Arnie Ferrin, named the Most Outstanding Player in the University of Utah’s victory in the 1944 NCAA basketball championship game, died Tuesday. He was 97.
Ferrin’s son, Tres Ferrin, said his father died of natural causes at approximately 4:45 a.m.
“He was not doing well for a long time, but he just kept battling and he wasn’t going to quit,” Ferrin told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Ferrin was born July 29, 1925, in Salt Lake City. A graduate of Ogden High School, Ferrin led the Utes to the 1947 NIT championship. He played for two title teams with the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA and later became the general manager of the Utah Stars of the ABA and Utah’s athletic director.
For more than three-quarters of a century, Ferrin has been viewed as a legendary Ute athlete and a prominent figure in college basketball.
“He bled red for one reason, and that’s because he was a Ute,” Tres Ferrin said.
He was the chairman of the Division I Basketball Committee in 1988, presiding over the 50th championship game in NCAA history. Ferrin remained the only freshman named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player until 1986, when Louisville’s Pervis Ellison won the award.
Arnie Ferrin.
He was inducted into the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 and was Utah’s first inductee into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor in 2012. Ferrin’s No. 22 has been retired by Utah.
“Arnie Ferrin will forever be remembered not only as one of the most accomplished Utah athletes of all-time, but as a treasured member of the University of Utah family,” said Utah Director of Athletics Mark Harlan said in a statement. “He made a lasting impact far beyond his athletics accomplishments, serving as athletics director for nine years and remaining a proud Utah Ute as he continued to support our athletics programs year after year. On a personal note, he was so kind to me and always there for helpful advice. I will miss him dearly. Our thoughts are with his family and the entire University of Utah family.”
Well into his 90s, Ferrin remained a visible fan of Ute athletics, particularly the basketball and gymnastics teams.
“He loved The U.,” Tres Ferrin said. “He has season tickets for football, basketball, and gymnastics, and he was still going while physically able until two years ago. We had to help him, but he was determined to keep going.”
The 1944 Utes have staged many reunions and public appearances over the years. “It’s been a common bond that’s kept us together,” Ferrin said in 2004, during a 60th anniversary observance.
“He was a wonderful, kind, sweet guy who was generous with his caring about our program,” former Utah AD Chris Hill said. “He’d do the best he could to come to a ballgame. He never asked for anything but we gave it to him because he deserved it.”
Added former Utah football coach Ron McBride: “He was absolutely a great one. I loved the guy. He was real caring. I always respected him.”
Ferrin’s legacy lives on at the Utes’ practice facility where the head coach’s office is named for him and his wife, Pat Ferrin.
”On behalf of the Utah Utes men’s basketball program, we send our condolences to the Ferrin family,” Utah head coach Craig Smith said Tuesday. “Arnie was a legendary person in every way. A legendary Utah Ute, a tremendous ambassador to the state, our community, Utah athletics, our program, and the basketball community around the world. He’s certainly a guy that will be missed, and what an incredible career, starting as a student-athlete, all the way to the time he retired.”
Ferrin scored 22 points in Utah’s 42-40 victory over Dartmouth for the 1944 NCAA title at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Utes had lost to Kentucky in the more prestigious NIT, but filled a vacancy in the NCAA Tournament after an auto accident involving Arkansas players forced the Razorbacks to withdraw.
The Utes went to Kansas City for the NCAA event, then returned to New York for the championship game.
(Danny Chan La | The Salt Lake Tribune) Members of the 1944 Utah NCAA basketball champions pose for a photo in 2004. From left, Wat Misaka, Herb Wilkinson, Arnie Ferrin and Fred Lewis.
In 1947, Utah beat Kentucky for the NIT title. Ferrin then played three seasons for Minneapolis, initially in the Basketball Association of America (the league’s last three years are considered part of the NBA’s official history). He was a top-five scorer for each of the Lakers’ title teams in 1949 and ’50.
“We really didn’t understand the significance,” he once said of being an NBA champion. “I’m not sure we even had a party, and we obviously didn’t get a ring.”
Ferrin gave up pro basketball after three years because he didn’t view it as a secure, financially rewarding profession.
“As a child growing up, my father was an All-American player and people would say to me, ‘What’s it like to have an All-American for a dad?’” Tres Ferrin said. “He was just a dad, that’s what I remember most. There was no pressure to excel in sports, he didn’t put that pressure on us. We all participated and he supported us 100%.”
An outstanding golfer, Ferrin once played in the finals of the State Amateur. Hill recalled fondly times Ferrin teamed up with his close friend and legendary football coach LaVell Edwards in tournaments.
“They never lost,” Hill said. “He won it with a smile.”
Even as Ferrin’s health started to fade late in life, he kept that same demeanor.
“He didn’t complain, he never complained,” said Kris Gross-Forsythe, who worked as an administrative assistant in the athletics department for four decades. “He was always worried about the other person, not himself. ... He was a true Ute.”
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