AN INTERVIEW WITH ISAAC (BUD) STALLWORTH

Interviewer: David Downing

The Oral History Project

of the Endacott Society

The University of Kansas

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ISAAC (BUD) STALLWORTH

EDUCATION

Year, Degree, University

Major / Minor Department

Year, Degree, University

Major Department

Year, Degree, University

Major Department

SERVICE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Title, Department

Years

RETIREMENT

Date

TITLES/RANK

Title, Department, Years

Title, Department, Years

Title, Department, Years

ADMINISTRATIVE/CHAIRMANSHIP POSITIONS

List positions, or See Resume Provided

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Downing: “Hello, I am David Downing, a member of the Endacott Oral History Project

Committee. I will be interviewing Isaac (Bud) Stallworth, who recently retired from the

KU Design and Construction Management Department. Okay, Bud, it’s usually a good

idea to start at the beginning, so when were you born and where?”

Stallworth: “I was born January 18, 1950 in Hartsell, Alabama.”

Downing: “Okay. Can you give us a little bit of background about your parents and who

they were?”

Stallworth: “Sure. My father, Isaac F. Stallworth, Sr. was a high school principal, and

later on in his career was an administrator for the school district in which the…

Morgantown Training School District which I was educated in, in Hartsell, Alabama. My

mother was a school teacher. She also, in the Morgan County School District later on

when they consolidated the schools and de-segregated them in the late ‘60s, she became a

teacher at Hartsell Junior High School.”

Downing: “Okay. What were some of your interests when you were growing up?”

Stallworth: “Early on growing up, I was involved in quite a few different activities. My

parents, being educators, my father and mother both stressed the education. In the ‘50s

and early ‘60s, as we all know, there was segregated school systems. A lot of the

students had parents that were not as fortunate as I was growing up. They were basically

share croppers or farmers, so education wasn’t really important in the area that I was

growing up in, but my parents were very, very disciplined about their kids being

educated. So, education was really important and I was involved in music and also

athletics as part of my curriculum.”

Downing: “Did you have any brothers and sisters?”

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Stallworth: “Yes, I had one brother and two sisters. Three of my siblings, or two other

of my siblings attended the University of Kansas. My oldest sister Harriet got her

Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the University of Kansas. My younger sister

Eunice – both her undergrad and Master’s degree came from the University of Kansas.”

Downing: “Okay. Growing up, obviously your parents had a tremendous impact on you,

were there some other people, mentors or family friends, who helped you out a lot?”

Stallworth: “Well, growing up in a small town in the southern part of the country, my

parents, along with my grandparents, I think, had a real positive impact on my life, being

that both my grandfathers owned their own businesses. They were involved in the

country store business, so they were independent in their own ways. They were, I think,

way ahead of their time as far as seeing the future and providing opportunities for their

kids when they were growing up. I had great relationships with a lot of my aunts and

uncles. We… the family was important to our family, and so during the holidays we

would always spend it with our relatives, even though they lived in another part of the

state. I think having that background and seeing what my parents had to go through

when they were growing up, and also what my grandparents had to go through, I think it

gave me the drive to succeed at the highest level that I could as I was maturing.”

Downing: “Okay. Now, did you indicate that you actually went to a segregated school?”

Stallworth: “Yes. The school that I eventually graduated from, Morgan County Training

School, grades one through twelve, was an all-black segregated school in Hartsell,

Alabama. There was another high school that was beginning to de-segregate during my

junior and senior year, and I did have an opportunity – we’ll probably get to this a little

later on – because of my athletic skills, to attend an integrated high school, but because of

my relationship with both my family and my peers at the time, I decided to finish my

career out with the school that I had started in.”

Downing: “Okay. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your elementary school.”

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Stallworth: “My school was, again, grades one through twelve. Morgan County Training

School was both an elementary school, junior high school, and high school. And grades

one through twelve, when I said small it was very small. It was three hundred kids. My

graduating class, to give you an example, was thirty-four. So there was not, I guess, a

transfer from elementary to junior high to senior high school. It was all in one building.

Fortunately for me, again, my parents, being the strict parents that they were, made sure

that even though we were not, I think, afforded all the amenities of the big high school, or

white high school at that time in the South, we had a strict tutoring program at home, we

had to do homework before we played, and so all of these things that I was growing up

with in my home life gave me the ability to succeed in other areas that a lot of my peers

didn’t have an opportunity to do.”

Downing: “You mentioned that one of the things you did is you played sports all the way

through school?”

Stallworth: “Yes, all the way through school. My first grade teacher had us write on a

single sheet of paper (I tell this story all the time), ‘What do you want to be when you

grow up?’, and on my sheet of paper, and she kept it in my records, I said I wanted to be

a professional basketball player. For me, that was the outlet from the education, the

music, and what really, I think was a driving force because of my love for that game of

basketball, that that was something that I thought I would be able to pursue and achieve,

not knowing as a youngster, in the first grade, six years old, that that was something that

was gonna be a journey, not just something that you could make happen because you

wanted it to. Part of the things that I can remember even as a youngster, when my

parents were in teacher’s meetings or they traveled to statewide teacher’s meetings, they

could drop me in the gym at the college that they were going to their meetings at, and

didn’t have to worry about me going anywhere else. I would stay in the gym for hours.

My father put a goal up in my back yard, and my next door neighbors, the kids that lived

on the street I lived on, we all gathered after school every day and played basketball.”

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Downing: “I’m trying to keep the dates straight – about how old were you? Well, what

was the year when you were six?”

Stallworth: “Six years old, first grade student.”

Downing: “Yeah, what date was that?”

Stallworth: “That was in the… 1956. I started first grade in 1956.”

Downing: “Okay. This idea of… there was no professional basketball in Alabama, so

who did you follow or how did you recognize that there was such a role…”

Stallworth: “Well, on Sundays during basketball season, one of the major networks (we

did have a television in our home), and I don’t know how it became such an interest to

me, but during that period of time we would get to see the Boston Celtics, and at that time

there was the Philadelphia 76ers and also the Los Angeles Lakers. On that team was the

former, future Hall of Famer named Wilt Chamberlain who was also a KU grad, that was

one of the star players on the 76ers at that time. They were always playing against the

team the Boston Celtics. The Celtics, at the time, were winning all the championships.

