Good years…


I coached at Mountain Pointe for the next nine years after that first one. When I took the job, it was under the promise made to me by Harold Slemmer that I would have my staff on campus- so Rex Morrison taught math and coached the freshmen, Lane Waddell taught social studies and coached the jayvee, and I taught social studies. As I have mentioned before, principal’s have great autonomy within their individual schools, and no one wielded quite like Harold. As great principal’s do, he had a vision for MP, and that vision was excellence across the board. If you weren’t buying into that, you would be eased out to another school in the district. They had to move two social studies teachers out in order to move Lane and I in, which ruffled some feathers, for sure. Harold never worried about that, though. He and Bano also ran interference with any parent problems, which added an extra layer on what I had already discussed with them. If a parent complained about a coach, the answer was generally “take your kid somewhere else”.


Harold promised us the gyms in the summer, and we really got that going. We ran our own camps, and also hosted the Jason Kidd basketball camps there for four years. They were run by Bill Frieder, but all of our coaches worked and our players were camp counselors. By then, our Camelback Summer League had moved to Sunnyslope High School, so we would do camps in the day and run across town for the summer league in the evenings.


And we got the seventh hour PE class for basketball players. Remember, I was certified in both social studies and PE, so that worked out great- except for one thing. The head of the PE department was Karl Kiefer, the football coach. He was totally opposed to sport PE classes, even though all of his football players were required to take a weightlifting class that just happened to be at the same time period every day. Almost the entire PE staff were football coaches, so they did not take to a guy coming down from social studies and teaching a class. I felt very unwelcomed, and once, early on, talked to Harold about it. He said not to worry- he would handle Karl.


So, what was the result of Harold asking me what it would take to have the top program in Arizona and then following through with his promises? Within three years, we were ranked #1 the entire season, and at one point had a 17 game winning streak. We lost in the second round of the state tournament to the #2 ranked team in the state (still no power point seeding)- Gilbert Highland, by one point in overtime. It should have never gotten to OT, as we were up five with 39 seconds left, when we gave up an easy three to Danny Ainge’s son, Tanner, then turned the ball over and watched Highland score a layup at the buzzer. We then missed all four of our free throws in the overtime period. What made the end of the season worse for us, was watching Central League opponent Marcos de Niza win the state title, after we had beaten them twice during the season. They finished third in the region tournament, which we won, and then won it all.


I won’t go year by year, but here are some highlights. The second year, we started 1-4, coming off of that great first year. The coaches were watching film before practice, as we were about to play the #1 ranked team in the state- Gilbert- the next day. Harold popped in and said “I don’t care if you go 1-20, you are still the best coaches for this job.” I never had another principal, dean, or college president in 40 years say that. I think the last two presidents at MCC didn’t even know my name. It makes a huge difference. The next night we upset a team that was so loaded, many people thought they wouldn’t lose a game. Harold was there, of course, smiling over in the doorway as the clock wound down. That team ended up winning 23 games and making it back to the quarter finals, losing to #1 Salpointe. Adrian Aguayo was player of the year from the Arizona Republic. I have never been prouder of any team than that one. Not overly talented- just great kids. Example- one day, in the summer before that season, I was driving down Central Avenue on my way to the summer league at Sunnyslope. It was a very hot June afternoon, and up ahead, I saw a guy running- I mean really running, not jogging, on the horse path that lines Central. I thought that guy must be crazy. As I got closer to him, he began to look familiar- it turned out to be one of our seniors- Nick Olson. I passed him by, then pulled in on the next side street and when he came by, I honked at him. He saw me and came running over. He said his truck had run out of gas, but he didn’t want to be late or miss the summer league game. I mean, you can go to war with guys like that. You can imagine what most kids would do if they ran out of gas three miles from a summer league game. It wouldn’t be what Nick did. Great kids.


