His earliest Kentucky basketball memory is cheering on Ralph Carlisle, a star in the 1930s.
He played on the Lafayette High School team that won the Kentucky state championship by defeating a Harlan team led by Wow Wow Jones in the 1942 finals. “Do you realize how long ago that’s been?” he said before answering his rhetorical question. “Eighty years.”
Richard “Dick” Derrickson, who celebrated his 95th birthday on Oct. 16, is believed to be the oldest living former Kentucky basketball player. It’s a distinction he is uneasy about.
His voice cracked with emotion as spoke of the melancholy that can come with a long life. “I knew so many of those guys,” he said, “and I followed them back in the old days.”
Derrickson attributed his longevity to his mother, Alvis, who lived into her late 90s. The daughter of an immigrant from Switzerland, she worked as a secretary and stenographer in UK’s College of Agriculture.
Derrickson, who still lives in the Lexington house he bought in 1953, recalled being recruited by the founding father of Kentucky basketball, Adolph Rupp. Suffice it to say, the recruitment bore little resemblance to today’s five-star hyperbole and sales pitches tied to college being a short path to a pro career. The NBA did not even exist.
As a high school student, Derrickson was working a summer job at a Lexington laundry store. Rupp was a regular customer.
One day, Rupp called the store and asked to speak to Derrickson.
“He said, ‘Could you come down and talk to me?’” said Derrickson, who quickly agreed to the meeting.
“That was just down Euclid Avenue,” he said.
“Coach Rupp said, ‘Do you think you can play here?’ And I said, I’d like to try. And that’s how it happened.”
Derrickson only played in two games for UK. He did not score. When he turned 18 during the season, he was drafted into the U.S. Army.
A few months later found Derrickson in the Battle of Okinawa, where he was wounded and received a Purple Heart.
He recalled that one of his close friends and Lafayette teammate, Elza Bruce, was drafted in his senior year of high school, He was killed in the Battle of the Bulge.
After World War II, Derrickson returned to Lexington. He and Frances Turner were married 67 years. There have been three children, eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Derrickson worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 36 years. And for 42 years, he also supervised youth football and basketball leagues for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government’s Parks and Recreation department.
Derrickson would ultimately consider Rupp a friend. But that came years after he no longer played for the coach he recalled as an autocratic “taskmaster.”
Perhaps this intimidating presence still lingers even though Rupp will have been dead 44 years come Dec. 10.
Beginning to tell a story about his time as a UK player, Derrickson caught himself in mid-sentence.
“Adolph came in, uh, I call him Adolph to you,” he said. “But I never dared call him that.”
When asked if he still follows UK basketball, Derrickson said, “Why sure I do. Absolutely.”
This is an enduring passion.
Of his youth, he said, “I lived for basketball.”
Kentucky-Indiana?
After UK defeated Mount St. Mary’s, John Calipari was asked if his friendship with first-year Indiana coach Mike Woodson might lead to a resumption of the Kentucky-Indiana series.
“Mike and I are good friends,” Calipari said. “We’ve talked about stuff, but there’s nothing imminent.”
After noting how Indiana is off to a good start this season (beating Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois), Calipari said of Woodson, “Let me tell you, he is a hell of a coach, and he’s a great guy.”
Schedule suggestion
Coincidentally, Bill Bell, a UK fan living in Sturgis, would like to see Kentucky play Indiana. He wrote in an email labeled “It is time!!!!!” that he’d also like to see UK play area schools like Western Kentucky, Murray State, Cincinnati, Xavier, Belmont and Saint Louis.
“Fans would rather see those schools on the schedule instead of Robert Morris, Mount St. Mary’s, Albany, North Alabama and Central Michigan,” he wrote.
Attendance figures
Herald-Leader sports columnist Mark Story wrote about the noticeable number of empty seats at Kentucky’s first two home games.
The announced attendance for UK’s games against Robert Morris and Mount St. Mary’s was an average of 18,341. But the turnstile count of fans entering Rupp Arena for those games averaged 9,720, according to a response to an Open Records request.
Robert Morris: announced 18,454 and turnstile 10,336. Mount St. Mary’s: announced 18,227 and turnstile 9,104.
Attendance was up for Friday night’s game against Ohio University. The announced figure was 19,045; turnstile was 12,192.
Rupp Arena’s capacity for basketball is 20,545.
Where are they now?
Scott Padgett, who scored 1,252 points as a UK player in the 1990s, is an assistant coach at Manhattan College.
Padgett had been the coach at Samford for six seasons. Then he was an assistant coach at New Mexico last year.
“I was going to sit out (this season),” he said. He intended to ponder what direction his life would take.
“And then Steve called and asked if I’d come back,” he said. “I said, it’s Steve. So, I said, yeah.”
Of course, Steve is Steve Masiello, the head coach at Manhattan and a former UK teammate.
“I’m living in the Bronx,” Padgett said. “It’s funny. It’s called Manhattan College, but it’s actually in the Bronx.”
Here’s something else that commands attention: Rick Pitino, who coached Padgett and Masiello at UK, is the head coach of Iona.
Iona and Manhattan are 11 miles apart and both are in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Two dates to keep in mind: Manhattan plays at Iona on Jan. 14. Iona plays at Manhattan on March 3.
Century mark
Coming off a 100-60 victory over Robert Morris, Kentucky could have hit the century mark for a second straight game on Tuesday against Mount St. Mary’s. Alas, UK won 80-55.
A streak of 100-point games has happened only once since the 1995-96 season. UK scored triple-figure points in three straight games in 2016-17: defeating Cleveland State 101-70, UT Martin 111-76 and Arizona State 115-69 in a six-day period.
Kentucky hit the century mark in two or more straight games seven times with Rick Pitino as coach, three times with Joe B. Hall as coach and 19 times with Adolph Rupp as coach.
Bowtie patch
Mount St. Mary’s players are wearing a bowtie patch on their uniforms this season to honor the memory of former coach Jim Phelan, who died on June 15 at age 92.
Phelan wore a bowtie at games. He began his time as Mount St. Mary’s coach with a one-year contract in 1954-55. He ultimately coached the Mountaineers for 49 seasons: from 1954-55 through 2002-03.
Phelan had a career record of 830-524. His 830 victories is the 13th most by a NCAA coach.
Well wishes
To ESPN analyst Dick Vitale. He was one of the first patients treated at a new cancer center at Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Hospital this past week.
Vitale, 82, was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. According to the Bradenton Herald News, he received his fourth chemotherapy treatment on Tuesday.
While at the hospital, Vitale participated in a ribbon cutting ceremony for one of 56 patient rooms at the Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute’s Oncology Tower.
Vitale, who holds annual fundraisers for cancer research, told the Bradenton Herald News that his treatments have given him a new perspective on what some of the children he has met were enduring with a cancer diagnosis.
Vitale is scheduled to provide commentary in a game Tuesday in which No. 1 Gonzaga plays No. 2 UCLA in Las Vegas.
It will be the first game of his 43rd season as a commentator.
Happy birthday
To Tom Payne. He turned 71 on Friday. … To Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman. He turned 57 on Friday. … To Louie Dampier. He turned 77 on Saturday. … To sports business pioneer Jim Host. He turns 84 on Tuesday. … To former Indiana star Steve Alford. He turns 57 on Tuesday. … To Hall of Famer Rudy Tomjanovich. He turns 73 on Wednesday. … To Hall of Famer Dave Bing. He turns 78 on Wednesday. … To Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson. He turns 83 on Wednesday.