For whatever reason, I became just fascinated by the game and the athleticism and the

skills that these players had. Any time that, you know, Game of the Week came on, I

would be propped in front of the TV just trying to mimic some of the moves and some of

the skills that Wilt had because he would always out-score Bill Russell, who was with the

Celtics, and the Celtics would win the championship. My favorite player was Wilt

Chamberlain. I one day thought that I would be a seven-footer because I was tall and

skinny as a kid, but the growth spurt stopped and I made it to about 6’5”.”

Downing: “Well, it’s a small world because I grew up in Detroit, and I watched those

same games, but I turned out to be a Bill Russell, Boston Celtics fan. It was great, great

basketball. It is kind of strange that there was only a very few number of teams that

played on TV.”

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Stallworth: “Right. Yeah, you had, I think, the Celtics, the Knicks, the Lakers, and

sometimes I think the Baltimore Bullets were on quite a bit because at one time they had

Earl Monroe, who was one of those, you know, very gifted players, and I think that’s

what television tried to promote at that time were the teams that had a player that had just

unbelievable skills.”

Downing: “Yeah. So you started to shoot baskets very early on, and then you got to…

how did you play basketball in junior high and high school?”

Stallworth: “Well, we didn’t have, really, a junior high team, and so being a real, I think,

I don’t want to say a prodigy, but a gifted basketball player, I can remember in fifth and

sixth grade that I was able to just work out, my father would allow me to work out with

the high school team. We didn’t have a gym at the time, so we would practice – the team

would practice outside on what they call now like sand lots or dirt courts. If the weather

was inclement weather, they would have our classroom and they would put the doors

open, and they would put garbage cans at each end of the court, and the players would

mimic playing and shootin’ baskets and going through their workouts inside at the time.

Any time that I had finished my homework and had practiced my music, I had a little free

time before it got dark and I would go outside. And my father played high school sports,

and so he taught me the fundamentals, but a lot of the things that I really had to learn I

either had to watch it on television or read about it. Jerry West, who I thought at the

time… two players, Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, once I figured out I wasn’t going to

be a seven-footer, I started developing the jump shot. I thought that Jerry West had the

perfect jump shot from what I had read, and when the announcers would talk about

mechanics and how a player should shoot the ball. Between he and Oscar Robertson they

were really fundamentally sound and they shot just, you know, when they shot a basket it

didn’t touch anything but the net. And so I would go out immediately after those games

and practice the Jerry West and Oscar Robertson jump shots.”

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Downing: “Did your high school… when you got to be in high school, was there a rival

school that you could go and play…”

Stallworth: “Yeah. Fortunately, for me, I actually played high school basketball when I

was in the seventh grade. Again, because of the size of the school, there wasn’t any

break between the junior high team and the senior high team, and so my father allowed

me to join the basketball team in the seventh grade. At that time, I had grown to be about

6’4”, a real skinny 6’4” kid with the shooting touch that nobody really could believe that

I was that age, and so I started playing varsity basketball when I was in the seventh

grade.”

Downing: “That’s kind of amazing. So you had six years of high school basketball.”

Stallworth: “Basically, I had, yes, two high school careers.” [Laughter]

Downing: “Yes. Just to change the subject a little bit, you said that you also pursued

music?”

Stallworth: “Right. I played the trumpet, and we will probably get to this a little later on

in our interview, but it was part of our family, I guess, the training of a student, so to

speak, in my parents’ eyes, they had to be well rounded, and one of the things that they

really stressed was the arts. I was interested in trumpet music. I heard Louis Armstrong

play and I heard Miles Davis play, and my father… again, the sacrifices that they made,

they provided us with opportunities to travel, but they got me a trumpet and they afforded

me with private lessons. I had to drive to Huntsville, which was about thirty-five miles,

where my mom attended college at Alabama A&M. One of the music instructors up

there gave me private trumpet lessons. While my sister played the piano and clarinet, I

played the trumpet. We played, you know, talent shows. I was in the marching band, the

concert band. Part of the routine was, you know, you be a good musician you can play

sports; you be a good student you can play sports. It wasn’t, ‘You be a good sport person

and then everything else go away’. So, part of our household, we were very musically

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inclined, and because of my, I guess, abilities in the sport arena they became basketball

fans.”

Downing: “One of the questions I was going to ask you is, essentially, how you chose

KU. It sounds like your sisters chose KU before you did.”

Stallworth: “Well, that’s an interesting story because it has a kind of a twist to it.

Actually, our private music teacher recommended my oldest sister, because she was a

concert pianist, to attend the Midwestern Music and Arts Camp. When she came out to

that camp, she fell in love with Lawrence, Kansas, and had then ended up coming to

college out here. She was two years older than me, and once she left the house I became

kind of the big cheese of the family, and not only was I a good athlete but I was a good

musician. When she would come back home I would always tell her, you know, ‘Since

you, you know, out there in Kansas, you know the best musician in this part of the

country is me’. I think she got a little tired of hearing that from me and told my father

that I needed to go and compete against different people than the ones in this small area

that I was bragging about so much. So he asked me would I be interested in attending the

Midwestern Music and Arts Camp. Of course, me being me, that was just another

challenge, and I said, ‘Of course’. One of the things he told me, ‘Now, when you go out

there, don’t go out there and play basketball. You get hit in the mouth, you’re a trumpet

player, and all this money that we put together to send you out there is down the tube’.

Little did they know at that time that I probably couldn’t keep from playing basketball,

but I came out to the Music Camp and it was a challenge competing against kids from all

over the world, actually. You had to compete for different chairs, you know, which I

really had to do at a smaller level at the school I was at. But I ended up being a pretty

good student out here at the Midwestern Music and Arts Camp. One of my private

instructors at the time was Doc Severinson, who was Johnny Carson’s music director on

his show. So it was an eye opening experience, but along with that I got discovered by

one of the former great KU basketball players in a pick-up game, who went and told the

coach about me. That’s how I ended up being recruited, eventually, to play basketball

here at the University of Kansas.”

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Downing: “It also… your story also tells about how really important these summer

camps are to both the University and to the students. It can be life changing.”

