The cleverest man in rugby has gone. Basil Bey, who died this month aged 80, would have been embarrassed by the description, but that was how many rugby people thought of him, even though he was never a man to show off his rugby intelligence.When he shared his knowledge it was with an altruism that he might be contributing to the greater good of the game.Bey was not like some old housewife who jealously guards her recipes, according to his great friend Paul Dobson, the rugby historian.Bey, who was a life member of the Front Row Club, once shared a piece of rugby knowledge that helped turn a team with an average scrum into a side with a formidable one.When Alan Zondagh was coaching Eastern Province in 1990, the team came to Wellington to play Boland. On the Saturday morning Zondagh took his players to watch his old school, Paarl Gym. It was a chance to show especially hardened EP forwards like Frans Erasmus and Adri Geldenhuys how a good school pack played. Instead, Bishops, coached by Bey, scrummed Paarl Gym off the park.The following Monday Zondagh called Bey and was given chapter and verse on a technique that enabled his EP team to prevail up front.Zondagh never forgot the lesson, taking the Bey method with him when he went off to coach Western Province, London Scottish and Saracens.For a rugby romantic who insisted on his teams playing the open, running game, Bey also knew how to scrum and how to teach it.Bey also knew human nature better than most."He understood people and he understood rugby better than anyone I've ever known," said Dobson.Bey led UCT to an intervarsity victory over Stellenbosch in 1961 at the Matie stronghold of Coetzenburg nogal, coached False Bay Club to the Western Province Grand Challenge title in 1972 (making old Bay veterans weep with joy). Those victories were sensational results at the time.His philosophy was "you don't coach, you encourage". On a sweltering Durban day against the Natal Duikers he was overheard inspiring his UCT team: "I know it's hot as hell, Varsity, but I want you to play!"And he didn't like fussing. Even in the face of great adversity he remained stoic.On a Bishops rugby tour in Zimbabwe he and his good friend and fellow front-rower Tim Hamilton-Smith were passengers in a fatal car accident. The driver was killed and Basil owed his life to a heavy briefcase on his lap that cushioned the impact. Still, he needed to be taken to hospital after it was established that he had broken bones.Hamilton-Smith, unscathed in the back seat, pulled Bey from the wreck.Sitting on the side of the road in some agony, Bey turned to his friend: "Tim, do you think you could get me a Castle?"Of all the clever men you could hope to meet he was also the most unassuming - in the way he engaged with people, how he dressed - he never bought clothes - and in the cars he drove.He loved Land Rovers, but when his faithful Border collie Charlie's back legs began to give in, he sold the Landie and bought an old VW Beetle that he parked close to the pavement so that Charlie could easily get into the car.That was another part to Bey's character: always considerate of others...