The town was very receptive to sports. We had practically no delinquency problem. Caine, a righthanded contact hitter, played baseball in the spring and enjoyed patrolling the outfield. Basketball was much harder, and more was expected of Kentucky kids. It was Kentucky, after all.
People are extremely interested in the sport.
He was an average high school basketball player on a good team his senior year. But the country had other things on its collective mind in 1942, when Caine graduated from Paul Blazer High School. Caine entered the U.S. Army in March 1943 and served in France and the European theater through Feb. 1946, in the armored division. He returned to the University of Louisville and played college basketball for Peck Hickman in 1946-47. Basketball was quite different a half century ago, said Caine.