Stallworth: “It was… and a lot of people wonder why it took that kind of an incident, so

to speak, for someone to discover someone that had that much talent. What they didn’t

understand was the dynamics of the culture or the times where I was growing up at,

which really wasn’t a worldwide phenomenon the way it is today. You could go in any

park in the areas that I lived and you saw players that never had an opportunity to go to

college. It just wasn’t, at that time, something that even was thought about, you know, to

be able to get a scholarship and also have an opportunity to pursue a professional career

in sports. It was something that, I guess, in larger cities it may have been, and in other

parts of the country it may have been, but in the small areas that I was growing up in it

was almost like, ‘Who is this crazy guy talking about he wants to be a professional

basketball player? What is that?’ It was just a sign of the times, really.”

Downing: “I think, at least from my own experience (I grew up in Detroit), and I had no

idea, other than maybe Wilt’s name, to connect KU with anything. I think we were all

living in much smaller communities.”

Stallworth: “Well, without the technology that you have today, without the media

coverage that you have today, it would be impossible to know what was going on. For

me, again, it was the Saturday college basketball on TV on probably one channel, or the

Sunday professional games during the season. When I was growing up, and in Alabama,

actually, football was the sport. The great Bear Bryant was the coach at Alabama.

[Name] was at Auburn, and Alabama at the time was rated as one of the top college

football teams in the nation. So basketball wasn’t even an important sport in Alabama.

With football, my father played. Again, he was an athlete in high school. He didn’t

recommend football to his kids because of the contact and the possibility of injury, which

could be a life altering experience in itself. Me being a little hard headed, I couldn’t just

take his word for it. I had to experience the pain and the injury factor up close and in

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person, so I sneaked and went out one year to play football. Even though he was the

Principal, he didn’t know I had went out for it until I had gotten a little knocked around at

a practice. Needless to say, that didn’t go over too well with him because the coach had

to know that him being the Principal that I wasn’t supposed to be out there practicing. It

wasn’t an acceptable thing in our family for me to do, and so after I had that trial and

error issue with football I put it to rest and moved on.”

Downing: “Now, when you came to KU, what did you major in?”

Stallworth: “I majored in Social Work. One of the things that had always… and I still

am involved as a non-professional with social work. I have had the feeling about caring

for those less fortunate. My parents were not only teachers and administrators in the

community, they were also social workers. The times that my mother and father would

provide clothing and food and help to the community, there was just… I didn’t

understand it at the time, but it was their way of making sure that everybody at least had a

chance to succeed in life, and so that was something that, I think as growing up in that

type of environment and seeing how much my parents cared for other people, it was just

something that I naturally gravitated to when I came to school out here.”

Downing: “What did your sisters major in?”

Stallworth: “My sister was an Education major, and she has her Ph.D. (my older sister)

in Math. She’s a Professor at Berkeley in California right now. My younger sister was a

Fine Arts major. She was in the theatre and acting, entertaining, so… My brother was a

Political Science major at Davis University in the Carolinas. So, we all had our own

kinds of pursuits in life, and just did things that we wanted to make our parents proud of.”

Downing: “Sounds like you were all successful in whatever you decided to be.”

Stallworth: “Well, I think it had a lot to do with the background that we all came from.

It wasn’t something that… I think it was the siblings kind of challenged each other a lot.

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I know my relationship with my oldest sister – I always wanted to be the better musician.

You know, she was a concert pianist and a great pianist, and played clarinet and oboe in

the band. I was a trumpet player and a saxophone player; I played a little drums. I think

that just the challenge of trying to in-house be the best musician, be the best student – we

all wanted to make sure that we didn’t leave anything, that we succeeded with the skills

and talents that we had the best that we could do.”

Downing: “Were there some special people here at KU that were mentors or…”

Stallworth: “A couple of them. I remember one who still is a great friend of mine: Jo Jo

White. I don’t think today because of the competition that people have within themselves

that a kid playing pickup ball in a pickup gym, in a recreation gym, would have an

opportunity to have a guy that was an All-American on the team go tell the coach about

him. I don’t know whether that would happen today. It may and it may not, but then

from that, to still have that relationship forty years later. It’s like family. His daughter is

in school out here now, and she was sick one day and he called me to go check on her.

And so, you know, from 1966 to 2010 that relationship is just like family. That’s one,

and then Coach Owens and Coach [Name] who passed away last year, Coach Gail Catlin

who was my freshman coach when I was here. I still have the phone numbers, can call

them. I get a card from Coach Catlin every year of his travels. Coach Owens, anytime

he’s in town or in the area we get together. Some of the Professors in the School of

Social Welfare I’ve stayed in touch with. So the people I have met along the way, both

on the educational side of my life and the athletic side, in this community we’re still just

friends.”

Downing: “That’s really amazing. Do you want to outline any honors you got?”

Stallworth: “On the athletic side?” [Laughter]

Downing: “Oh, either…”

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Stallworth: “I think my academic accomplishments – I was an Academic All-American

here at the University of Kansas – at the time, one of the first athletic and academic All-

Americans in the history of the school. So, again, my dad was one of those guys that it

was good that I was a great athlete, but he wanted to make sure I got my degree. And so

I knew that was something that I had to take care of, so I was able to do that.

The accomplishments on the playing field are pretty much well documented,

really. I was a two-time All Big Eight player. I still hold the Big Eight scoring record for

a single game. I think I hold several: Most points in the season record for the Big Eight.

I was able to be an All-American here at the University. A couple of years ago they

retired my jersey along with the other great former players. So the journey from Hartsell,

Alabama, a small, you know, one building school… We can probably go back a little bit

at some point, but I’ll finish this KU legacy, so to speak, everything that I wanted to

accomplish is that if you wrote the script, so to speak, with the basketball, I did it. So, I

could say that all the pain, all the workouts, all the discipline that I had to go about to

achieve those goals, it worked for me. Now sometimes it doesn’t. I mean, there was a lot

of those guys who put in the same amount of time, and for whatever reason, it didn’t

work for them. But for me, to have the physical and the mental abilities that I had to

pursue that goal in life, it worked for me.”

Downing: “Would you like to go back and add some things?”

Stallworth: “Sure. I was talking about the de-segregation and integration of the schools.

In 1968 I was the first black athlete to play in an Alabama All-Star game. Also the first

black athlete to be recruited by both the University of Alabama and the University of

Oregon. When I played in the All-Star game, I had already spent my first summer school

here in Lawrence, and they just couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to the University

of Alabama or Auburn. I tell this story sometimes: My recruiting trip was a little… a

different kind of recruiting trip. Number One, I didn’t get introduced to any of the

players on the team. I had State Troopers around me and my family on my trip.”

