 McCarthy circa 1963 | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1923-10-01)October 1, 1923 Baldwyn, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | March 17, 1975(1975-03-17) (aged 51) Baldwyn, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Mississippi State |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1955–1965 | Mississippi State |
| 1966–1967 | George Washington |
| 1967–1970 | New Orleans Buccaneers |
| 1970–1972 | Memphis Pros |
| 1972–1973 | Dallas Chaparrals |
| 1973–1974 | Kentucky Colonels |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 175–103 (NCAA) 280–284 (ABA) |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 4SEC regular season (1959, 1961–1963) | |
| Awards | |
| 3×SEC Coach of the Year (1961–1963) ABA Coach of the Year (1974) 3×ABA All-Star Game head coach (1968, 1970, 1974) | |
James Harrison "Babe" McCarthy (October 1, 1923 – March 17, 1975),[1] was an American professional and collegiatebasketball coach. McCarthy was originally fromBaldwyn,Mississippi. McCarthy may best be remembered forMississippi State's appearance in the1963 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament when his all-white team sneaked out of town in order to faceLoyola University Chicago, which had four black starters.
In March 1975, McCarthy died as a result of colon cancer.
McCarthy was fromBaldwyn, Mississippi, and played high school basketball at Tupelo Junior High School. After high school he attended Mississippi State University where he was a member ofSigma Pi fraternity. He did not play college basketball. He served in theAir Force and then began coaching high school basketball at his alma mater in 1947. He coached them to a state championship in 1948.[2] He was recalled to the Air Force for theKorean War and coached an Air Force team inMemphis, Tennessee, to third place in an Air Force tournament. After the Air Force he officiatedSEC games before becoming the Mississippi State coach in 1955.[3]
McCarthy first came to fame for his 10-year stint at Mississippi State, where his teams won 169 games, lost 85, and won fourSoutheastern Conference (SEC) titles (three outright, one shared). While coaching at MSU he was named SEC Coach of the year three times. When he left Mississippi State he was the school's all-time leader in wins but has since been passed by Richard Williams andRick Stansbury.
McCarthy may best be remembered for his team crossing the color line in the segregatedSouth of the 1960s. Even before it was certain that Mississippi State would face Loyola and their four black starters, racist elements in the Mississippi media got into the act. On Thursday, March 7, 1963, theJackson Daily News printed a picture of Loyola's starters to show that four of them were African Americans. As a caption to the picture,Daily News editor Jimmy Ward wrote that "readers may desire to clip the photo of the Loyola team and mail it today to the board of trustees of the institution of higher learning" to prevent the game from taking place. At the time, a longstanding state policy barred college teams at state schools from playing games against racially integrated teams. The Bulldogs had been forced to turn down three previous NCAA Tournament bids for this reason, including when they won their first two outright SEC titles in school history.
The editorials were in response to the decision by Mississippi State PresidentDean W. Colvard's March 2, 1963, to accept the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament as outright SEC champions. The College Board of Mississippi met on March 9, 1963, and upheld Colvard's decision. But on March 13, just a day before the team was scheduled to travel to East Lansing, state senator Billy Mitts and former state senator B. W. Lawson sought and obtained a temporary injunction against the team leaving the state.
While sheriffs were on their way toStarkville, Mississippi, to serve the injunction, the team was participating in a pep rally the night before their departure, where effigies of state senators Mitts and Lawson were hung. The team's original plan was to leave Starkville at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. But learning that sheriffs would be expected to arrive in town at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night, MSU put their sophisticated contingency plan into effect.
McCarthy, the athletic director, and the assistant athletic director drove to Memphis, and then flew to Nashville. The team itself sent the freshman squad to the airport as scheduled-posing as the varsity team. The real varsity team hid in a dorm on campus. The next morning, they boarded a private plane at the airport and flew to Nashville to meet the coach and team officials. From Nashville, the whole group took a commercial flight to the game atEast Lansing, Michigan. These events were chronicled in theDVDOne Night in March produced by Starkville-basedBroadcast Media Group
McCarthy Gymnasium on the campus of MSU was named for him in 1975 and he was also inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame that year.[4]
McCarthy later coached theGeorge Washington University's men's basketball team, going 6–18 with the Colonials in 1966–1967.
