Final Four Coaches
LSU INTRO
Harry Rabenhorst LSU Head Basketball Coach 1932-41; 1945-57 29 years Record: 340-264 1935 National Championship 1953 NCAA Final Four 1935, 1953, 1954 SEC Championships LSU Head Baseball Coach 1925-42; 1946-56 27 years Record: 220-226-3 1939; 1946 SEC Championships Assistant Football Coach, LSU: 1925-42 Assistant Athletic Director, LSU: 1947-67 Acting Athletic Director, LSU: 1968 Member, Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame Member, Louisiana Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame Inducted LSU Athletic Hall of Fame, 2009
Before there was Dale Brown, there was Harry Rabenhorst. In an era when college basketball wasn’t big news and when cable didn’t send hundreds of game all across the country, Rabenhorst laid the foundation for others like Jay McCreary, Press Maravich, Dale Brown and John Brady to follow. Like Maravich with Pete, like Dale with Rudy, Chris and Shaq, Rabenhorst coached two of the legends of the game: Sparky Wade and Bob Pettit. Like Brown, he took his team to a Final Four in the days before anyone realized what a major event the NCAA Tournament was. But unlike any other LSU coach, Rabenhorst laid claim to a national championship, mythical though it may have been. It was a year to remember for Rabenhorst, but it was a long way from the end of his career. The Baton Rouge native, however, came to LSU holding a record of a much different kind. He was a star athlete at Wake Forest in the years following World War I and holds the world record for the single longest punt of 110 yards. After serving in the U.S. Army in World War I, Rabenhorst began his career in coaching in 1921 at Greensboro High School in Greensboro, N.C. After that, he moved to New Mexico Military Academy where he coached for three seasons before moving back to Baton Rouge and the start of a long and dedicated lifetime of service to LSU. In any capacity he served, he showed the same gracious understanding of the individual and devotion to duty that have set him apart from the ordinary. He was a walking encyclopedia of LSU athletics and could recall in a moment the big game, the big play and the individual star of almost every athletic success enjoyed by the Tigers during his tenure. Few men alive in college athletics numbered among their close personal friends the great and near great personalities who dominated the athletic scene for much of the first 60 years of this century. His list of associates reads like a “Who’s Who” of American Collegiate Athletics, names that capture the imagination of sports fans and historians everywhere -- Knute Rockne, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Pop Warner, Fielding Yost, Wallace Wade, Adolph Rupp -- and many more. Rabenhorst’s career at LSU meant more than victories and championships. A popular and respected coach and administrator, he
2009-2010 LSU men’s Basketball Media Guide
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brought LSU distinction with his long and brilliant service and developed athletes who became outstanding students, and later outstanding citizens. Harry Rabenhorst was a competitor. He was also a gentleman. He proved that you can be both and be successful. When Coach Rabenhorst passed away in March, 1972, at the age of 73, then athletic director Carl Maddox said, “Coach Raby was revered and respected nationally by the many who came to know him in the world of intercollegiate athletics -- but more significant is the esteem and the love he earned from the men who played for him.” “I always enjoyed competing with him,” said Adolph Rupp. “He was a great credit to the game. He developed some of LSU’s outstanding players and teams.” He is still revered today by many and joined just the second class of administrators and coaches inducted into the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009. Coach Raby was a man for all seasons and still to this day remains one of the league’s all-time winningest basketball coaches. Those who played for him, loved him. Those who knew him, respected him. There’s not much better can be said.
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