Downing: “This was at Alabama?”

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Stallworth: “This was at Alabama and Auburn. My parents, and to this day I don’t know

how they did it on a school Principal or teacher’s salary, had afforded us the opportunity

to travel to other parts of the United States when we were growing up. We would, in the

summertimes, take trips to visit our relatives. He had brothers and sisters that lived in

Detroit, lived in Cleveland, and lived in New York. One of the trips that we took to New

York, we stopped in Washington, D.C. Now, again, I know how much it costs when I

take my kids on a trip when I was having my family traveling. I just… when I think

about it today, in the ‘60s and late ‘50s, how did they budget their money to provide these

type of opportunities. And as I got older, it really was a classroom on wheels what we

were doing, because not only did we travel to these larger cities, but when we got back

we had to write what did we see, what did we do, and what was different from where we

were living to where we were visiting. That was their way of giving us, I guess, a better

perspective and an overview about there are other places, there are other things, and there

are other people, and there are other ways that people live than in Hartsell, Alabama.

And so when I came and when I visited on the recruiting trip, and when I saw

how I was being treated there, and how I was treated out here, and how I was treated

when I visited Vanderbilt and University of Cincinnati, and I don’t think they realized

that I had seen other places, that I had not just grown up in this small southern town and

not been exposed to equal rights and being treated equally, not because of the color of the

skin, just because that’s how people are treated in other areas. And so I really do believe

that if they had known my background a little better that they probably wouldn’t have put

me in that type of a situation or recruited me the way that they would have. It’s no fault

of theirs, but it was just a sign of the times that they didn’t understand that just because

someone is in a small town that he doesn’t know that there are ways that someone should

be treated equally. He should be introduced to the team that he’s supposed to be playing

with. This isn’t the only opportunity that he has to go to college. And, again, to me it’s

just one of those situations where coaching staffs back then didn’t understand the

dynamics of recruiting a black athlete. They didn’t have to do it, they had no practice

with it, and so they felt like, you know, we need to bring him in, and since he’s an

Alabama kid he’s going to go to Alabama. I mean, why not?”

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Downing: “That’s really… so they didn’t really know you? They just knew that…”

Stallworth: “No. Well, what they knew was, and again, the school that I went to, the

gym that I played in up until my sophomore year, was the white school gym. We didn’t

have a gym. We didn’t have a home court. And so, when the press started following me

my sophomore year, we had our own gym, and we had probably more white fans coming

to the games than black fans because now there was a kid here that had great talent and

we want to just see him play, and then the media started, you know, the paper started

picking it up. But probably the coaches at University of Alabama and Auburn didn’t do

enough research, I think, to find out what kind of background I really had. Now they

knew that my dad was a Principal but they didn’t know that he took me to New York,

took me to Detroit, took me to Cleveland, and showed me Washington, D.C. and the

Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monument growing up. So they didn’t

understand the whole picture. They just had the snapshot of this black family whose

parents are educators and he’s the Valedictorian of his class, but what kind of background

does he really have? I think… I don’t know whether I would have gone there if I had met

the players, but just to be told that, you know, that you can’t meet the players right now,

and not only that, you know, your social life has to be at an all-black school that’s in the

same town. It just wasn’t something that I knew morally was right for me to do.”

Downing: “That’s really interesting. I imagine coaches today, going to the inner cities

and stuff, have…”

Stallworth: “Oh, it’s totally different. You look at it now, they have a black coach at

Alabama. They’ve had a black football coach at Alabama. So, the dynamics of

integration and all that is a moot point. But you still have some pockets of the South that

probably have still the same kind of feelings at the least, but it’s not publicized as much.

And athletes today, the opportunities that they have, the color of their skin is not a

holdback anymore, and in the ‘50s and ‘60s it was. And so I tell kids all the time, even

out here, is that the opportunities… the playing field is as level as it’s gonna get. You

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can be whatever you want to be and you can’t blame it on the color of your skin, you

can’t blame it on your ethnicity, you can’t blame it on, you know, any other thing but

what you want to do with your life. And so, the magnitude of where I came from and

what I’ve been able to do and see in my lifetime, I just thank God every day that I had the

parents that could at least open some of the doors, and give me an opportunity to see a

bigger picture, not just a snapshot of where I was at when I was growing up.”

Downing: “Did you start to play professional basketball right after your Bachelor’s

degree?”

Stallworth: “I did. Again, that dream, or the kid that’s bouncin’ the ball everywhere he

goes, it just worked. After my Senior season, I was selected No.1 by both the ABA at the

time, which was a fledgling new professional basketball league, and the NBA. We had a

great team my Junior year. My Senior year it was. We had an above average team my

Sophomore year; Freshman I wasn’t eligible to play back then, so… I think two of the

three years, team-wise, we had a chance to play with anybody in the country. I was able

to stay healthy, which is a key component of having an opportunity to play for a

professional sport franchise, and, at the time, was one of the better players in the world.

Not patting myself on the back, but I was invited to go to the Olympics in ’72, but

because of… what they do now, they take professional players because the competition

got better and they couldn’t win with college guys. [Laughter] At that time, Hank Iver,

who was the legendary coach at Oklahoma State, invited me to the trials but I had already

signed a contract. He asked me would I think about not doing it before that, and I told

him, I said, ‘Well, you know, this is my dream. I love my country but if I get hurt, my

dream is done’. My loyalty had to be with what I wanted to do at that time and they

didn’t want to waive the professional signature off the contract for me to do it, so I wasn’t

able to do that out of love to have represented my country in that year. That was the first

year that we lost in basketball to the Russian team that they were holding the clock on,

for whatever reason. [Laughter] I haven’t figured that one out yet either, but that’s

neither here nor there.

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It went not as well as I had wanted it to, but I did play professional basketball. It

was everything that I thought it was gonna be. The players were just a cut above college.

It was the elite of the elite. During my professional career I did play in some foreign

countries. I played exhibition games in Brazil and Mexico. Africa… I went to Africa and

played and put on some clinics. But American basketball, at that time, was the best in the

world. To be on a roster in the NBA for five years and play against… I played against

Chamberlain, I played against Jerry West, I played… now they were on the down side of

their careers a little bit, but they were still on the team, so… everybody that I had

watched growing up and fantasized that that’s what I wanted to do, I actually laced ‘em

up and went out and played against them. That part of my life went full circle from the

dream, to the reality, to moving on.”

