By Kellis Robinett / K-Stater file photos and recent photos by David Mayes ’96
Ernie Barrett ’51, ’56 is surrounded by Kansas State University basketball history.
He is eating lunch with his wife and two friends on a sunny afternoon at a small restaurant on the west side of Manhattan called Mr. K’s. This is one of his favorite spots in town, mostly because of all the tasty soups on the menu, but also because of all the fun memories on the wall. Turn your head to the left, and you will see Michael Beasley gracing the cover of Dime magazine. Turn your head to the right and you will see Rolando Blackman ’81, ’96 iconically shooting down Oregon State on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In between, you will find countless other images of great moments and famous players wearing purple. A person could spend hours staring at it all.
If you know where to look, you can even find an old photo of Barrett, which is appropriate because he was once a star basketball player for the Wildcats who guided them all the way to the national championship game in 1951. He also stayed around campus after his eligibility expired, returning as an assistant coach under Tex Winter and later serving as athletics director. He has done so much for the ’Cats that he is affectionately known as “Mr. K-State.” This restaurant was named in his honor.
These days, he is simply a retired fan. But his passion for K-State basketball and his famously strong handshake are as young as ever. Even at the age of 91, he loves to greet strangers by squeezing the life out of their hands and then tickling their ears with legendary basketball stories. The best ones go beyond what you can find on these walls. He doesn’t know it yet, but Barrett is about to share one of them.
This is a story from all the way back in 1960 that will probably sound far-fetched to anyone who isn’t old enough to remember there was once a time when freshmen weren’t allowed to play college sports at the varsity level. But that was most certainly the case before 1972, and Barrett was once tasked with coaching K-State’s freshmen before those teams went extinct. Needless to say, that job was an adventure.
Show Barrett a black-and-white team photo from back then and his face lights up as if he is viewing it for the first time.
“Where in the world did you get this?” Barrett asks.
The picture shows 13 freshmen basketball players standing alongside Winter and assistant coach Howie Shannon ’49. They are all wearing short shorts and tall socks. But that’s not why Barrett is mesmerized. The image brings back memories of all the trials and tribulations he experienced as the head coach of that group. It’s a thrill just to hear Barrett analyze the old roster. He spots Max Moss ’64, ’66 and says he was a heck of a player. Then he comes across Jeff Simons ’65 and says he could really shoot. Indeed, both players went on to help K-State’s varsity team reach the Final Four in 1964.
Next, he spots another name he remembers. “This guy was really tall,” Barrett says, “but he couldn’t play basketball worth a damn.” Crazy thing about that freshmen team: it didn’t much matter how well any of its players could dribble, shoot or defend. The biggest factor for that group was academics.
When practices began in November, Barrett was blessed with 13 players. But he lost nine of them at the end of the fall semester when the majority of his roster was ruled academically ineligible. Just like that, Barrett didn’t have enough players for a full lineup. He had to get creative to field a starting five, let alone win games.
Luckily, he knew what to do. Barrett searched campus for other promising athletes and enlisted the help of three K-State football players. He also remembered that a 5-foot-8 guard named Ralph McFillen ’64, ’67 had recently left the team because he was stuck at the end of the bench and didn’t see a future in hoops. Barrett lured him back with the unexpected promise of playing time.
That gave the Wildcats an eight-man roster. Not enough to practice five-on-five, but enough to play other teams. They didn’t wow anyone or look very good on paper. But Barrett was determined to try and win with them, regardless. Winter would have never let Barrett hear the end of it if he had to forfeit games. No one knew what to expect when those K-State freshmen played their first game against Parsons Junior College a few months later in February 1961. Turns out, there was no need for concern. The Wildcats won 59-45 behind 21 points from Moss.
The student newspaper humorously began its game recap with the following sentence: “It takes more than college professors to stop Kansas State basketball.”
Barrett’s freshmen squad went on to play three more games and finished its season 2-2. It split a pair of games against Kansas and finished with a loss against Nebraska. By all accounts, Barrett did a fine job as coach. Heck, it was arguably some of the best work of his long, illustrious career. “It was a pretty neat experience,” Moss said. “We were far from the best freshmen group in the country, but when we moved up to varsity we were good enough to play in the Final Four and we had an offense that could score 100 points without a three-point line. A lot of that came from the experiences we had with Ernie.”
Decades later, McFillen put together a booklet of box scores and newspaper clippings from that freshmen season and appropriately called it “The College Basketball Team That Almost Never Was.” It’s hard for Barrett to recall specifics about that team. But he remembers the big stuff, including a few things he didn’t enjoy. For example, the team didn’t have a bus. So players and coaches traveled to road games in a caravan of cars. They played on a tight schedule before varsity games, so a flat tire could lead to a loss. It also wasn’t easy for Barrett to coach every position or teach Winter’s complex triangle offense (then called the triple post) to a team with only a few true basketball players.
“Defense during the second half won the game for us. Our zone forced them to shoot from the outside and fortunately for us they had a cold night from the field.”
Ernie Barrett told the Kansas State Collegian on Feb. 22, 1961, after beating KU 67-55.
Moss says Barrett preached fundamentals and taught his players toughness by playing against them in practice. He never stood on the sidelines and watched. “I remember coming down the lane one time and he sent me flying off the court and into the wall behind the basket,” Moss said. “It was at that moment I realized that I had to toughen up if I was going to play at this level.”
Barrett also was good at cobbling together a freshmen team with metaphorical bubble gum and paper clips. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate first job after his NBA career came to an end with the Boston Celtics. He was passionate about freshmen basketball, because he was once trapped on a freshmen team during his first year at K-State in 1948. It wasn’t much fun, but he loved playing alongside friends that he recruited in scrimmages against the senior team he was set to join as a sophomore. If there was anything he could do to help make things more enjoyable for K-State’s newest batch of freshmen basketball players as a coach, he was going to do it. Winning games along the way was just a bonus. That’s one reason Moss calls Barrett a “role model for all K-Staters” all these years later.
Barrett wishes he had more stories to share about that old team. He apologizes repeatedly for not being able to go into greater detail about it. But there is no need for that. He has nothing to be sorry about.
He helped create much of the K-State basketball history that currently surrounds him.
Note: This article originally appeared in the summer 2021 issue of K-Stater magazine.