32 Sam Harper

Sam Harper was born Samuel Milage Harper, III, on November 27, 1943, in Fulton, Kentucky, to Sam and Jane Harper.  His father was well known for the old Kentucky country hams he cured and sold.  Harper was a guard for the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball team from 1962 to 1964.

In high school, Harper made the All-State second unit while leading his Hickman County team in scoring with a 20-point average.  He was cited as having excellent speed, good spring, a good jump shot, and strong defensive ability.  As a senior, he hit a torrid 49% of his shots, 218 of 439, led the team in rebounds with 16.2 per game, canned 78% of his free-throws, 15 of 160, and maintained a B average in the classroom.  He finished the season with 565 points, giving him a three-year total of 1,481 points.  As a junior, he placed third in voting for the All-Purchase team and was considered the best college prospect in the region. His coach called him “the best outside shooter and fastest player on the team.”  He scored 535 points as a junior, an average of 15.3 points per game while shooting 48% from the field.  As a sophomore, he was a starter and scored 383 points on the season.

Eleven major colleges and numerous small schools had indicated an interest in Harper before April 1, 1961, when Harper signed a grant-in-aid to play basketball at Kentucky.  He was the first Hickman county player ever to sign with UK.  Harper’s Kentucky career almost ended before it got started.  He enrolled in a summer school course in Chemistry at Murray State College.  Rupp heard about it and advised him to drop the course.  SEC rules required players to wait a year before playing when they transferred schools.  Had Harped taken the course, he would have been a transfer student, from Murray to Kentucky.

As a freshman at Kentucky in 1961-62, Harper was regarded by Coach Adolph Rupp as an outstanding prospect and a better boy than might be indicated by his high school record. Harper was considered the “darkhorse” of a more celebrated field of freshmen thoroughbreds.  Rupp said of Harper in late November of 1961, “Why he looked like a faded sunflower when we first started practice but now he looks like somebody had put a sack of fertilizer around him and been watering him every day.”  He was the Kitten’s third-leading scorer with 14.1 points per game.  Proving that he had a good eye for the basket, Harper posted the second-best accuracy mark from the field (51.1 percent), hit 72.2 percent of his free throws, and hauled down 105 rebounds.  Harper tied teammate Rolfes for the honor of registering the most field goals in a single game as he notched 12 against the Tennessee frosh.  Many observers figured the former Hickman County High standout to be a better prospect at forward than guard while he alternated between the two positions both in schoolboy play and in his freshman collegiate season.  Still, he proved himself versatile enough to take over the weakened guard job.

As a sophomore, Harper left something to be desired in the realm of consistency.  He loomed as a prime candidate to succeed graduated Larry Pursiful at a starting guard post and got the nod to open the first two games of the season.  He netted 12 in the opener, then fell off to seven in the second contest, and during the remainder of the season notched no more than two points in any game.  The inability to score cost him his starting job, which was taken over by Chili Ishmael, against Florida State, on December 12, 1962.  He saw action in 10 games and started two of those games.  He was 10th on the team in scoring with an average of 2.5 points per game.

As a junior, Harper played 52 minutes in 14 games.  He scored 23 points on the season for a 1.6 per-game average.

Harper decided to forego his senior year of eligibility and concentrate on his studies in pharmacy.  He earned a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy in 1967.

Following graduation, Harper managed the Begley Drugstore in Danville, Kentucky until he opened his own drugstore, Harper’s Pharmacy, in 1976, at the northwest corner of Second and Walnut Streets in Danville.

Harper passed away on March 7, 1999.  The Boyle County Fiscal Court adjourned on March 9, 1999, in memory of Harper.

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