Coach was key to ASU’s growth

The story of Arizona State as a university is the story of Frank Kush. ¶ The two are inseparable. Kush, as a first-year head football coach in 1958, worked to secure public approval of a proposition elevating Arizona State College to university status, cementing a legacy that will extend far beyond Kush’s death Thursday at age 88.

He became the face of the fledgling university, and his legend grew for more than two decades, with football success unequaled before or since. His teams won 176 games in 22 seasons, the last ending after five games with a controversial firing. In 37 full seasons since, seven coaches have won a combined 253 games.

Online: See video tributes and photos from Frank Kush’s career, as well as reporters’ memories of him, at sports.azcentral.com.

ASU’s foundational coaches — Kush, Ned Wulk (basketball), Bobby Winkles (baseball) and Baldy Castillo (track) — were “ahead of the rest of the university at that point,” said Christine Wilkinson, ASU senior vice president. ASU developed around their success, joining what is now the Pac-12 Conference in 1978 and eventually growing into the nation’s largest public university.

With Kush’s death, only Winkles, now 87, still is living. “It signals the ending of an era,” said Wilkinson, whose father, Bill Kajikawa, was an ASU coach — including for freshman football — for 40 years.

ASU President Michael Crow is a believer in athletics as the front door to the university. Kush and his contemporary coaches “built the front door,” said Kush’s oldest son, Dan.

Kush, an All-American defensive lineman for national champion Michigan State in 1952, came to ASU as an assistant coach under Dan Devine in 1955, then was promoted to coach when Devine left for Missouri. He had a winning record in 19 of his 22 seasons, including undefeated teams in 1970 and ’75, the latter finishing a school-best No. 2 nationally in the final Associated Press poll.

Kush’s ASU coaching career ended in controversy when he was fired early in the 1979 season after charges by punter Kevin Rutledge, who said Kush shook his face mask and punched him during a 1978 game. Eventually, some players supported Rutledge’s claim and some assistant coaches said they were asked to lie to cover up the incident, and the Kush era ended after he was carried onto the field for his 231st and final game at ASU.

The fallout from Kush’s dismissal was extensive. Athletic Director Fred Miller was fired in early 1980, and later that year, ASU was placed on two-year NCAA probation, with a one-year postseason ban in 1981, for a lengthy list of violations that occurred late in the Kush era. Lawsuits related to the Rutledge incident continued until 1986.

“The way it all ended is one of those things in our society,” Kush said in late 2008. “I didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no regrets. It’s something to talk about, and the less said, the best said. The growth of the institution, the growth of the state — I was fortunate to be part of that. I’m not necessarily saying I was the reason for it. I benefited from it. There’s more positive than negative.”

Mike Haynes, one of five ASU players under Kush who are now in the College Football Hall of Fame, said that the 5foot-7 Kush “might have had short-man syndrome” but became larger than life as arguably the toughest college coach in an era that included Alabama’s Bear Bryant and Ohio State’s Woody Hayes.

“I learned so much from him about setting goals high and overcoming obstacles,” said Haynes, who, like Kush, survived prostate cancer. “All the way until my senior year, I wouldn’t have said that. I didn’t have the type of respect for him that I later had. At my last banquet, I was prepared to say some things he wouldn’t have liked. He got to speak first and gave me such praise and was so kind, I changed my whole speech on the spot.”

The almost universal reaction Thursday from former players matched that of Dan Kush, whose 29-yard field goal was the game-winner over Nebraska in the 1975 Fiesta Bowl, capping a 12-0 season: “I don’t know how many guys have told me, ‘When I was playing for him, I hated his guts. Once I moved on, I really appreciated the fact I learned a lot from him.’ ”

Danny White came to ASU on a baseball scholarship and became the greatest football player in school history as quarterback of Kush teams that won a combined 32 games from 1971-73.

“To this day, I still would be trying to hit a curveball if it wasn’t for him,” said White, another College Football Hall of Famer. “Everything I have, really, when you think about it of a temporal nature, was because of him. My dad was a great influence, but I never would have been a football player except for Frank Kush.”

