Excerpted from Chapter in book Big Blue Machine by Russell Rice, Strode Publishers (1978).
Around the Indianapolis high school circuit, they called 6-foot-5, 210-pound Leroy Edwards the "East Side Terror." At the Univeristy of Kentucky he was known as the "Hoosier Horror," "Big Ed," "Big Boy," and "Cowboy."
He thought of himself as "Beefsteak Man."
"I can't do my best on the tea and toast Coach Rupp gives us before a game," he explained after scoring 22 points in an 81-12 UK victory over Oglethorpe in the second game of the 1934-35 season. "Why, if they would give me a couple of beefseaks before a game, I could really play. It takes a couple of beefsteaks to carry you up and down the floor."
How about that, Adolph ?
"He forgot about those two scrambled eggs we gave them with the tea and toast. I guess he just gulped them. He could eat. In fact, he was the second best eater I ever had. And also the strongest player."
Who was the best eater ?
"A kid named Steve Schmitt." (Schmitt, a 6-foot-10 center, would leave UK after playing his freshman season in 1968.)
And the second strongest player ?
"Dan Issel, then Mike Pratt, and Pat Riley." (Issel would be a UK All-American in 1970, his three-year teammate Pratt would enter the coaching ranks in 1975, while Riley would be an All-American in 1966.)
That's pretty Herculean company. Just how strong was Edwards ?
"He could bust the cable over the Golden Gate Bridge."
Come now, let's have something more realistic.
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Was he serious ?
"Edwards? No. He was a non-conformist. I remember when he first came down here. He woke me up at 12:30 at night. I told him there wasn't room and sent him next door to a fraternity house. He stayed eight or 10 days there and wouldn't do anything they said. We finally got him relocated and the fraternity sent me a bill for his keep. It came to $6."
What did he do in that opening varsity game ?
"Oh, he scored 18 points against the Alumni, guys like DeMoisey, Spicer, Settle, McBrayer, Milward, Kleiser and Krump. We beat them, 61-10, I guess people expected more from him."
Why did they expect more ?
"Well, he had scored more than 400 points in 16 games with the freshman team that didn't lose a game. He came up to the varsity with Ralph Carlisle and Warfield Donohue, and I started them most of the games that year, along with Lawrence and Tucker and then Andy Anderson after Tucker broke his hand against Michigan State."
Did he give them more?
"He sure did. He scored 34 points in 34 minutes against Creighton and broke DeMoisey's Alumni Gym record, but he complained after that game."
About what ?
"He said he missed too many shots under the basket. That he never played a good game when he shot that much. I encouraged him to shoot whenever the occasion arose."
How good a shooter was he ?
"One of the best, and he would tell you so. After he scored 21 points in our victory over Alabama in Birmingham, a woman walked up to him and said, 'You were wonderful. You never missed.'"
What did he say to that ?
"He said, 'Listen, I'm not supposed to miss.'"
How did you get him in the first place?
"I don't know about the standards at Purdue or those other Indiana schools at the time, but none of them seemed interested in him. Perhaps it was because he was so happy-go-lucky that they thought he wasn't interested in higher education. George Keogan, my friend who was coacing at Notre Dame, told me Ed was as big and tough as they come, if we could just get him in school and keep him there. Recruiting wasn't a problem in those times. They didn't have to sign anything. I visited him one time, and he agreed to come down here."
How did you keep him here?
"Well, I didn't for too long. Two years, to be exact, before he turned pro. When he came down, he brought a little fellow (Jack Cronin) with him. We called him "The Shadow" because he went everywhere Ed went. He carried Ed's books, did his studying for him, and kept Ed in line for me. Ed was in love and always homesick."
How was he as a player ?
"Way ahead of his time. A great rebounder with excellent body balance. He could rebound the ball completely over the goal, get it on the other side, and score. He had a fine hook shot. Said he learned it from a bunch of touring pros from Texas who came through Indiana while he was at Tech High in Indianapolis. He went over to Martinsdale to see them play." (JPS Note: What Rupp may have been referring to were the Athens (TX) Hornets, a high school basketball championship team that toured the Midwest in the early 1930's, including a game in Martinsville, IN.)
When your 1935 team left to play a two-game series with Tulane in New Orleans, you told the press it was Edwards' first train ride. Doesn't that seem rather odd since he was from a metropolitan area?
"No, he did his traveling before that by auto, interurban trains, and street cars. I remember when we went on our first overnight trip down South, and Ed came and said he planned to sit up all night because he was kind of confused by the rows of upper and lower berths. Figuring that he might grasp the idea if he were to watch the other players go to bed, I suggested that he do that. It was some time later that night that a long arm reached into my berth and shook me. I rolled over and looked up into his smiling face. He said, 'Think I got 'er now, coach,' and he went happily off to sleep."
It made a good story ?
