLLEGE BASKETBALL / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Despite Bartow’s Success, Successor Has It Easier

Eighteen years after UCLA, another poor sap has been asked to follow in the footsteps of a local legend and one of the winningest coaches in Division I college basketball history.

Gene Bartow resigned this week as basketball coach at Alabama Birmingham after 17 seasons and 12 NCAA tournament appearances.

A replacement has been named. The new coach is Murry Bartow, Gene’s 34-year-old son.

Reached by phone, Gene Bartow is jokingly asked, given what he knows, how he could put that kind of pressure on his successor.

“I never won a national championship,” Bartow drawled. “I followed a man that had 10.”

The words will be Bartow’s epitaph.

In 34 years as a head coach, Bartow reached heights that coaches of more renown--Norm Stewart, Gene Keady--have never known. Bartow began the season as one of four active coaches to have taken two schools to the Final Four. He is the 15th winningest Division I coach in college basketball history.

Bartow will be remembered for none of that. He was, is and will always be the man who replaced John Wooden at UCLA.

“I understand,” Bartow says of his legacy.

He didn’t always.

There never was going to be a “right man” to replace Wooden, who retired in 1975 after winning his 10th national championship. But Bartow at least qualified as Wooden-Lite, a similarly decent man from Midwestern stock.

History has proved Bartow a quality coach. He was simply the wrong man, at the wrong school, at the wrong time.

Taken out of context, Bartow’s two seasons at UCLA were outstanding. He was 52-9, won two Pacific 8 titles and made the Final Four in his first year.

But Final Fours were treated like sunrises by UCLA fans, who could not easily forgive Bartow for two 1976 losses to Indiana: 84-64 in the season opener and a 65-51 Final Four semifinal defeat at Philadelphia.

Never mind that Indiana was one of the great teams of its time and the last team to complete an undefeated season.

Bartow, always deferential, still blames himself.

“I think Wooden would have found a way to beat Indiana,” Bartow says. “I just think John was so good at his job, that he might have.”

Bartow believed he knew what he was getting into but came to understand that he had no idea.

He had coached Memphis State to a 1973 NCAA title-game loss to UCLA, but Bartow was a relative hick when Athletic Director J.D. Morgan hired him away from the University of Illinois.

If the loss to Indiana in 1976 was unnerving, the second-round NCAA tournament defeat to Idaho State in 1977 was unacceptable.

In his book on the post-Wooden years at UCLA, “They Shoot Coaches, Don’t They?” Times sportswriter Mark Heisler describes the postgame mood:

“In Westwood, there was chaos. Students in the dorms rioted after the game, pitching mattresses out the windows. The Bruins’ flight home was funereal. There were boosters on the plane and they weren’t sympathetic. Bartow stared forlornly out the window. A player joked that he was afraid the coach might ask for a parachute. Chris Lippert, a reserve forward, joked, ‘He might jump without it.’ ”

Bartow denies the Idaho State loss drove him to Birmingham.

“That was in March,” he says of the defeat. “I went through the whole recruiting season and in the middle of June, then made a decision.”

But the wolves were in hot pursuit. Bartow was taking a beating in the local media. The late Jim Healy, a sports radio personality in Los Angeles, blistered the coach with daily renderings of unflattering Bartow sound bites.

Weeks after the loss to Idaho State, Bartow walked out on a radio show he was doing after a 19-year-old caller complained that Bartow didn’t know the first thing about fundamentals.

“Hogwash” Bartow said as he ripped off his headphones.

“I think I was treated fairly,” Bartow says now. “I just didn’t understand it at that point. I had been in programs--Memphis, Valparaiso, Central Missouri State--where I probably never had a critical thing said about me in coaching. I didn’t understand the big-city press. And in my mind we were winning big. We were recruiting extremely well. Still, it wasn’t very good. I didn’t understand that.”

There were no legends for Bartow to replace in Birmingham, not even a team. Bartow started the program from scratch.

