Stay Classy, Kansas City: Ron Behagen

Back, and sporting less class than ever, it's time for another installment of "Stay Classy, Kansas City." This short-lived series is one in which we examine past and present professional athletes from various KC teams through the years. Today's installment is a tad different, as we'll spend a short bit of time overviewing the NBA franchise that now -- and for the last 23 years -- calls Sacramento home. Equally, if not more, important, we'll spend less time than usual raking the subject of the post through the coals, as there wasn't a whole ton of dirt to dig up on former KC Kings players. Behagen made the cut, however, because an incident in which he was involved could be -- albeit a stretch -- linked to some of the courtside atrocities of today's game. All the fun and goodness, a jump shot away.

The history of the Sacremento Kings starts in 1945 in Rochester, New York, where the National Basketball League's Rochester Royals would earn the NBL championship in their debut season by easily handling the Sheboygan Red Skins. Five years later, as part of the NBA, the Royals handled state-rivals the New York Knickerbockers for a second franchise championship. The following season, they claimed their first division title, a close race against the Minneapolis Lakers. In the semi-finals of the post-season, they would easily handle the Fort Wayne Pistons in round one, only to lose to those same Lakers in the second. At the conclusion of the 1956-57 campaign, the Royals would move to Cincinnati, where they would net seven playoff appearances, two trips to the Conference Finals, and employ future Hall-of-Famers such as Clyde Lovellette and Oscar Robertson.

In 1972, the Royals again relocated, and this time their home was, uh, a duplex? For three seasons, the Royals, renamed as the Kings, would split home games between Kansas City, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska. Before the start of their fourth season, they dropped the deal with Omaha and made KC their permanent home. In this 13-year existence, the Kings would win one lone division title, earn five playoff appearances, and land one trip to the Conference Finals before heading west one last time. And it is somewhere in the fold of this Kansas City stay that the Kings selected University of Minnesota Golden Gopher Ron Behagen. Actually, it was the 1973 NBA Draft, but who's fact-checking?

During his tenure as a gopher, Behagen was involved in a 1972 in-game brawl with rival Ohio State. Allegedly, his teammate Clyde Turner flagantly fouled Buckeye Luke Witte, which prompted fellow gopher Corky Taylor to pretend to help Witte up from the ground. Instead, he kicked him in the crotch, naturally clearing the benches of both schools. In came Behagen, who pulled, what contemporary fans may call an Albert Haynesworth, and stomped on Witte's head, leaving him unconscious. The move, according to The Columbus Dispatch's Rob Oller, likely had negative impacts on Witte's then-future basketball career, leaving him with "a lasting emotional effect as Witte became less aggressive and thus less effective on the floor."



A few weeks prior to publishing the story that contained that quote, Oller published an editorial regarding the infamous incident. In it he references the horrid Pacers/Pistons brawl from four years ago, and the Miami/Florida International brawl from two seasons past.



He does so to suggest that the on-court NCAA brawl from 36 years ago was a precedent for the modern in-game misfortunes.

Some blame the trickle-down effect -- the pros do it, so why shouldn't we? -- for creating unstable situations for younger athletes. But bad behavior trickles up, too. Within the past year, incidents at Ohio high school basketball games have included students holding up white trash bags to demean the economic or class status of the "white trash" opponent.

We here at the House of Georges, don't aim to imply either way. We're kinda like "Dragnet" detectives, where we supply just the facts. Ma'am. And hey! if those facts somehow tie in to a feature we're running -- jackpot.

We're looking for the money ball, the go-getters, and the classy.