| Wins against Kentucky - 0 | Losses against Kentucky - 2 |
Alma Mater: Pittsburgh [1917]
Hometown: Murray City, OH
Date Born: July 4, 1894
Date Died: November 1, 1964
Overall Record: 366-248 [31 Seasons]
| Date | Matchup | UK Result | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12/29/1937 | Kentucky vs. Pittsburgh | W | 40 - 29 | Sugar Bowl Championship (at New Orleans, LA) |
| 12/23/1935 | Pittsburgh at Kentucky | W | 35 - 17 | - |
Obituary - Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Dr. Red Carlson, Pitt Sports Coach, Dies
by JIMMY JORDAN
Dr. Henry Clifford (Red) Carlson, advocate of the "Figure 8" attack in his "Win 'em All" basketball curriculum, and a fixture at the University of Pittsburgh for 50 years, is gone.
The graying Redhead, with the somewhat cherubic appearance and a constant twinkle in his eyes, the fellow who won All-America and Hall of Fame honors for himself and national titles for his teams, died suddenly yesterday at his Ligonier home.
He leaves behind a Panther legend in himself, a thousand anecdotes concerning himself and thousands of friends of varying degrees of closeness who knew him through contact in the sports world from coast to coast and even into other parts of the world.
A violent critic of officials, he left his impression wherever the Panthers played a basketball game, and he often returned to the campus with a mark or two of his own.
"The referee is the boil on basketball's nose," the good doctor once said. Members of the coaching profession and of the officials' union agreed unanimously that Dr. Carlson was in one of his more tolerant moods when he issued such a non-vitriolic opinion of the hardwood whistle-tooter.
Doc Carlson started playing basketball for Pitt as a freshman in 1914. He had played on a Bellefonte Academy team which had trimmed the Panthers a year earlier. There was no freshman rule in those days.
He'd been a fixture on the Pitt campus ever since until his retirement last August 1.
Dr. Carlson was made a member of the Helms Foundation Basketball Hall of Fame several years ago, but the people who knew him best didn't forget him.
He was one of the first members of the Pittsburgh Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Dapper Dan Club, and recently was inducted into the Curbstone Coaches Hall of Fame.
Only a month ago, about 100 of the doctor's friends held a "surprise party" for him at the PAA, and really caught him by surprise.
It was just one week ago that he attended the annual banquet of the Allegheny County Civic Sportsmen's League at which his long-time friend and coaching associate, Bill Campbell of Homestead, was honored as "Sportsman of the Year."
Oddly, it was not as a basketball start that Carlson scintillated at Pitt. He was a football player in the fall, good enough to win All-America honors, and to play alongside fabled Jim Thorpe with the professional Canton Bulldogs after graduation. He also played college baseball.
The Panthers of those days were almost invincible under the coaching of Joe Duff and Pop Warner. During Dr. Carlson's four-year tenure they lost to Washington & Jefferson, 13-10, in 1914 and won 27 in a row before he was graduated.
"That was the only losing game in which I played for Pitt," he often recalled. "It was my own fault we lost that one."
The 1916 Pitt Crew team has been considered by many as the best ever to be put together in this part of the country.
But it was in basketball that he became famous to an international degree with his solids defense, his "Figure 8" offense and his training methods. When these attributes failed to draw attention, his hassles with officials did.
There was one time a couple of decades back when Westminster College upset the Panthers, 47-38. He always referred to that one as the Westminster Horse Show
"This fellow Miller mounted Malarkey (Pitt's star) and very neatly grabbed a free ride on Malarkey's back every time our boy tried to take the ball in for a shot at the hoop.
"Those horse thieves (the officials) called three fouls on Malarkey so we had to take him out of the game. He was tired from carrying Miller around, anyway."
One time, during the annual grudge match with West Virginia at Morgantown, the coach, unleashing a somewhat milder-than-usual attack on the officials shouted: "You burn me up."
"Somebody in the balcony must have believed what I was saying, because they dumped a bucket of water on me to put out the fire." he related.
Dr. Carlson was great believer in ice cream as a "conditioner" for tired athletes and often served it after workouts.
Carlson coached Panther teams won national titles in 1928 and 1930. IN 1928 they won 21 straight games, including a thriller from previously unbeaten Montana State.
Charley Hyatt scored 27 points in that game. The Bobcats, with three All-Americans on the team, scored 28 points among them.
"Hyatt was the greatest player I ever saw." Carlson often said. "That was the greatest game he ever played."
Carlson authored several books on coaching and training, and was perhaps the first to use the fatigue curve in training.
Shortly before he retired as the Panther coach in April 1953, he wrote a magazine piece. It never saw the light of day, possibly because the title, "The Cancer of Coaching" frightened editors white before they ever read it.
Although Dr. Carlson could be as serious about death as any man, the essay, written with tongue in cheek, consisted chiefly of confessions, a catalogue of "crimes" committed in an exceptionally busy, uncommonly "sinful" life.
There were, however, a few serious paragraphs. In one of them the author declared that if a man remained in the college coaching field past the age of 35 he was practically committing suicide.
Apparently he didn't believe it himself.
He was nearing his 59th birthday when he retired from coaching. He had passed his 70th birthday when he retired from his office in the Panther athletic department just three months ago.