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi State(Southeastern Conference)(1955–1965) | |||||||||
| 1955–56 | Mississippi State | 12–12 | 6–8 | T-6th | |||||
| 1956–57 | Mississippi State | 17–8 | 9–5 | T-3rd | |||||
| 1957–58 | Mississippi State | 20–5 | 9–5 | T-3rd | |||||
| 1958–59 | Mississippi State | 24–1 | 13–1 | 1st | Not allowed to accept NCAA Tournament Invitation due to competition with black athletes | ||||
| 1959–60 | Mississippi State | 12–13 | 5–9 | 9th | |||||
| 1960–61 | Mississippi State | 19–6 | 11–3 | 1st | Not allowed to accept NCAA Tournament Invitation due to competition with black athletes | ||||
| 1961–62 | Mississippi State | 24–1 | 13–1 | T-1st | Not allowed to accept NCAA Tournament Invitation due to competition with black athletes | ||||
| 1962–63 | Mississippi State | 22–6 | 12–2 | 1st | NCAA Sweet 16 | ||||
| 1963–64 | Mississippi State | 9–17 | 4–10 | 11th | |||||
| 1964–65 | Mississippi State | 10–16 | 6–10 | 8th | |||||
| Mississippi State: | 169–85 | 88–54 | |||||||
| George Washington University(Independent)(1966–1967) | |||||||||
| 1966–67 | George Washington | 6–18 | |||||||
| George Washington: | 6–18 | ||||||||
| Total: | 175–103 | ||||||||
National champion Postseason invitational champion | |||||||||
In theAmerican Basketball Association, McCarthy coached theNew Orleans Buccaneers from 1967 to 1970, theMemphis Pros from 1970 to 1972, theDallas Chaparrals for the 1972–73 season, and theKentucky Colonels in the 1973–1974 season. He was named ABA coach of the year for the 73–74 season. In the 1967–68 season he led the team to victories over theDenver Rockets and Dallas Chaparrals before losing the finals in seven games to thePittsburgh Pipers. He was named ABA coach of the year in 1969 and 1974. He was the first ABA coach to win 200 games.
In 1997, he received two votes among selectors voting for theABA All-Time Team in the coaching category.
| Regular season | G | Games coached | W | Games won | L | Games lost | W–L % | Win–loss % |
| Playoffs | PG | Playoff games | PW | Playoff wins | PL | Playoff losses | PW–L % | Playoff win–loss % |
| Team | Year | G | W | L | W–L% | Finish | PG | PW | PL | PW–L% | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Orleans | 1967–68 | 78 | 48 | 30 | .615 | 1st inWestern | 17 | 10 | 7 | .588 | Lost in ABA Finals |
| New Orleans | 1968–69 | 78 | 46 | 32 | .590 | 2nd inWestern | 11 | 4 | 7 | .364 | Lost in Second Round |
| New Orleans | 1969–70 | 84 | 42 | 42 | .500 | 5th inWestern | Missed playoffs | ||||
| Memphis | 1970–71 | 84 | 41 | 43 | .488 | 3rd inWestern | 4 | 0 | 4 | .000 | Lost in First Round |
| Memphis | 1971–72 | 84 | 26 | 58 | .310 | 5th inWestern | — | — | — | — | Missed playoffs |
| Dallas | 1972–73 | 74 | 24 | 48 | .333 | 5th inWestern | — | — | — | — | Missed playoffs |
| Kentucky | 1973–74 | 84 | 53 | 31 | .631 | 2nd inEastern | 8 | 4 | 4 | .500 | Lost in Second Round |
| Career | 564 | 280 | 284 | .496 | 40 | 18 | 22 | .474 | |||
McCarthy was known as "Ol' Magnolia Mouth" (or just "Magnolia Mouth") for his cement-thick Mississippi accent and short, funny phrases calledBabe-isms. A few of the more famous and often used Babe-isms were:
He died on March 18, 1975, of cancer inBaldwyn, Mississippi just a few hours after he was formally inducted into theMississippi Sports Hall of Fame. McCarthy was buried at the town cemetery. In 2015, a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker was dedicated to McCarthy in the town, with several of McCarthy's players present at the ceremony.[5][6][7]
| International | |
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| National | |
