Dick Harp
American basketball player-coach (1918-2000)
Richard F. Harp (March 28, 1918 – March 18, 2000) was an American college basketball coach who spent the majority of his career at the University of Kansas. He became the Kansas Jayhawks' fourth men's basketball coach in 1956. He coached for eight years until his resignation in 1964. Harp's overall Kansas record was 121–82 (.596) and conference record was 63–45 (.583).
Harp played high school basketball at Rosedale High School before being recruited by Phog Allen to play for Kansas. After gaining a wealth of knowledge as a player and assistant under Allen, Harp became the Jayhawks' head coach himself from 1956 to 1964. Harp compiled a 121–82 record in those eight seasons and led the Jayhawks to two conference titles (one Big Seven, one Big Eight Conference) and two NCAA tournament berths. In 1957, the Jayhawks captured the Midwest Regional and made it to the finals, only to be stopped by the University of North Carolina in a memorable 54–53 loss in triple overtime in Kansas City, Mo. Under his guidance, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Bridges achieved All-American status. Chamberlain's relationship with Harp, however, was notably poor, fueled by resentment and disappointment: Chamberlain's biographer, Robert Cherry, has speculated that Chamberlain would not have chosen to attend Kansas if he had known that Harp's predecessor, Phog Allen, was going to retire in 1956.
The public source identifies “Dick Harp” as american basketball player-coach (1918-2000). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dick, Harp and American.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dick Harp” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.