“When he came to UCLA, I don’t think players as a group accepted him,” says Marques Johnson, who played for Wooden and Bartow. “A lot of it had to do with different styles and approach.”

Johnson says UCLA players were tough on Bartow. “More than anything personal, we were looking for something to nit-pick,” he says.

Later, while serving as an assistant coach at Birmingham, Johnson came to appreciate his former coach.

“He’s one of the classiest guys in the world,” Johnson says. “That’s when I really gained more respect for him.”

UAB and Bartow were a good fit. Bartow compiled a 365-204 record in 17 seasons and made the NCAA tournament often enough to keep the boosters happy.

“I’ve had a good run,” Bartow says. “Even my two years at UCLA, as I look back, I was one of the lucky people.”

Eighteen years later, Bartow better understands what he was up against at UCLA.

“I needed desperately to win a national championship, to quiet the fans that were dissatisfied,” he says. “Sometimes I think we would have won it the next year or so. But we’ll never know.”

Bartow stepped down at UAB because the dual role of basketball coach and athletic director was taking its toll. The Blazers were 14-16 last year and only 16-14 this season.

Wooden was 65 when he resigned. Bartow is 64.

Wooden went out on top, Bartow somewhere in the middle.

Bartow will stay on as athletic director at UAB, where he will monitor the new basketball coach.

You’ve got to think this transition will go more smoothly than the last one.

BAD CAREER MOVE?

Rodrick Rhodes refused a recent interview request to discuss the Kentucky Wildcats.

It was hard to blame him.

Rhodes, who averaged 12.2 points in three years at Kentucky, left the program last season and transferred to USC. Rhodes sat out this season and will have one year of eligibility remaining.

Rhodes, of course, could have been a member of what some are calling the best Kentucky team ever assembled. Instead, Rhodes walked into a caldron of horrors at USC, a program on the brink of chaos after the controversial midseason firing of Coach Charlie Parker.

Rhodes was one of the nation’s top recruits when he left St. Anthony High in Jersey City, N.J., but never lived up to his potential in Lexington.

It was rumored that he and Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino did not get along. Rhodes says it isn’t true.

“I did not get pushed out at Kentucky,” he told the Sporting News recently.

Rhodes said he left Kentucky to get out of the limelight, which, if true, made USC a perfect choice. Rhodes said the firing of Parker upset him, but added, “I’m kind of stuck. What, am I going to transfer again? I’m here.’ ”

LOOSE ENDS

The NCAA needs to change the tournament format, which allows top-seeded Massachusetts and Kentucky to meet in one national semifinal and No. 4, Syracuse plays No. 5, Mississippi State, in the other. Teams should be reseeded after making the Final Four so that top-ranked teams can meet only in the national title game. If that were the case this year, UMass would meet Mississippi State in one semifinal and Kentucky would play Syracuse in the other.

After 10 seasons, Mississippi State Coach Richard Williams will never have a better chance to get out of Starkville. Williams has proved he can coach, but you wonder if his dour personality will scare potential suitors.

Tim Duncan, Wake Forest’s junior center, will probably be the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft if he decides to forgo his senior season. Yet, people close to the program insist he’ll return next season. Wake Forest Coach Dave Odom isn’t pushing Duncan but says of NBA life, “If he wants to spend 50 nights a year with 35-year-old men, OK, that’s great.” Duncan has not announced his intentions but said staying in school this year gave him “growth, strength and experience.” Comment: Duncan has nothing left to prove and cannot improve his stock by returning. He should take the money and run.

You’d think Pitino would be more thrilled about returning to the New York area for this weekend’s Final Four in East Rutherford. Pitino grew up in New York and is a former Knick head coach. But “you never really enjoy it until after it’s over,” he said. “All I do is sit in a room, watch film and eat. It’ll be exciting for the family members, friends. But I’m segregated away with the VCR. Nice life.”