The Ernie Barrett Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Sunday, August 22nd, 2004
You were born on August 27th, 1929, two
months before Black Thursday and the onset of the Great
Depression. Please tell me a little about your
childhood.
I was born in the small town of Pratt, Kansas. My
father was a railroader for the Katy Railroad, which was
also known as the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. We
didn’t live in Pratt for very long, because my father’s
work moved us around quite a bit during that time. From
Pratt we ended up in Blackwell, Oklahoma, which was
another small railroad town located just across the
Kansas-Oklahoma border. Then, just about as quickly, he
went to work for the Santa Fe Railroad in Wellington,
Kansas. So I spent most of my childhood growing up in
Wellington. I went to high school there, played
basketball there, and still think of it as home.
You were an All-State basketball star at Wellington High
School. What memories of that experience have stayed
with you through the years?
We won the state championship in 1947, which is still
the last time a team from Wellington has won a state
title in basketball. That ’47 Wellington squad had
plenty of talent, fine players like Harold Rogers who
went on to play for coach [Henry] Iba at Oklahoma State
University. Our coach was John Floyd, and I credit him
with all of my success as a basketball player. He was
the person who taught me the fundamentals, and the one
who really helped me to improve my shooting. I was a
6’-1” center in high school – that should tell you about
the height we had on that team – and I went on to play
guard at Kansas State. I probably wouldn’t have made it
as a college player if Coach Floyd hadn’t worked with me
on my outside shooting. Even back then you just didn’t
find many 6’-1” centers playing major college basketball
[laughs]. K-State had a 6’-5” guard that first year I
was on the team, and the Boston Celtics had players like
Bob Donham who were bigger than me. So learning to play
away from the basket was a tremendous help, and Coach
Floyd was the person who had the most to do with that
development.
You captained the 1950-51 team that opened one of America's most spectacular basketball arenas -- fabled Ahearn Fieldhouse. Please tell me a little about the atmosphere in that arena, and also compare it to where you played professional basketball – the fabled Boston Garden.
When Ahearn Fieldhouse opened on December 9th, 1950, it was the second largest facility of its kind
behind Jenison Fieldhouse on the Michigan State campus.
It was a multipurpose facility, designed for basketball
and other sports such as indoor track, volleyball and
various intramurals. It had an original seating
capacity of 11,700, but there were always 12,500 fans
packed into the stands for our home games [laughs].
Every game was a sellout. It was extremely noisy, which
gave us a great homecourt advantage.
It’s hard to compare Ahearn to the Boston Garden, or to any NBA stadium for that matter. NBA arenas like the Boston Garden were entertainment facilities. They were built to accommodate anything from basketball games to ice shows to music concerts. So it was hard to match the excitement that you’d find in a true basketball stadium like Ahearn Fieldhouse.
You earned All-America honors for that 1950-51 season.
What did this award mean to you then, and what does it
mean to you now?
I was the captain of that team, and the success that we
had during my senior season had a lot to do with my
being honored as an All-American. It meant a lot to be
selected, but we had five or six guys who scored in
double-figures. It was truly a team effort. And while
we had a great season, a lot of what we accomplished was
overshadowed by the 1951 point-shaving scandal.