"A better story was the way he helped up handle Tulane. He scored 10 points in the first game, and we held them to three field goals and beat them, 38-9. In the second game he got 18 points and we beat them, 52-12. We were leading, 18-0, with 10 minutes gone when they scored their first point."
In your 42-16 victory over Chicago that year, Edwards scored 26 points. A newspaperman said Chicago used everything but lariats, bludgeons, and harpoons, and blackjacks in an effort to stop him.
"They were plenty rough, but that was mild compared to what 'King King" Klein and "Slim" Terjesen would try to do to him in Madison Square Garden."
That was Kentucky's first visit to the Big City?
"So it was. They had started doubleheaders in the Garden the week before. Ned Irish, then a newspaper reporter, started it all when he talked the folks there into renting the building to him for college games. He got the idea when he tore his pants trying to climb thourgh a window to get into a ball game in a packed auditorium. I knew Ned well, and he never denied the story. He invitied us to come up and play, and we accepted. It introduced our boys to Eastern fans."
There was quite a controversy surrounding that game?
"It has been reported dozens of times, and is reported here, as possibly the roughest game that has ever been played. NYU knew that Edwards was big, strong, and a deadly scorer under the basket, and they would not permit him to get under the basket."
How did they stop him?
"The way those two centers kicked each other around, shoving, pushing, holding, and all those things, both should have been thrown out of the game in two minutes."
You had another problem ?
"Our attack was built around some screens that were perfectly legal in the South and Midwest. Lo and behold, as our boys attempted to set up their plays, they were called for screening. Naturally they were thrown off their game, and I was at a loss to understand the interpretation of the rule.
"At the half I went to the official (Jack Murray) and politely asked him what we were doing that we should not have been doing. The only answer I got was, 'You know what you're doing. It isn't legal.'"
How did NYU win the game?
"With eight seconds to go and the score tied, 22-22, Murray called Edwards for setting an illegal screen. They made the free throw to win the game. We felt bad about this. As far as I knew, everything that I had taught them was perfectly legitimate and was also being taught in every section of the U.S. outside of the New York City area."
What were the repercussions?
"When movies of the game were shown at a meeting of the Rules Committee, the play of the pivot men under the basket was so rugged that it shocked the coaches who saw it. The three-second rule was put in that year to force the pivot man away from the basket, and the screening rule was given its first long session of housecleaning."
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Were you satisfied then?
"The screening rule has never been cleared up to my satisfaction even to this day. It varies according to the section of the country where you go. If you play on the Pacific Coast, you get called for some things you don't get called for someplace else. In the NCAA tournaments they swap officials around, section to section, in order that you don't get any 'homers,' guys who favor the home team.
"When we draw a Pacific Coast Conference official, the Southern teams really get blistered because we just don't play the way they play out there. We played Southern California one time out there and, if I am correct in my memory, they called fifteen fouls on us bfore they called the first foul on them. Our game was practically shot by that time, and our boys were under such a severe handicap that they were afraid to even move. We lost that ball game."
You said there was no use taking a team to New York until they changed the rules on screening, but you would be back there the following year ?
"Yes, and Murray was officiating again. I objected, but to no avail. We got the opening tip, and Carlisle was called for blocking on our first offensive play. Our Captain 'Red' Hagan later got into an argument with Murray that held up play for more than a minute in the second half after Red was called for blocking. They beat us, 41-28, and we didn't return to the Garden until three years later. We would lose to Long Island and then beat St. John's in 1943 for our first victory there, beat Long Island in overtime the following year, and then beat St. John's again in 1945. So we weren't doing badly."
You could have done better with Edwards ?
"No doubt about it. His loss was a big blow, because at that time he was a bonafide All-American, not one of these southern breeze All-Americans that you pick up if you don't make the AP or UPI. It was the Edwards team that gave us our first national publicity."
Did you have any idea that he wouldn't return from Indianapolis ?
"Naturally I thought he was coming back in his junior year, but a rubber company had a team - they called it AAU since there was no such thing as the pros then - and they talked him into staying."
Was that hard ?
"Well, they paid him $200 a month, which wasn't a bad job. That's $2,400 a year. I was only making $2,800 to coach the team here, so he decided to just lay out and play ball up there and support his wife."
Were you for the marriage ?
"I remember I was violently opposed to it. In those days an athlete just didn't get married. There is no use kidding anybody. When these kids have to have scholarships to go to school, how are they going to support a wife ? I've just never been able to figure that out."
How do you compare him with other centers you've coached and played against?
"I was asked that same question, but in another manner, by reporters after Jacksonville beat us in the 1970 Mideast Regional at Columbus. They asked me if Artis Gilmore was the greatest pivot man I had ever seen?"
Was he ?
"I told them 'No!'"
Then they asked who was ?
"That's right."
And you told them ?
"Leroy Edwards."
What did they say?
"Some of them laughed. Others looked puzzled. That shows you how much some so-called experts know about the game."
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