Jack Givens (Vicky Graff Photo)
It has been over 40 years since Jack Givens and James Lee played basketball together at the University of Kentucky but Givens still tells stories about his childhood friend as often as he can.
“James and I were friends even before high school. His dad was pastor at Greater Liberty Baptist Church where I went. We are still very good friends,” said Givens, the 1978 Final Four MVP and UK Radio Network analyst.
Givens loves noting how many people remember his 41-point effort against Duke in the 1978 national championship game but he says Lee had a play that was just as memorable.
“That last dunk James had in that game was unbelievable,” Givens said. “It just kind of wrapped up the season for us.
“He could have started at any other school in the country but accepted his role as the sixth man on our team and played it to perfection.”
Givens and Lee used to go against each other daily in practice and both knew defense was “big” with coach Joe Hall.
“We came up with a system and said, ‘Let’s work hard on defense to convince coach Hall we are playing defense to fool him’. I learned from (former UK All-American Kevin) Grevery how to make it look like playing defense in practice when you really are not. That worked for a while but I am pretty sure coach Hall always knew what we were doing.”
8 Responses
James Lee was the enforcer of the 78 championship team.
I can still see it!!!
The Cats could use a James Lee on this team or a Jamal Maglore. If Garrison sticks around he may grow into an enforcer.
I remember James and Goose in high school. I saw them play many times. James at Henry Clay and Jack at Bryan Station. Both phenomenal players!
Those were great games to watch. Remember when they played at Memorial Coliseum
True Champions.
Givens & Lee were and still are 100% UK !!!
If only some of the uncommitted current players would see it and sell out self-ball to be like them.
Yep, they don’t make them like these guys anymore, unfortunately–thats where the game has changed, and not for the better, in my opinion. What I think is funny and ironic is that knowing the love and the relationship that UK fans have for their players and teams, they would have gladly "PONIED UP" NIL dollars to guys like Lee, Goose, Kevin Grevey, Kyle Macy, Rick Robey, Jimmy Dan Conner……and then going on later in time: Sam Bowie, Melvin Turpin, Jim Master, Kenny "SKY" Walker, Jamal Mashburn, Tony Delk, and Tayshaun Prince. Listen, I was born two years after the 1978 UK National Champions, so I was denied the chance to see guys like Goose and Grevey and Robey and Lee play for UK. But from the crib, I grew up getting educated from my father on that era of UK heroes and hearing all about the games they played in and hearing about their Final 4s and national championship. As I was growing up and discovering my own era of UK heroes in Bowie, SKYWalker, KING REX, and the MONSTER MASH, I listened to the stories my father told me about the 1970s era of KY BBALL–and that era is one that unfortunately is being forgotten as the generations of UK fans change. The 1970s is one of the greatest decades in UK BBALL history. Maybe the very greatest win in UK BBALL history came in March 1975 when the Cats took down undefeated and #1 ranked Indiana, who had destroyed them in the regular season meeting back in DEC. The IU win ended the run of maybe the greatest team Bobby Knight ever fielded there and put the CATS in the Final 4 in San Diego where they were robbed of another national championship by John Wooden pulling the strings in advance and making that game about nothing but his own legacy. But that 1975 KY team is one of the greatest KY teams of all-time, maybe the greatest one ever to NOT win a championship–but the guys who would go on to win the 1978 championship like Goose, James Lee, Rick Robey, Mike Phillips, were FRESHMEN on that 1975 team. That second half of the 70s was the peak of Joe B Hall’s coaching career at KY–in that span, KY won an NCAA championship, finished as Runners-Up, made two Final 4s, made one Elite 8, and won an NIT championship. And the players who suited up for all of those KY teams are some of the all-time greats to ever wear the KY uniform, and some of the most fan-favorite KY players as well. When you think about guys like Goose and the Twin Towers being freshmen on the ’75 team with guys like Grevey, Jimmy Dan Conner, Mike Flynn, Bob Guyette, who were the senior leaders on that team, it puts into perspective how much talent that KY team had. And those ’75 seniors were also the group who were labeled the "SUPER KITTENS" when they came into KY as freshmen during Adolph Rupp’s last season as KY coach–and it was also the last season that freshmen were not allowed to play right away on the varsity squad their first season in college. That group became known as the "SUPER KITTENS" because in "JV" games, which was competition among only the freshmen-group-of-players of college bball teams, they proceeded to go 22-0! So that was the group that basically began the run of the Joe Hall era at KY, and they were getting it started even before Hall had officially taken over yet. But it was an outstanding core group of guys that Hall was able to start out his coaching career with–and essentially, Hall was the one who had recruited all those guys anyway, because, at that point in time, Hall was the recruiter and head-coach-in-waiting anyway…….but this is the lineage that began Joe Hall’s career and led to the recruiting of legends like Goose and James Lee and the Twin Towers, and then eventually in the early 80s, Bowie, Turpin, Master, Dickey Beal, Dirk Minniefield, Roger Harden, and Kenny SKY Walker! Joe B Hall oversaw one of the greatest eras in KY BBALL history, and IDK that he ever got as much credit for that as he earned. In total, he won one NCAA title, one NIT title, made 3 Final Fours, one Elite 8, and for 20 years was one of the best recruiters in the nation. He came back to KY the year of Rupp’s Runts to be Rupp’s top assistant and ace recruiter, and that’s exactly what he was. He brought in some of the top names to ever play at KY. And he also signed the first Black recruit to ever play for KY and was responsible for fully integrating the bball program over the course of his coaching career here, for which he should be commended. But HALL truly saw it ALL: from Dan Issel, Mike Pratt, Mike Casey, Kevin Grevey, Jimmy Dan Conner, Mike Flynn, Bob Guyette, Rick Robey, Mike Phillips, Jack Givens, James Lee, and Kyle Macy to Larry Johnson, Dwight Anderson, Truman Claytor, Derrick Hord, Dirk Minniefield, Dickey Beal, Roger Harden, Sam Bowie, Melvin Turpin, Jim Master, James Blackmon, Winston Bennett, Bret Bearup, Richard Madison, and Kenny SKYYYY Walker—Joe Hall proved himself to be, in his era, at the top, in terms of recruiting and leading the KY bball program, and responsible for bringing in guys who would, down the road, become KY legends–like the GOOSE, as an example. Joe Hall took over his alma mater out of his love for the school and the program that gave him his education and his start in life. And we now have the second former player in our history to take over our program for the same reasons and out of the same love–and also, just like Joe B Hall, Mark Pope is tasked with following a legend. So we can only wish our second former player in school history to take over the program as much success, or MORE, as the first one had! We just have to give him TIME AND PATIENCE. And realize that it’s not going to happen overnight. It didn’t happen overnight for Hall either.
We will not ever see an enforcer like James Lee again.