Why Gene Bartow left UCLA for UAB after succeeding John Wooden
Why Gene Bartow left UCLA for UAB after succeeding John Wooden
Tennessee and UCLA will play for a second time in men's college basketball. The Vols and Bruins will face each other in the NCAA Tournament second round Saturday at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
The only Tennessee-UCLA basketball game all time was on Jan. 30, 1977. The Bruins were victorious, 103-89, in a top 10 matchup at Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia.
The 1976-77 campaign marked the last season for UCLA with Gene Bartow as head coach. He served as UCLA's head coach for two seasons, replacing 10-time national champion John Wooden.
Bartow would coach 11 more contests for UCLA after defeating the Vols in the 1976-77 regular season.
Following head coaching stints at Central Missouri State, Valparaiso, Memphis and Illinois, Bartow was known throughout college athletics, allowing him to be in position to replace Wooden at UCLA.
As a second-year head coach with the Bruins in 1977, Bartow was ready to move on from a historic program. He had a vision of starting an athletics department at UAB. Bartow, a 2009 Hall of Fame inductee, was hired by UAB shortly after the Tennessee-UCLA regular-season game in Atlanta.
Wayne Martin covered Bartow during his tenure as UAB's head coach (1978–96) and athletics director (1977–2000) for The Birmingham News.
Ahead of the Tennessee-UCLA game in the 2025 NCAA Tournament second round, Martin discussed Bartow leaving the Bruins after succeeding Wooden.
'UAB had a couple of guys that decided they wanted to start major college basketball there,' Martin said. 'They decided they wanted to get a top name coach to give it credibility from the start, so they decided to get together and come up with a package that would attract somebody from a top name school.
'They knew, of course, of Bartow because he had been at Memphis and Illinois. They wanted to see if they could get with Bartow and get him to give them a package to attract a top name coach. They met with Gene and they laid out their plans for a program. He said he would come up with a package for them and they would meet back up at a different time. Maybe a month later, they met again, and he said this is the package that you need to present to a coach, and I have a recommendation that would be receptive to it — and he said me. That was the nuts and the bolts of it.'
Outside influence with boosters and a new-age of media at UCLA allowed for Bartow to leave and launch an athletics program from scratch at UAB.
'To coach UCLA, who wouldn't leave to go coach,' Martin said. 'What Wooden did there, it was a premier program in the country. At UAB, he was comfortable. At UCLA, he was not.'
Bartow quickly turned UAB basketball into a contender for championships. He guided the Blazers to the Sweet 16 in his third season and to the Elite Eight in year No. 4. The Blazers made the NCAA Tournament in seven consecutive seasons from 1981-87.
His continued success at UAB allowed for another historic program to be in pursuit of hiring him. Martin recalled how Bartow was Kentucky's head coach for four hours.
'He turned down the Kentucky job after he got to UAB,' Martin said. 'Gene really never had to interview for a job. They had always called him and said would you take this job? They called and said how about coming up and talking to us about the Kentucky job. He did. He interviewed, and they offered him the job, and he accepted it.
'He went to the basketball office, met with the assistants, they went over the people they were recruiting, and for four hours he was the head coach. Then he told them that he was not going to officially accept the job until talking with his president, because he promised Dr. (S. Richardson) Hill that he would do that. They said no, you are either going to accept it now or we will go somewhere else. He said then you will have to go somewhere else.'
Bartow continued to build an athletics program at UAB. The Blazers' athletics program, since its inception, has a history with the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa attempting to not allow for sports to prosper.
Following Bartow's arrival, UAB athletics has been negated an opportunity to have an on-campus football stadium and their football program was attempted to be shut down following the 2014 season.
When Bartow took over at UAB in June 1977, Bear Bryant was in his final years as Alabama's football head coach and athletics director.
'Bryant would not allow it at all,' Martin said of UAB having athletics. 'He, and they, were all opposed to it. When they started pushback, too, there was pushback.'
Alabama has never played UAB in football and one time in men's basketball. Alabama was mandated to host the Blazers in the 1993 NIT. Bartow guided UAB to a, 58-56, win over the Crimson Tide. UAB alum Tim Stephens highlighted how the 1993 UAB-Alabama basketball game was "built on bad blood, politics and one massive 3-pointer."
Bartow would coach UAB three more seasons after defeating the Crimson Tide and advancing to the 1993 NIT Final Four. He was the Blazers' first men's basketball head coach and athletics director, serving in both capacities for 18 years before retiring as a coach in 1996 and athletics director in 2000.
Tipoff for the Tennessee-UCLA game Saturday is slated for 9:40 p.m. EDT and will be televised by TBS/truTV. The matchup will be contested 48 years later after Bartow coached against the Vols with UCLA, and where he could have been Kentucky's head coach.
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