Downing: “Okay. Which team did you actually play for?”

Stallworth: “I played for the Seattle Supersonics. At that time, Lenny Wilkins was the

coach. He was a player coach. After they drafted me, and, as a matter of fact, the other

guy that was the General Manager of the team, Rod Thorn, has just retired from the New

Jersey Nets a couple of weeks ago. They drafted me, and the owner of the team, Sam

Schulman, was at that time in the forefront of the multimedia business. He was

headquartered out of Los Angeles. I was also drafted by Denver. At that time they were

the Denver Rockets in the ABA. My agent, Donald Dell, out of Washington, D.C., we

met and our strategy was that we weren’t going to negotiate back and forth. We were

going to go to Denver, hear their offer, and we’d go to Seattle. He asked me point blank,

‘Does it matter where you play, ABA or NBA?’, and I said, ‘Not as long as the money is

better and it’s guaranteed. I don’t care, it could be in Mars or Jupiter. I want to be with

the team that’s gonna pay me the most money for my talent.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s a

good thing because that’s just the way I was going to present it to them, is that they have

a chance to make an offer. We’re gonna leave there and go to the next team. Whichever

team has the better offer on the table we’re gonna sign.’ He was a man of his beliefs, as I

was, that we weren’t going to negotiate back and forth. So I flew up to Denver, met with

their ownership group, they made their offer, and the next day we flew to Los Angeles,

18

and met with Sam Schulman out there. He made his offer. His offer was more, and I

signed that contract and moved on to the NBA.”

Downing: “And you said you played for six years, five years?”

Stallworth: “Five years. I was in an automobile accident towards the end of my fifth

year, in Phoenix, Arizona to play the Phoenix Suns. A guy ran a red light and destroyed

the taxi cab that we were in. My injury had to do with my back, and after having some

soul searching done, and visiting with numerous different specialists in the field of back

injuries in athletics, it was decided that with or without surgery, I couldn’t be the player

that I was before. Having seen athletes during my five years that had been injured and

had tried to come back from various types of injuries, not only back injuries, I knew that

it wasn’t gonna work for me. I was, at best, a small… at this time I could be a point

guard, but I was a small forward, big guard at that time, and one of my gifts along with

my shooting ability was my speed and my quickness. With a back injury, both of those

become negligible at best. I knew that for me to perform at that level, night in and night

out, I couldn’t do it.”

Downing: “Now you were… in my life, there have been several times in my life where I

sat myself down and said, ‘Dave, what do you want to do for the rest of your life?’ That

was kind of one of those moments for you, then.”

Stallworth: “Right. And I had a couple of options on the table. I did want… when I had

finished my career I wanted to go into the restaurant business. I had an opportunity

through some people that I knew, to purchase a restaurant / club in Los Angeles, and my

wife and I decided to go out there and set up a home, and decided to go into the restaurant

bar business. We did that for ten years, both in Los Angeles and Hawaii. As life would

have it, you know, you kinda grow apart. I got divorced in the late ‘80s, and decided that

that business was probably getting to wear on me a little too much. I decided to leave

Hawaii, and I moved back to Lawrence, Kansas.”

19

Downing: “That’s an obvious choice.”

Stallworth: “That’s an obvious choice. I did check a few other places out [Laughter]. I

gotta admit, I did scout out a few other options. A good friend of mine who was still

living at the time was Bob Billings. Bob had told me if I ever wanted to think about

moving back here to get in touch with him. So I gave Bob a call, and I told him I was

thinking about moving back to Lawrence and looking for some options, to find some

business or a job to get involved in. At the time, he had sold some property to a

gentleman named David Kimbrell – it was Hall Kimbrell Environmental Services – and

he asked me would I be interested in maybe talking to him, and I said, ‘Sure.’ So I ended

up applying for a position with them in sales and they hired me.

I moved to Lawrence and re-married, and started working in the Environmental

Engineering business in a marketing role, and also as an assistant to David. Then David

ended up selling that company about three or four years later, I believe. I had met

Chancellor Budig. We sat at some type of event and he had started visiting with me. For

whatever reason, he had heard about me, and he made the comment, he said, ‘I thought

you’d be bigger than this,’ [Laughter] and I said, ‘Well, this is as big as it gets right now,

Chancellor.’ [Laughter] He asked me what was I doing and I told him. And he said,

‘Well, you’ve been involved with facilities a little bit’. There was a position at the Med.

Center, and he asked me would I be interested in visiting with them about it, and I did,

and I interviewed for it, and that was my first opportunity to work back involved with the

University of Kansas.”

Downing: “So KU and Lawrence has kinda always been in the back of your mind?”

Stallworth: “Yeah, it really was. When I was out here in school it was like being home.

It really was. I had, probably, more friends or connections in Lawrence, Kansas than I

had anywhere else. So, when I was thinking about re-locating, it just was a natural for

me to think about going to where I felt comfortable. It’s right in the middle of the

country, so you can go anywhere from here. I knew I didn’t want to move back to

Alabama. That would have been my second destination. To me, it was not only a good

20

fit, it was the best fit for me as an individual. Once I decided to do it, I did it and never

looked back.”

Downing: “I think that speaks very well of Lawrence as a community.”

Stallworth: “Absolutely, absolutely.”

Downing: “Quite a few of the basketball and football past players have their homes

here.”

Stallworth: “Absolutely. I can say that I probably was in the number of first ones that

did it, but since then, as you just alluded to, there are numerous guys, both football and

basketball, that have returned here to make their – if not permanent homes – their off-

season homes.”

Downing: “Yeah, yeah. I think, well, we’ve been here since 1981, and I think it’s a great

place. One of the stories that I hear quite often is a faculty member who is retiring, and

his story is that he got a job at KU. He was going to work at that for two or three years

and then he was gonna get a real job somewhere else. [Laughter] Then twenty-five years

later he’s still here. So it’s a college town that’s very, very special, I think. I’ve lived in

a big city – in Boston, and Detroit, where I grew up – and I’ve had enough of the big city,

I guess.”

Stallworth: “Well, you know, I have… my kids live in Atlanta so I visit my grandkids in

Atlanta. I have friends that live in Chicago. I have friends that live in LA. My brother

and sister live out in the Bay area. What I tell them… when I go visit them, I have to

plan my day around traffic, okay?”

