Tommy Kron, 63; Another UK/Adolph Rupp Basketball Player; Also Played In NBA
Bill Schenley
Photo (w/UK Stats):
http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Players/Kron_Tommy.html
FROM: The Louisville Courier-Journal ~
By C. Ray Hall and Michael Grant
Tommy Kron, a key player for the famous University
of Kentucky basketball team known as "Rupp's Runts,"
died yesterday at his home in Louisville of cancer.
Kron, who was 63, had been battling bladder cancer
for 18 months, said his son, Jason Kron.
"He was in good spirits and felt like he was going to a
better place," Jason Kron said. "He was a great father,
great grandfather. He was very humble. He was a great
friend. He was very proud of playing for the University
of Kentucky."
Kron was a guard for the 1965-66 team, which got its
nickname because its tallest starters, Kron and center
Thad Jaracz, stood 6-feet-5.
Kron averaged 10.2 points a game for that team, which
lost to Texas Western 72-65 in the national championship
game. The game marked the first time an all-black starting
lineup faced an all-white starting lineup in the finale - a
historic moment that teammate Pat Riley called "college
basketball's Brown vs. Board of Education."
The defeat probably made "Rupp's Runts" - already a
wildly popular collection of overachievers - even more
popular in Kentucky. Larry Conley, a 6-foot-3 forward,
remarked 20 years later that the team probably earned more
fame for losing that game.
Conley, who lives in Atlanta, visited Tommy Kron for the
final time earlier this month. He described his teammate as
one of the "kindest, nice most benevolent people" he had
ever known.
"He was a friend for 45 years, and I will miss him terribly,"
Conley said.
Kron arrived at UK from Tell City, Ind., in 1962. He averaged
12.3 points a game as a junior and 10.2 as a senior. His career
high was 30 against Syracuse in 1964.
Kron had a hand in some lesser-known UK basketball history.
Coach Adolph Rupp was an ardent devotee of man-to-man
defense. But when he relented and resorted to a 1-3-1 zone
defense, he chose Kron as the point man. But Rupp refused to
call it a zone. It was, he said, "a stratified transitional hyperbolic
parabaloid."
UK went 63-18 during Kron's career from 1964-66. His
sophomore team, with Cotton Nash as the star, was briefly
ranked No. 1 in the country. His senior team, with Riley and
Louie Dampier as the stars, enjoyed a longer run at No. 1,
winning 27 of its first 28 games before falling in the finale.
Texas Western's rise was portrayed in the 2006 movie "Glory
Road."
Kron took a larger view of the film than some UK partisans
might have, watching their team play the foil.
"The whole focus was on those (Texas Western) guys and how
they overcame prejudice and racism, and how they won the
national championship," Kron said. "And that's a hell of a story."
That game marked Rupp's last trip to the Final Four. The next
season, minus Kron and Conley in the lineup, UK went 13-13 -
the closest Rupp came to a losing record in his 41 seasons at
UK.
Kron played one season with the St. Louis Hawks and two with
the Seattle SuperSonics before finishing his pro career in a
one-year stint with the Kentucky Colonels. His second season in
the pros was his best. He averaged 9.7 points a game in 76 games.
In 2001, Kron was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of
Fame. He was born in Owensboro.
After basketball, he was a restaurant owner and institutional
money manager. Most recently he worked for PNC Bank in the
wealth management department.
Survivors include his wife of 41 years, Dianne Berger Kron;
mother, Mary Mason Kron; son, Jason; daughter, Jessica; and
four grandchildren.
Expressions of sympathy may be made to Hospice & Palliative
Care of Louisville or the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
Visitation will be at St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church
from 2 to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Services will be held there Monday
at 1 p.m.
He will be buried at Cave Hill Cemetery.
---
NBA Stats:
http://www.basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=KRONTO01