Forty Minutes To Glory

Hall and his caretaker tour the layout, inspecting the fields, the livestock, the tobacco-curing barn, the feed barn and the pond.

"The boys had me skeered there the other day, they did," says Johnson as Hall climbs into his truck.

"Me, too," says the coach.

The rest of the afternoon Hall visits his uncle and goes fishing in a fast-running stream. He catches nothing but is content. He also stops by his parents' home, where his mother tells him not to worry about Arkansas, which Kentucky will play Saturday in St. Louis.

"They can't shoot," she says. "My best friend watched them play yesterday and said they can't hit outside." In Kentucky everybody is a basketball expert.

Thursday, March 23—You're supposed to be able to hurt Arkansas with full-court pressure, and we've worked on it all week. But we haven't been able to press anybody all year, and we don't look good doing it now. People say Arkansas is the weakest team in the held, but I don't believe it. I know that in every game in the tournament they've been up by 15 at the half. That doesn't sound weak to me. I think the key to the game is putting pressure on their forward, Jim Counce. Everybody talks about their three great players, Marvin Delph, Ron Brewer and Sidney Moncrief, but Counce is the one that passes the ball. If we can pressure him, it could take them out of their offense."

Friday, March 24—Two planes bring the Kentucky contingent to St. Louis for the final two games of the NCAA tournament, and all the fans are wearing buttons proclaiming I'M A JOE B. FAN. Before the tournament is over, someone will slap one on Hall's jacket. His will say I'M JOE B.

Insiders say Hall has a remarkable ability to sense the mood of his team, to tighten it up when it is too loose, to relax it when it is tense. Years ago, when Hall coached at Regis College, he and the team chaplain brought a go-go dancer into the locker room before a big game. Today, before the Wildcats work out in the Checkerdome, the site of the NCAA finals, Hall begins speaking somberly of the importance of the next few days. He is sitting on a training table, and as he talks he lets his body slide absurdly over one edge. Ever so slowly he slips off the table and onto the floor, where he rolls back and forth on his back. By now the players are roaring, but they get Hall's message: go out and have a good time.

Saturday, March 25—Hall is awakened at 7 a.m. by Tombstone Johnny, a "memorial consultant" from Algona, Iowa, who drives 775 miles to see Kentucky games in Rupp Arena. He almost always calls Hall on the morning of a game. The two times he didn't this season, Kentucky lost.

The Wildcats have a 9:30 a.m. shooting practice at the Checkerdome, where the players discover that one of the baskets is too low. NCAA officials scurry to fix it, while the Wildcats clown around, pointing an unattended television camera at each other.