Downing: “Yeah.”

21

Stallworth: “And for me, as I’ve gotten older, I don’t need to plan my day because I want

my day to be flowing. I want to be able… if I want to go to Kansas City, I don’t have to

wait until the rush hour traffic dies down to get on the highway. If I want to go to

Topeka or anywhere, I can just go. My brother lives in the Oakland area, and my sister

lives on the San Francisco side of the Bay, okay? For me to see both of them it’s a

two-day journey because one day we gotta get up real early to beat the morning rush,

hang out all day, and go back late because of the late traffic. I just… at this stage in my

life I’d rather have more to do than wait in traffic. I guess when you’re accustomed to

doing it that way it’s okay, but for me, there are better things to do with my time.”

Downing: “Oh, I understand that. By the same token, if you want to go somewhere else

you can go. You don’t have to live there.”

Stallworth: “Oh, absolutely. That’s the biggest option that I like, is that I don’t have to

live there to enjoy it.”

Downing: “Let me stop this side and save it, and then we’ll start another side.”

Stallworth: “Okay.”

------------------------------------------------------------

Downing: “This is the second part of Bud Stallworth’s interview. This is David

Downing. So let’s get started, okay. Let’s see where we were. We were just talking

about what a great place Lawrence is. Do you want to talk a little bit about… you

mentioned the fact that you’ve been married twice. Now you have children?”

Stallworth: “Right. I not only have children, I have grandchildren. I was talking about

twice being married. My wife passed away a couple of years ago and I got re-married

about a year ago, so I’m in my third marriage and I have two more kids that came along

with this marriage, and one is a K-State student, so go figure. [Laughter] She chose to go

22

to Kansas State because of the Engineering program. I tease her all the time. She is also

a musician. She’s in the band down there. When I first met her, she had a chicken on a

string dangling it to represent a Jayhawk, right? And I told her, I said, ‘Well, that really

doesn’t impress me because when I was playing for KU, they threw live chickens on the

court in Manhattan, so you’re way too soft’. [Laughter] A son is at Southwest. He’s in

the ninth grade this coming year. So, yes, I guess I’m one of those guys that the third

time is a charm.”

Downing: “Um-hm. Did you have children from the other marriages?”

Stallworth: “Yes. My first marriage I had three boys. Unfortunately, one of them passed

away. He had a brain aneurysm when he was fourteen years old, and ended up being in a

coma for about sixteen years. His two brothers are still surviving, and they each have a

kid now, so I am a grandfather there. Then my second marriage, my wife had two kids.

Both of those, one of them graduated from the University of Kansas and the other one

graduated from Fort Hays and is now an Assistant Coach in basketball at Fort Hays.

They just had a kid each, so I have four grandchildren now to go along with the six kids

that I’m responsible for.”

Downing: “Well, I’ve found that grandchildren are wonderful.”

Stallworth: “Yeah, the great thing about that is they go home. [Laughter] It’s been, you

know, that journey, I think, is still going on. Now, one of the things that I instilled in my

kids was some of the same principles that my father had instilled in me. I must say, and I

would like to knock on wood, I’ve never gotten a call late at night to come get ‘em out of

jail. All of the kids have been just upstanding citizens and, knock on wood, they’re

gonna continue that way.”

Downing: “Well, today it’s much, much harder for kids than it might have been when we

were that age. There seems to be a lot more distractions and things.”

23

Stallworth: “Well, and I can add a little bit more to that, and we might probably get into

it a little further. Along with three other guys here in the Lawrence community, the last

year we started a mentoring program for kids, and we started out basically with male kids

in the high schools. One of the things that I’ve seen over the last thirty years of my life is

the decline in the family structure and also leadership in the home. I can’t blame a kid

when he doesn’t get any fundamentals about life in the environment that he’s living

ninety percent of his life in. This program has gained a lot of, I guess, energy in both the

high schools here in town, and we think that it’s made a difference, at least so far, in the

approach that giving kids that really don’t have structure in their lives an opportunity to

not only talk about it – our program is called Can We Talk? – and give them options now

that if it’s questions that need to be asked, there is somewhere that you can ask them, and

we can give you some of the insights that we have gleaned over the last forty to fifty to

sixty years of our lives.”

Downing: “And that follows along very much with your interest in social work?”

Stallworth: “It was a natural fit.”

Downing: “A natural fit. The year that you came into the university then, I guess, was

1991?”

Stallworth: “Right.”

Downing: “And then what other positions… were you always at the Med. Center, or

were you…”

Stallworth: “No. Well, I started with the university at the Med. Center but again, I was

involved in real estate a little in Hawaii along with the restaurant / bar business, and when

I moved back to Lawrence I got my Kansas real estate license, just because I didn’t know

what was gonna happen, so I wanted to give myself some options. I did speculation-type

real estate, investing in things like that.

24

My first position at the Med. Center was working in Facilities Management in the

Personnel department. I oversaw basically the business operations for the Facilities

Management – what they call now Facilities Operations – which oversees the

maintenance, the personnel workers at KU Med. Center. I say one of my skills that they

really were impressed with was my ability to deal with the different ethnic groups that

were there, the different workers, the different level of workers, and to be able to bring a

sense of calmness into an environment that they were having probably some issues with.

I did everything from initiating the first automated mail system that was done

there. I put together a fee structure that allowed us to bill for services that we were doing

that they had never done before. I think a lot of that just came from my involvement in

my own personal business, and things that I had seen that were different when I first got

there that could be improved on. Along with my interpersonal communication skills, I

think… one of the things that when I first started working over there they really didn’t

know who I was or what I did, they just thought, ‘Well, here’s this guy that played

basketball at Kansas and now he’s over here doing this and this and this’, so… After a

couple of years though, I think they started recognizing that, you know, I was not only an

athlete but had other skills that were usable.

I was out there for several years in the Facilities department. I then was asked to

take over the department. They were having some leadership problems with what’s

called Design and Construction Management. That position also was involved in not just

the maintenance, but new construction work, maintaining buildings and improvement on

different facilities over there. When I got involved with that department I also put in a

fee for services structure that allowed us to hire additional personnel. It also allowed

us… the facility building that we were in needed to be upgraded and because of the fees

that we would generate from the work that we were doing, we were allowed to improve

the workplace. At that time, a lot of the state funds were not available to upgrade your

computer systems. At that time, they were doing a lot of digital-type drawings and

interacts with the business world that upgraded as far as communications was all over the

internet. So I was able to implement those kind of things at that level over there.”