After ASU, Kush moved on to professional football, coaching Hamilton in the Canadian Football League in 1981, then the NFL’s Baltimore and Indianapolis Colts from 1982-84 and the USFL’s Arizona Outlaws in 1985.

In 1983 the Colts drafted Stanford quarterback John Elway with the first overall selection, but he did not want to play for Kush or Colts owner Robert Irsay. Using his baseball ability as leverage, Elway forced a trade to the Denver Broncos.

After the USFL folded, Kush became director of the Arizona Boys Ranch, a facility for delinquent youths that became controversial for its treatment methods, which included physical punishment.

“These are not Boy Scouts or altar boys,” Kush said at the time. “We get some nasty kids . ... They’re not sent here from Indiana to see the Grand Canyon.”

Kush’s work with the Boys Ranch — he also coached their successful football program — helped bring him back to ASU. The field at Sun Devil Stadium was named in his honor in 1996, during what turned into one of the more famous games in school history: a 19-0 victory over two-time defending national champion Nebraska.

In 2000, Kush was hired as a special assistant to the ASU athletic director. He remained a part of the athletic department in a Sun Devil Club development role for the rest of his life. A large bronze statue of Kush kneeling on a football was unveiled in 1997 at the south entrance to Sun Devil Stadium, a facility that opened in Kush’s first season as coach in 1958 and now is undergoing a $268 million renovation.

Wilkinson, then interim athletic director, remembers calling Kush, with the approval of then-ASU President Lattie Coor, about the idea of returning to ASU in an ambassador capacity. “He was really pleased and didn’t say much except ‘When do you want to meet?’ ” Wilkinson said.

Dan Kush said his father’s return to ASU was “huge to him mentally. That was for him vindication, and it healed and closed some wounds. He always had passion and love for the university and felt he helped raise the university, as well as all these young men into great players and family men. There are a lot of great people at ASU today, but it’s all built on the past.”

Dan Kush said the family is planning a small, private service. It’s not certain yet if a public memorial will be held in conjunction with ASU. Kush’s wife, Frances, died at 80 in 2010. Kush’s other surviving sons are David and Damian.

In addition to White and Haynes, other prominent players under Kush included consensus All-Americans Ron Pritchard, Woody Green, John Jefferson, Al Harris and Mike Richardson, plus quarterbacks Mike Pagel, Mark Malone, Dennis Sproul and Joe Spagnola.

“I’ll be forever grateful he gave me a scholarship to Arizona State,” said Bob Breunig, a linebacker now in the College Football Hall of Fame. “It made a huge difference in my life. He came from the coal mines and a family with 15 children and worked his way to the top. In his mind, it was important he made a difference in young men’s lives.”

Kush was inducted into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.

One of 15 children, Kush grew up in the coal-mining town of Windber, Pennsylvania. His disciplinarian father was from Poland.

“He gave you responsibilities; he made you accountable,” Kush said. “If you goofed up, there were consequences.”

In 1958, Kush joined with Arizona State College administrators in traveling the state to lobby for support of Proposition 200, changing a school with fewer than 10,000 students to a university.

ASU is now the largest U.S. university, with an enrollment for the fall semester of 2016 of more than 98,000 on all of its campuses.

“I had come from Michigan State, and in 1950 there was no opposition to it (becoming a university) whatsoever,” Kush said 50 years after the proposition passed. “But here the president of University of Arizona and his deans were saying there should only be one university in the state. I thought to myself, ‘These are supposed to be educated people.’ I don’t know if the word is hatred, but I have animosity towards UA. I think our guys were more scared of losing to them because of me than they were of losing the game.”

Kush’s teams won 16 of 21 Territorial Cup games against Arizona (including nine in a row from 1965-73), won nine conference championships and were 6-1 in bowl games. ASU moved from the Western Athletic Conference to what now is the Pac-12 Conference during the Kush era.