College
Bartow coached at Central Missouri State University from 1961 to 1964, Valparaiso University from 1964 to 1970, and Memphis State University from 1970 until 1974, and he led the Memphis State Tigers to the 1973 NCAA national championship game and consecutive Missouri Valley Conference titles in the 1971–72 and 1972–73 seasons. He coached the US national team in the 1974 FIBA World Championship, winning the bronze medal.
Bartow signed a five-year contract to replace Harv Schmidt at the University of Illinois in 1974. A last-place team the previous campaign, the Fighting Illini finished tied for ninth in the Big Ten at 8–18 (4–14 in the conference) in 1975, Bartow's only season there. Despite this, he was the first Illini coach to extensively recruit talented African American high school players from the Chicago area. He was succeeded by Lou Henson.
Bartow left his position to succeed John Wooden as the head coach of UCLA. Bartow coached at UCLA from 1975 to 1977, guiding them to a 52–9 record, including a berth in the 1976 Final Four. He coached the 1977 College Player of the Year, Marques Johnson. As of 2008, he is the second winningest coach at UCLA by percentage of wins to losses at .852, putting him behind Gary Cunningham at .862 and above John Wooden at .808.
Bartow left UCLA after the 1977 season to take over the job of creating an athletic program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, more commonly known as UAB. He served as the school's first head basketball coach and athletic director for 18 years. Bartow led UAB to the NIT in the program's second year of existence, and followed that up with seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including trips to the Sweet 16 in 1981 and the Elite Eight in 1982.
Bartow retired from coaching in 1996, and in 1997, UAB renamed its basketball venue, Bartow Arena, in his honor. His son Murry, a UAB assistant, became the coach upon Bartow's retirement; Bartow was later president of Hoops, LP, the company that runs the Memphis Grizzlies and the FedEx Forum.
On April 15, 2009, a UAB spokesman revealed that Bartow had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. On January 3, 2012, Gene Bartow died at his home in Birmingham after a two-year battle with the disease.
Read more about this topic: Gene Bartow
Famous quotes containing the word college:
“Here was a place where nothing was crystallized. There were no traditions, no customs, no college songs .... There were no rules and regulations. All would have to be thought of, planned, built up, created—what a magnificent opportunity!”
—Mabel Smith Douglass (1877–1933)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“I do not think that a Physician should be admitted into the College till he could bring proofs of his having cured, in his own person, at least four incurable distempers.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)