Throwback Thursday: Johnny Dee
If there's one coach in Alabama basketball history who Nate Oats can draw comparisons to, it's Johnny Dee.
After four years as a high school teacher, and one season as the assistant coach at Notre Dame, Dee took over the Crimson Tide in 1952 at age 28, making him the youngest head coach in NCAA basketball history at the time.
Dee compiled a 68-25 mark in four seasons and Alabama won the Southeastern Conference title in 1956. The Crimson Tide was ranked for the first time during his tenure, en route to finishing No. 12 in the final in 1954-55 Associated Press Poll.
The subsequent season it climbed all the way to No. 4 and finished fifth, which is still the best in program history.
It was sports information director Finus Gaston Sr. who came up with the nickname "Rocket 8" for the 1954-55 roster, comparing it to the popular Oldsmobile Rocket Eight.
The 1955-56 team finished a perfect 14-0 in Southeastern Conference play, a remarkable achievement that wouldn't be matched until Kentucky in 1996.
However, the 21-3 regular season didn’t lead to a spot in the NCAA Tournament. Although the Crimson Tide had easily secured the SEC's automatic bid, the NCAA had a rule against freshman participation. Because Alabama's entire starting five had all played as freshmen, they were considered ineligible.
Dee once told his players that he'd had "the pleasure of coaching the greatest basketball team there ever was."
“He was young, very aggressive,” forward Billy Crews said about his coach during the Rocket 8's 50th anniversary in 2006. “He worked the heck out of us. We were in shape. There was no doubt we were in shape.”
Dee used to tell his players that he wanted the Crimson Tide to post scores that a guy reading a newspaper while eating a bagel in Los Angeles couldn’t help but notice. His 1955-56 team was the first to score 100 or more points on a Kentucky team coached by Adolph Rupp (101-77).
Also of note, Dee recruited a lot of players from out-of-state, and all 51 scholarship players that he recruited and coached at the collegiate level, at Alabama and Notre Dame, graduated.
Dee's stay in Tuscaloosa was short, and after the Crimson Tide he coached the NBL D-C Truckers in Denver from 1956-62. From there he returned to Notre Dame, where he played basketball and football from 1944-46, before earning his degree from Loyola of Chicago in 1947. However, he received his degree from the Notre Dame law school in 1952 just before taking over the Crimson Tide.
He spent seven seasons as Irish head coach, from 1964-65 through the 1970-71 season. Dee compiled a record of 116-80 (.592), winning 20 or more games in each of his last four seasons in South Bend, the first time that had been accomplished at Notre Dame.
Dee led the Fighting Irish to four appearances in the NCAA Tournament (1965, 1969, 1970 and 1971. He resigned at the end of that 1971 season and returned to Denver, where he practiced law and briefly served as the city auditor.
Dee died in 1999 at the age of 75 after a battle with cancer.
