The passing of John Wooden is good a reason as any to ask why another coach, Bernard “Peck” Hickman, hasn’t been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He deserves it based on what he accomplished at the University of Louisville from 1944 through 1967. But he also played an important, but little-known, role in Wooden’s incredible career.

A country boy from Central City (which, oddly, is located in western Kentucky), Hickman got his nickname from a book entitled “Peck the Bad Boy.” The uncle who gave him the book caught young Bernard squeezing some baby chickens to death and stacking them up. “My uncle said, ‘There’s Peck the Bad Boy,’ and the name just stuck,” Hickman often explained.

At Central City High, Hickman was such a gifted all-around athlete that he had to choose between a professional baseball contract or a college scholarship when he graduated. At his dad’s insistence, he opted for college and picked Western Kentucky over Duke.

For four years, Hickman was an all-conference player (Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) for Western’s colorful Ed Diddle. After graduating in 1935, he took a coaching job at Hodgenville, Ky., High. His first team went 3-18, but Hickman turned the little school into a winner, which earned him the job at Valley High on the outskirts of Louisville.

After a successful four-year run at Valley, Hickman took a pay cut to accept the job at U of L, where the basketball budget was $3,500 and the on-campus gym wasn’t as grand as some Kentucky high schools. Besides coaching, Hickman was expected to sweep the floor and wash the uniforms.

But his first team went 16-3 and his fourth one, in 1947-’48, finished second to Western Kentucky in the KIAC. The Hilltoppers, ranked No. 3 in the nation, accepted a bid to play in the NIT, where they were top-seeded, and the Cardinals opted for the 32-team National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) tournament in Kansas City.

The NAIB, which later became the NAIA, was one of two governing bodies in college athletics, the other being the NCAA. At the time, the NIT was considered to be the NCAA tournament’s equal in prestige with the NAIB not far behind.

After the season, the three collegiate tournament champions were to be invited to join the three top amateur teams to try out for the 1948 U.S. Olympic team that would compete for the gold medal in London.

In Kansas City, the Cardinals defeated South Dakota State, Emporia State, and Beloit College to earn a spot in the NAIB championship game opposite Indiana State, which was coached by Wooden, the three-time All-American at Purdue and former pro player. He had taken the Indiana State job in 1944 after successful high-school stints at Dayton, Ky., and South Bend Central.

On March 13, 1948, U of L defeated Indiana State, 82-70, for the NAIB title and automatic invitation to the Olympic Trials (where the Cards lost to Kentucky’s “Fabulous Five.”) After the NAIB title game, Hickman was approached about taking the UCLA job.

“Elwood Craig Davis was an administrator at UCLA,” Hickman told author Gary Tuell. “He had worked at U of L and used to come over to watch us practice a lot. Somehow, some way, he thought I was a great basketball coach. When UCLA had the opening, he was working in the (UCLA) Health and Physical Education Department as an administrator. He wrote me a letter to tell me that he was recommending me for the job and that he thought that I could have it if I wanted it.”

Hickman also had a supporter in Dr. Bill Caldwell, a U of L alum who was married to movie star Joan Leslie. “They really wanted me to come,” Hickman told Tuell. “ But after discussing it with his wife, Hickman decided that L.A. was too far from his Kentucky roots. Besides, at the time, the UCLA job was no better than the one he had at U of L.

After the NAIB championship game, Wooden had told Wooden that he was looking for a new job. As Hickman recalled it, Wooden said, “Peck, I’ve got to get out of here. If you hear of anything, let me know.” So Hickman told Wooden about his UCLA contacts and then told them to hire Wooden.

Asked about it years later, Wooden said, “Branch McCracken of Indiana University and Bob Kelly, the Los Angeles Rams broadcaster, recommended me for the position. I knew nothing, however, of Peck’s recommending me.”

Which, of course, was typical of Hickman. Like Wooden, Hickman never forgot his simple, small-town values. He was a modest, downhome sort who never took credit for such major accomplishments as winning the 1948 NAIB and the 1956 NIT, or making the 1959 Final Four in Louisville’s Freedom Hall (that team still is the only one to play a Final Four game on its home floor).

The Hickman-Wooden connection was the beginning of an unusual relationship between U of L and UCLA. Wooden’s first Final Four team at UCLA was eliminated in the 1962 semifinals at Freedom Hall, but he returned to win titles in Louisville with Lew Alcindor’s sophomore and senior teams.

Most significantly, when Hickman was U of L’s athletics director in 1971 and searching for a basketball coach, he called Wooden about hiring Denny Crum, a former Wooden player who then was the Bruins’ top assistant. It turned out to be one of the most historic and important hires in college hoops history.

His first season at U of L, Crum took his team to the Final Four, in Los Angeles, where it got trounced by Bill Walton’s sophomore team at UCLA in the semifinals. In 1975, Crum returned to the Final Four, only to be stymied by his mentor once more, losing an overtime thriller that many consider one of the best Final Four games ever.

After that game, Wooden shocked the basketball world by announcing that he would retire after the title game against Kentucky. It was immediately assumed that Crum would be his replacement. However, Crum called a press conference to announce he was staying at U of L even before UCLA won the championship game to give Wooden his 10th title in 12 seasons.

After being eliminated by UCLA in one more NCAA (1977), Crum faced the Bruins again in the 1980 title game in Indianapolis. This time the Bruins were coached by Larry Brown and this time Crum wasn’t to be denied. In one memorable night, he won U of L its first national title and got rid of the UCLA curse, or whatever it was.

Hickman’s record for 23 seasons was 443-183 for a .708 winning percentage. He coached an NAIB champ, an NIT champ, and a Final Four team. While his record doesn’t compare with Crum’s, he laid the foundation for Crum’s success. And who knows? Maybe UCLA wouldn’t have hired Wooden without Hickman’s recommendation.

But there’s one more reason – a very important one – that Hickman also deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. In 1963, he gave scholarships to African-American players Wade Houston, Eddie Whitehead, and Sam Smith, making U of L the first traditionally white university south of the Mason-Dixon line to integrate its basketball program.

In other words, because of Hickman and assistant John Dromo, U of L had African-American players before any school in either the Southeastern Conference or the Atlantic Coast Conference. (At the time, the Cards belonged to the Missouri Valley.)

If somebody on the Hall of Fame selection committee does the right thing and nominates Peck Hickman, I’m confident that up in Hoops Heaven, John Wooden would give a nod and a thumbs up.