LOUISVILLE — Hall of Fame basketball coach Denny Crum passed away Tuesday. Coach Crum had been ill for a while, and at 86, his passing was not entirely unexpected. But the immediacy of tributes from a variety of sources suggested something about exactly how important Denny Crum is.

The list of his accomplishments within those tributes hinted at Crum’s depth: recruiting ace of the late years of John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty, coach who won 2 national titles at Louisville (and took the Cardinals to 6 Final Fours in 15 years), successful radio host, accomplished outdoorsman, and so much more.

Like Rivalry Shifter.

I grew up in eastern Kentucky, where the only 2 athletic affiliations are Kentucky and agnostic. I became a legitimate sports fan at about the point when Rick Pitino’s Wildcat squads pressed and bombed their way back to college basketball relevancy.

And Denny Crum?

Denny Crum was the coach of Cliff Rozier and DeJuan Wheat and Samaki Walker, the guy who won 2 titles, who made Louisville a strong enough team that Kentucky couldn’t duck the Cardinals. He was Darth Vader. Or at least one of the more imposing storm troopers. He might have favored a Cardinal red blazer, but Denny Crum was a guy in a black hat in my world.

Life does funny things. It sends me, a kid from eastern Kentucky to the University of Louisville for law school. It gives him a friend who grew up in Louisville, went to UK, but remained a Cardinals fan — a guy who pointed out that Denny Crum was actually an usher at the church we both attended in the early 2000s shortly after Louisville had transitioned from Crum to the true dark-hat character, that Pitino fellow. And when the eastern Kentucky true blue student of law at the University of Louisville says that somebody should write a book about the UK/UL rivalry, that friend says, “Yeah, you should.”

It took a few years and a helpful co-author (Ryan Clark, who grew up in Louisville as a Kentucky fan), but when that dream started to become a reality, there were two conduits to the Kentucky programs who had to be figured out: Joe B. Hall and Denny Crum.

In many ways, reaching Joe B. was easy. He and Denny were doing their radio show, and everybody in Kentucky knew somebody who knew somebody else who was an old buddy of Joe B. But Denny? Cue the Darth Vader music?

I reached out to Crum’s assistant by e-mail, emphasized my Louisville alumni status, and asked about meeting with Coach Crum. Sure, when would you like to meet, she e-mailed me back quickly.

And so off I went, into the belly of the beast. I wore a red polo shirt, because why wouldn’t I? Crum welcomed me and my co-author into his treasure trove of an office. As we gawked at his memorabilia — Wow, Coach, was that you and Ronald Reagan? — he started pulling out other treasures to show us.

He was particularly proud of a signed bat from Stan Musial. Maybe that seems odd for a guy who came from the West coast and was a die-hard Dodgers fan. Or maybe he was just shifting a rivalry.

Crum was charming. He simplified his own accomplishments, telling us that building up the Louisville program was largely a matter of recruiting in the deep south where football was king and big-time basketball prospects went largely unnoticed in the shadows of local gridiron heroes. Of course, he also excelled in-state, recruiting against a UK program that had only just started to seriously recruit African-American players, many of whom didn’t see Lexington as exactly a friendly landing spot.

His intellectual curiosity was evident. Just as on the Joe B and Denny Show, Crum knew something about everything (while Joe B. seemed to know everybody — not that Denny lacked for friends or acquaintances).

Fishing, politics, history, it was all interesting to him, and Crum had insights on any of it.

At one point, we were talking about a particular recruit, and I naively asked if that was the best prospect he had ever seen. He smiled and carefully reminded me that he had recruited Bill Walton and grew up alongside Bill Russell.

But all the wins, all the big games? Even then, he was careful to deflect credit and shoulder blame … and to emphasize the seemingly random nature of the game. He remembered his 1980 team that won the NCAA title, and said that he hit the 1981 NCAA Tournament feeling even more confident in his Cardinals, only for his team to lose to Arkansas on a halfcourt shot in their first game.

We visited for a couple hours and I left then only because I was too conscious of taking too much time of a man who must have had something better to do. We followed up together for a time thereafter — he and Joe B. contributed a forward for the book that became Fightin’ Words: Kentucky vs. Louisville. I delivered him a copy when the book appeared, and he and Joe B. had me and my co-author on the radio show before they ended that venture in 2014.

Over the years since my first meeting with him, I learned how many people across the rivalry appreciated Coach Crum. Even loved him. Many die-hard Kentucky fans would admit something along the lines of, “I’ve never been a Louisville fan, but I always really respected Denny Crum. Great coach and a nice guy.”

Once, I bumped into Rex Chapman shortly after my meeting with Coach Crum. I mentioned to Rex that Coach Crum had talked about him that day. His face literally lit up.

“Coach Crum?” he asked. “That’s my guy!”

For his part, Crum had professed his appreciation for Chapman’s game, even after he lost the recruiting battle for Rex. He told me he generally hadn’t followed the NBA, but when Rex was active and he grabbed a sports section, he looked in the box scores to see how Rex was doing.

Two stars of a budding rivalry, and nearly 30 years later, that kind of respect?

Well, yeah.

Because as much as any of his accolades — the 6 Final Four trips, the 2 NCAA titles, the 675 wins, the Basketball Hall of Fame induction — in the world I inhabit, Coach Crum has one bigger accolade.

He’s the guy who forever shifted the rivalry, the guy who showed me that the fella you thought was Darth Vader just might be the best guy in the room. And that the world is big enough for a Kentucky fan to be a Louisville alum and be able to be proud of the best parts of both programs. The parts like Denny Crum.

Cover photo of Joe Cox with Denny Crum