Downing: “Are there any projects and stuff that you’re particularly proud of?”

25

Stallworth: “Oh, absolutely. The research medical facility over there is one of the first

buildings that I was in charge of, getting it built and finished. When I came to this

campus, basically it was to run the [?] Classroom Initiative. They called me because of

my ability, I guess, to multi-task. We had to put together plans to renovate and upgrade

the infrastructure for all the buildings on campus, and we had three years to do it. I had a

team of guys that that was our main goal, was to make sure that we could spend this

money that was allocated through the State to get these buildings – the new Murphy

addition, the upgrade of the School of Education (which used to be the first dorm that I

lived in) – those were some of my main projects that we had to get done in that small

window of time. The electrical systems on some of the campus buildings weren’t able

to… they hadn’t been upgraded since the buildings were built. We had to go in and do

that. And because of my background in the environmental industry, I had contacts in that

industry and I was able to go in and, because of the amount of hazardous materials that

were in some of these buildings over time, asbestos as being one of them, put together a

plan to have the testing and abatement work done while we also could get the

construction work done. The early career that I had in the environment industry, the

early career that I had in the sports industry, the early career that I had in the

restaurant/bar business, it gave me some of those skills that allowed me to multi-task and

communicate with people at all kind of levels. It’s different dealing with a contractor

than it is dealing with a professor. It’s different dealing with a student professor than it is

with a grad student professor. So I had to be able to sit down and make everybody feel

comfortable, but also get this work done in a small window of time. I’m proud to say that

not only did we get everything that we had planned accomplished, but were able to get

some additional funds to do some additional work because of the way that we got it

done.”

Downing: “Those are major, major projects. I’m a big believer in the fact that the

strength of the university is not only in the faculty but also the staff of it.”

Stallworth: “Oh, absolutely.”

26

Downing: “I know exactly what a professor can do. [Laughter] I’ve been one. There’s

times that I would trade a couple of professors for somebody, a good secretary or

technician or support person.”

Stallworth: “When we see this campus, like this building that we were talking about

when we walked in, you know. Some of these buildings I never saw in person, but all of

the paperwork used to come by my desk You know, the bidding of the contracts, the pay

requests that come in, it’s a name and an address. This is a site that I probably never

would have seen if I hadn’t been invited to this today. At some point in time over the last

eighteen years, I’ve had something about every building on this campus touching my

hands. And I feel very proud about that because not only did I come here to, you know,

have a legacy in place, but now I also have a legacy in place to maintain and improve this

same environment.”

Downing: “You made a slight reference to the fact that the School of Education now is

in a dorm where you actually lived, which is, again, coming full circle.”

Stallworth: “Oh, absolutely, absolutely. As a matter of fact, a good friend of mine, who

was my next door neighbor, when I was a freshman he was a year ahead of me as a

sophomore. He works in that building now, on the same floor that we used to live next

door, so go figure. [Laughter]

Downing: “Yeah. It truly is a small world.”

Stallworth: “It is.”

Downing: “Now you are retired. That’s officially you’re now [unintelligible phrase]

What are you doing with your retirement?”

27

Stallworth: “Well, a lot of people said, you know, ‘You’re retired but you’re still

working, and how does that work?’ I’m retired from the university but I also work with a

property management company here that’s called Raney Properties LP, and I manage

several commercial properties. As a matter of fact, one of the properties that I built from

the rubble, so to speak, was where now is called Hillcrest II. It used to be the Hillcrest

Theatres. It was a fitness center that burned down, and once it burned down I got

involved with the re-building of it, and now it’s Body Boutique and Colors Hair Salon.

They have a full service women’s fitness center in that building.

So I’m retired from the university but I also manage property and I work with a

small contractor out of Topeka, Kansas called [Name] Construction. I’m the Business

Development Director for them, so I go out and solicit business opportunities for this

company. I do a radio show three days a week called Rock Chalk Sports Talk. It’s

affiliated with the university athletic program. It’s not affiliated with the university’s

radio facility operations or anything like that. I’ve been able to keep involved with the

sporting side of my life. I do guest appearances on both talk shows on TV and radio in

the Kansas City area. Being retired from the university full time is just one of the jobs

that I’ve let go. I’m still very active.

My goal in life is to make a difference. I believe that this Can We Talk? program,

this mentoring program, the sky is the limit for what we can do as far as improving the

quality of life for kids. Through my relationships with the Negro League Museum in

Kansas City and some of the restaurant owners over there, we took 150 kids to Kansas

City from Free State and Lawrence High. When I got to the restaurant, some gentlemen

met me outside and said, ‘You’re the guy that’s involved with this’, because some of my

peers had told him I was this tall guy, a former basketball player that was involved with

these kids. He said, ‘How did you all do this?’, and I’m caught off guard because I’m

trying to figure out just what had happened, and he said, ‘All these kids came in this

restaurant, sat down, ate lunch, and then they were told to go outside and not create a

problem and they stood around just doing what they were asked – how do you all do

this?’. I said, ‘Well, we just talk to ‘em, you know. We tell them we can do things to

improve their quality of life and give them an opportunity to do some things for

themselves that otherwise they probably wouldn’t get a chance and opportunity to do. He

28

was just… they basically talked to me for an hour (I was trying to get away from them)

about how we could get that many kids to not just go haywire in an environment for X

amount of time. The same thing at the Negro League Museum – because of my

relationship with the Director over there, they waived the fees for these kids. I told them,

I said, ‘When you go over there you’re representing me, and so let’s not create a

problem’, and the same glowing review from their visit. There wasn’t a whole lot of

running through the museum. And so I do believe that as I get older and see the rewards

from my involvement in this community, that’s my next challenge.”

Downing: “I think it’s really true that kids don’t rebel against rules; they actually would

like to have rules so that they know what is expected of them.”

Stallworth: “And that’s the part that we are trying to, basically, I think, help them in, is

that the challenge is now to get them to listen and understand that there are caring people

out here, and everybody just don’t want to throw you away. There’s rules that have to be

followed, but the quality of your life can be improved if you follow them. Again, we’ll

start our second year in a couple of months and see where it goes. I’m really happy that

we’ve been able to get where we’ve gotten in such a short amount of time.”

