Memory Lane
Frank Turpin found his niche in the Big Apple
It was a long and winding road that led Frank Turpin to the “Big Apple” and once he got there he never left. Turpin was a stalwart on some fine North Union High School basketball teams during the 1950’s.
“We had some size,” Turpin recalled. “Three of us were 6-3, 6-5 and 6-6. We were a big team for that time period with Phil Zoretic, Joe Craig and myself. We might have had the tallest team in Fayette County at that time.”
The North Union and South Union rivalry was intense, but despite their size, the Rams couldn’t defeat Chuck Davis and the Blue Devils.
“They always had a good team,” Turpin said. “They had Davis on that team. He used to give us fits. I think we only beat them once in the three years I played for North Union. We beat them at the Fayette County Coaches Association tournament at St. John’s after the season, 60-57, and that was the only time we beat them.”
The Rams were competitive, but didn’t win any section titles or advance to the playoffs when Turpin played. In his senior season, the Rams posted a 19-5 record while playing for the first time in 10 years on a court of their own.
“We had a fair team, Turpin said. “We didn’t really win anything big at the end, but we hung in there pretty good. We had a nice group of guys. When I look back on it, we weren’t as serious as I think we should have been. I don’t think we were as good as we could have been. We could have done more because we had talent on the team, plus we had size. But I don’t think we won like we should have.”
Steve Furin coached the Rams.
“He (Furin) was a nice guy,” Turpin said. “When I look back on it now, I don’t think he was a basketball teacher, but he coached the team, we played and we had a good time. I enjoyed playing on the team, and I enjoyed Coach Furin.”
Turpin graduated from North Union in 1956, but was not recruited by any colleges at the time.
“I was not recruited,” Turpin explained. “I decided to go into the service. I was hanging out with a buddy one night. We had graduated, and we were finished with high school. My buddy, Tommy Meggett, who was a football player, and I were trying to figure out what we were going to do, We had no jobs, we were out of high school and we weren’t going to college. I said, ‘Lets go in the service,’ and he said, ‘Okay we’ll go in the Navy. I will meet you down at the recruiting office in the morning.’ I didn’t believe he was going to show up. I showed, he showed up and we both went into the Navy.”
Turpin did a “Kiddie Cruise” going in before he was 18 years old and served three years.
“I came out of the Navy in 1958,” Turpin said. “I had a scholarship to New York University. I was playing on the All-Navy basketball team. We had a good ball team. We traveled and played the service teams. Lou Rossini was coaching NYU. Someone had told him about me, so he came down to Norfolk, Va., one day to speak with me. He told me that I could get a scholarship to play for the Violets of NYU. So as soon as I got out of the Navy, I went right to school. I was 21 years old at the time.”
Turpin starred on the NYU freshman squad in 1959-60. He was co-captain of the Violet Buds, which posted a record of 18-0 – the first freshman basketball team in NYU history to turn in a perfect record.
“NYU was a power back then,” Turpin said. “The year I was a freshman we went to the final four with Tom “Satch” Sanders and lost in the national semifinals to Ohio State. I didn’t play on that team, but they were outstanding.”
NYU didn’t play as well after that Final Four season.
“Our freshman team went undefeated. Quite naturally, everybody thought we were going to be world-beaters, but it didn’t turn out that way,” Turpin said.
Turpin hung up his sneakers after his sophomore season with the Violets.
“I wasn’t on the first team,” he said. “But I was on the team my sophomore year, and then I just dropped out. I never really got started in my junior year. I think it was time for me to leave because I wasn’t doing real well with the books, and I had a wife and baby. I considered myself the old man. All the other guys were like 17 or 18 years old. It just didn’t work out for me. I don’t regret it because things happen that way.”
Turpin feels that he never really tapped into his talent as a basketball player.
“When I look back on all the coaches I had, including Rossini, I don’t feel they were teaching coaches,” Turpin said. “They coached, and you had to have some ability. They gave you plays and you ran the plays. But, when I look back on it, you can make talent even better. They didn’t hone that talent because I think some of the players, including myself, could have been better. I think I could have been better when I see what the kids are doing now with the conditioning and the teaching. There is some regret that I didn’t develop the way I could have developed.”
Turpin eventually ended up working for the New York City Police Department. He worked 27 years for the department and has been retired the past 18 years.
“I’m a golfer now. I love golf,” Turpin said. “I started caddying at the country club when I was 11 years old. That’s how I got into golf.”
Turpin, 69, has been married for 49 years to the former Sara Tarpley of Uniontown. They have one child and a couple of grandchildren.
He visits Uniontown quite often to visit his cousin Robert Turpin.
“Basketball led to some good things and opened up some doors,” Turpin explained. “I don’t regret any of it. Sometimes you say maybe I would have done it differently, but that’s the way the ball bounced.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” columns appear in the Saturday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.