Rick Robey - A Unique Athlete

By Brother Neal Golden, S.C. ’57 CJ

Basketball star Rick Robey ’74 is believed to be the only athlete in any sport who has won the ultimate championship at the state, college, and professional level as well as a gold medal at the Pan-American games.

Brother Martin can thank the Ochsner Clinic for the Robey family moving to New Orleans. “The main reason we moved was that my mother was diagnosed with cancer. We were living in Kodiak AK, and Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans was supposedly one of the tops in the country for treating cancer. My dad worked for the Federal government, and they transferred him down there. I was eight or nine and still in elementary school.

“We lived on the West Bank, and I went to Edna Karr Junior High. A coach from Brother Martin came to watch another player and saw me play that game. Afterward, he tracked down my father and me and recruited me to take a look at Brother Martin and see if I would want to play basketball there.”

Rick came to Brother Martin as a sophomore but had to sit out that year because he was transferring from the public to the private school system. However, he participated in Coach Andy Russo’s practices.

“Coach Russo played a really big role in my career. He was a really tough coach. He made me a much more aggressive player. Sitting out a year really didn’t hurt me but benefited me to better my skill. I remember Coach Russo at the end of practice rolling the ball out there and who got it could leave practice. He also did that with rebounding. Coach Russo was one of the people who made me what I became. He put spunk in me. While I was on the court, my personality was a little different from my personality away from the court, and he played a big role in that.”

Rick and two other transfers who sat out the previous year, Leroy Oliver and Reggie Hadley, joined the varsity for the 1972-73 season. The only returning starter was senior captain Jay Trapani. The Crusaders improved from a so-so 18-9 in 1971-72 to 31-5 and a berth in the Class 4A semifinals.

The game against Bastrop in the Top Twenty in Alexandria wasn’t decided until the last second. The Rams featured two players who would join Robey in the NBA – 6’10” junior C Carl Kilpatrick and sophomore G Calvin Natt. The Crusaders had the ball with 20 seconds remaining and the score tied at 52. While passing the ball around and waiting to take the final shot in the last seconds, Trapani bounced a pass toward his left wing man. A Bastrop player got a hand in front of the Martin player and deflected the ball toward the sideline. The Ram then grabbed the ball just before he went out of bounds and threw it right at Trapani coming toward him. Jay caught the ball but couldn’t stop and took two short quick steps – walking!

Now Bastrop could take the last shot. Robey guarded Kilpatrick just to the left of the lane. As time ran down, Natt drove down the lane as Kilpatrick moved under the goal. Meanwhile, another Ram picked Robey just enough to give the Bastrop big man time to take the pass and lay in the ball to win the game 54-52.

Rick’s senior year brought a new coach to Brother Martin. Tom Kolb had been Russo’s assistant since Andy came to St. Aloysius in 1967 until Tom spent the 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons as Jesuit’s head coach.

“The coaching change was a shock to us,” recalls Robey, “but I don’t really think it affected our style of play. We had such a close knit group of guys. Coach Kolb came in and did a good job keeping us together. He was a little more mild-mannered than Coach Russo. We had a really good group of players. We had gotten so close the year before and felt we had a really good shot to win state.”

The Crusaders’ main competition was another Catholic league foe, Holy Cross. The Crusaders and Tigers met five times, with Holy Cross winning only one. Each game pitted Robey against HC’s 6’10” C Felton Young.

The final meeting of the two schools came in the state finals in Alexandria. The Crusaders defeated Captain Shreve 63-56 in the semifinals behind Robey’s 31 points and 20 rebounds.

After a shaky first half against Holy Cross, a second half surge won it for the Crusaders 67-56. Robey scored 20 points and picked off 18 rebounds while holding Young to a mere five points.

Rick recalled the 1974 championship team In a 2003 Times-Picayune article. “We just had a lot of talent, and we were a very big team for that day. We just felt before the season began that we would win it. We were a very close team then, and we remain a close team today, 30 years later.”

Robey earned All-District, All-City, and All-State honors and was also selected as the top player in the Louisiana Top Twenty Tournament. Considered one of the top four recruits in the nation, he was also a member of the U.S. All-Star team.

“I was recruited by a lot of schools, but I narrowed it down to Notre Dame, coached by Digger Phelps, and Kentucky, coached by Joe B. Hall. The telling point for choosing Kentucky over Notre Dame was that they had recruited Jack Givens, Mike Phillips, James Lee, and Dan Hall, all high school All-Americans. They also had a nucleus of six seniors coming back. It turned out to be the right spot for me. Coach Hall was very similar to Andy Russo, a very tough disciplinarian. He transformed me from a 6’10” 265 lb high school player into a muscular, 225lb player by my senior year. Coach Hall was probably the first coach who became known for his weightlifting and conditioning. We had none of that at Brother Martin. Conditioning was run a lot and play. Weightlifting was not in vogue in football at that time, much less basketball.”

Kentucky lost to UCLA in the NCAA Tournament finals in Rick’s freshman year. He played only half his sophomore season due to a knee injury. His junior year, the Wildcats made it to the regional final and lost to North Carolina. Rick’s senior year, Kentucky was the preseason #1 pick and lived up to that billing by defeating Duke in the finals.

(continued on page 35)