Downing: “You’ve had so many involvements with the university, other than just

working there. If you had to give a summary of what you think KU is and what it means,

and how good a job it’s doing, what would you say?”

Stallworth: “Well, you know, number one I’m biased about the University of Kansas. I

let that be known. I wear it on my sleeve everywhere I go. It’s part of me. It’s part of

my family and my extended family. It provided me an opportunity not only to get my

undergrad degree and to pursue my dream as an athlete, but also to give me an

opportunity to pursue my business career. For eighteen years I had a great opportunity to

give back, to make things happen, to be a part of a team that put together to make this

university a better place to come, and the facilities a better place to work in. Again, it’s

that life cycle, and I will continue at some point to… I will always be a part of that

29

university family. It’s not gonna go away. I’m sure that I’ve been able to embrace the

leadership of Chancellors, Athletic Directors, coaches, faculty and staff. As long as my

health is good I think that I have an opportunity to continue to do that.”

Downing: “One of the special times must have been for you on the hundredth

anniversary of the basketball reunion.”

Stallworth: “Well, I tell you, a lot of people didn’t realize Roy, when he left, I think there

was a little animosity there, a little anger, but that’s coaches. You coach places and you

go places. That’s just the way it is. But he instituted the reunions. I’m not gonna talk

about the hundred year reunion, I’m gonna talk about the first reunion of all the former

KU basketball players. He had talked to me about that because that was something that I

guess they had done at North Carolina. And he asked me did I think that the former

players would come back for it. I said, ‘Coach, I don’t know what you think about

tradition there in North Carolina, but this is second to none here at the University of

Kansas’. I still have, you know, I can talk to a guy like [Name] or [Name], they were

back to when I scored the 50 points, just like I can talk to Danny Manning or Chris

Moody. You know, that family, that basketball family that played basketball at

University of Kansas, it’s all over the world. And the former players treat it like that.

That’s the beauty of… we did a charity game a couple of weeks ago for a couple of

families here in town that was put together by my co-host at the radio station, and former

guys came back, and they performed and entertained the fans, stayed after the game and

signed autographs and interacted. You don’t get that everywhere. I know that because I

have guys that are members of the retired NBA Players Association, and I tell them about

my relationship with former players. They don’t even have a relationship with their

former coach or former players, not just on the team that they played on, future or past.

So, I believe that that tradition, that hundred year thing, was really off the charts. But I

gotta give it to Roy for starting the five-year reunion. Every five years we get together

and the invite goes out. Now, my former teammates right now are on me to get our 40th

Final Four reunion down this year coming up. Since I’m here in town, we’re pushing to

have that recognized because we think we’ve been slighted a little bit in our recognition,

30

to be honest with you. Believe it or not, as old as we’ve gotten, we still think that we

need to be represented and recognized for our accomplishments here, so that the 1971

Final Four team is pushing for a reunion in 2011.”

Downing: “I certainly hope you get to pull it off.”

Stallworth: “Oh, we are, we are, because if we don’t get the Athletic Department to help

us out with it, we’ll do it on our own.” [Laughter]

Downing: “I guess… I’m a big college basketball fan. I love college basketball more

almost than any other sport. I grew up and had a good relationship with my dad because

we both liked sports. I think that KU is very, very special. Like you say, in many

schools they could care less about the school once they’ve left. And, again, I was a big

Roy Williams fan. I read his book, and understood much better about what his thought

process was.”

Stallworth: “Well, again, he was the coach, but his roots are in North Carolina. This is

my pitch, see, and you can’t argue with it because it’s fact. There’s three winners in this

program in the history of college basketball have got their roots here. The inventor of the

game got his roots here. Now, John Wooden, it is my understanding, came through

Lawrence and worked on the stadium, okay? If you look at all the great programs, at

some point in time, their coaches came through Lawrence. If that’s the case, this is the

Mecca. Phog Allen mentored all of those guys to get them where they’re at today. So,

North Carolina, you owe us for the victory. Kentucky, you owe us for the victory.

UCLA, we threw in a little bit for you too. My only beef, and he’s gone now, with John

Wooden, was he was a little arrogant while he was coaching. But when you win that

many titles you can be arrogant.” [Laughter]

Downing: “What are your hopes for KU in the future?”

31

Stallworth: “On the university side, I think it’s gonna be here forever. I mean, it’s from

the 1800s till now, it has greatness about it. Some places you think… you look at the

campuses and they haven’t upgraded or they haven’t kept up with the times. You come

to Lawrence, Kansas and you can see that the alumni, the former students, they have

caring, life-changing moments about this place. You feel it. If you go to an event, and

you feel it from people who can barely get into the stadium, or can barely walk down to

campus, to the young kids that walk around with their Jayhawk gear on. So it’s here

forever. Again, it’s just my perspective, but I’ve been on other campuses, and I’ve been

around guys that have gone to other places, and I don’t think they have that. In a big city,

you don’t have this. In more isolated college campuses, you don’t have this. I think you

get the best of both worlds here.”

Downing: “Yeah. Well, I know the alumni, in general, are unbelievably generous, and I

think it’s all because that they had such a wonderful experience when they were here.”

Stallworth: “Absolutely.”

Downing: “And I’ve been to other universities too, and it’s different. Lawrence and KU,

it’s really special.”

Stallworth: “I do some things with the Alumni Association on some awareness, fund

raising, put the word out kinds of things, and in western Kansas, at one time I thought it’s

gotta be K-State. It’s not that way. I go to events in Missouri, and even though they say

they don’t like us, they respect us. Respect, to me, is a little better than liking us. When

you can get respect from the Missouri clan I think you’ve changed quite a bit.”

Downing: “Is there anything else you want to add?”

Stallworth: “I think I’ve covered just about everything. Like I said, the future looks

pretty bright, not just for me but for the university. I always like to plug our basketball

program because I think it is one of the lead programs in the country. To have just a little

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part of that as being a part of me – I’ve always said you can talk about more

championships, you can talk about more wins, but you can’t talk about better tradition.”

Downing: “Okay. I’d like to thank you for sharing your story, and looking forward to

seeing the final version in black and white.”

Stallworth: “Okay, sounds good to me, David. I appreciate it. Thank you.”