ShareThisHe was too weak to talk on the phone, too nice to not return a call. So Gene Bartow asked his wife Ruth to call and act as a sort of go-between to discuss college basketball and "Memphis Madness."
"What would he say to Memphis fans?" I asked.
Ruth repeated the question, then paused to wait for the answer.
"He'd say they have one of the best college basketball programs in the country," she said.
"Any message he'd like to deliver?" I asked, and she relayed the question again.
"Tell them to support Josh Pastner like they supported me," Ruth said.
"Does he take pride in a night like this? Knowing that he's the one who got it started?"
Ruth asked Gene the question. She laughed at his response.
"He said he didn't get it started," she said. "It was Larry Finch and Ronnie Robinson. We moved to Memphis and Larry and Ronnie adopted him."
Which is Gene Bartow through and through, isn't it? Never mind that he's riddled with cancer. Never mind that he's too weak to talk on the phone. He's not about to let someone give him credit that he figures should go to someone else.
But as "Memphis Madness" kicks off the upcoming season, Bartow's legacy is everywhere.
Before there was Josh Pastner, there was Bartow.
"No coffee, no tea, no drinks, no four-letter words," said George Lapides, the longtime newspaper and radio reporter. "I really believe Gene is one of the nicest human beings God ever put on this Earth."
Just try and find someone to disagree. Seriously. Anyone. You'd have better luck finding a unicorn.
"He makes a great first impression, and an even better second, third, fourth and fifth impression," said Lapides. "He's one of the most beloved sports figures in the history of Memphis and he was only here for four years."
Which says something about the power of nice, doesn't it? Let that be a lesson to you, kids.
"I like people," is how Bartow once put it.
So people like him right back. John Calipari likes him and Mike Heisley likes him and so does everyone else. Kevin Scarbinsky, the columnist in Birmingham, may be the only person who has ever recorded Bartow boasting about anything. The subject was Bartow's high-school coaching career.
"I was the best badminton teacher in the history of that school," said Bartow, laughing.
And you know what? He probably was. That's the thing that gets lost in all the niceness. The man could coach. He took Memphis to the championship game and had a better winning percentage than John Wooden at UCLA. Then he went to UAB, started a program from scratch and took it to seven straight NCAA Tournaments.
But that's not the best part, if you listen to Bartow. The best part is the friends he made along the way.
Now his life is slipping away and there's nothing to be done and it's all unbearably sad. Except, of course, Bartow won't tolerate you being sad on his account, so go out and have a blast.
Really. That's the only way to do it. Revel in the joy the man helped create.
"Tell them he's thinking of them," said Ruth, as she hung up the phone.
They'll be thinking of him, too.
(Contact Geoff Calkins at calkins(at)commercialappeal.com. Visit his blog at geoffcalkinsblog.com)