The great Desert Vista rivalry- too many stories to recount here, but I’ll give you a couple. One of our teams had this thing about not going out on the floor first for warmups. The other team had to take the floor first. It was a mental thing- the guys felt like they had a mental edge over you if they waited. It wasn’t my idea, but I kind of liked it. Well, by the time we played DV over there, it was well known that we did that. So, they waited, too. We were behind the bleachers at one end, and they were behind them at the other. The clock was winding down. It got five, and one of the refs came over and said let’s go- but our guys wouldn’t budge. By then, both crowds knew what was going on and they were into it. Finally, DV gave way at about two minutes to go and came out. Our guys were pumped- got a two minute warm up and won the game. Unforgettable.


The other one, happened when my son, Jordan, was a freshman in 2000. Our last game of the regular season was at DV and we lost 53-49. That meant that five days later, we had to play DV at their place again in the regional tournament. We walked into the gym- five days later- and the score clock was on and that score, 53-49, was still up there. OK, we got it. In one of the greatest games of the whole series, MP won 50-49 on a layup by Deo Bamiro as time expired. Our team, with four freshmen and three sophomores, won the next night at McClintock 53-51, as Deo caught a full court pass with one second left and, in mid air, turned and banked in a three. We lost in the region final to Corona del Sol 55-51, but that team, who started out 2-11, made it to the state quarterfinals.


During my second year there, however, Harold Slemmer, called me into his office and said that he was leaving. He was going to take a position at the AIA as executive director. I said that he had told me that he was going to be at MP for the long haul, and that one promise was the tipping point in my decision to leave Camelback. He said he felt terrible about that, and would do everything he could to make sure all promises made to me were kept. That is not what happened, which is the reason a lot of coaches want to “spend more time with their families”.


Next…back to college…

Sounds like Ohio's athletic association might be in financial trouble after not having a postseason in winter or spring. There is talk of football in the spring of 2021 is a possibility as well.
Could AIA be in a similar situation? Or is the AIA more stable?

https://theathletic.com/1827648/202...es-no-football-in-the-fall/?source=dailyemail

Here’s a new article from @JasonPSkoda

Link: https://arizonavarsity.rivals.com/n...urants-i-m-visiting-as-soon-as-we-re-allowed-

What are your 10?

I co-host a podcast with former Oregon/NFL TE George Wrighster. We usually do weekly shows, and I'll post links to them here.

One of the better athletes to ever play sports at the high school level in Arizona, Zach Hoffpauir, passed away last night. He was 26, and currently landed a job coaching safeties at Northern Colorado.

The Central Region…


It was kind of like out of the fat into the fire when I left Camelback. The Metro was so tough that I kind of thought going out of the city would give a little relief to the night in and night out struggles. I remember at Camelback, if we had a few games out in the east valley, it felt like they weren’t as tough as we were. Whether true or not, we sold it that way to our guys and we had a pretty good record against those teams over the years. But things were rapidly changing and the Central Region in 1997 where Mountain Pointe played was dynamite. It had Corona del Sol, Marcos de Niza, McClintock, Desert Vista, Chandler, Casa Grande, and Yuma.


We had eleven seniors, all of whom were good players, and three juniors, including the Camelback transfer Adrian Aguayo. The region was all new to me, so I really didn’t know the history of the rivalries in it. Corona del Sol had been dominant and there was the arrival of Desert Vista as a natural rival just down the street from MP. The first Desert Vista- Mountain Pointe football game ended in a victory for the Pride and was followed by students tearing down the goal posts, if that gives you any idea of the feelings of people in Ahwatukee. It has been referred to ever since as the Ahwatukee Bowl and has been a constant nightmare for administrators. They used to play it as the final regular season game and it really did have the air of a bowl game. I don’t think they do that anymore, which is a shame.


We opened the season in the Mountain View Thanksgiving tournament and in the second game, beat Corona del Sol at their gym. That meant a lot to the locals, as I could tell. We lost in the championship game to Mountain View in their gym by three points. We got a technical foul very late in the game when an official said that one of our players, Mike Roanhorse, looked at him funny. They were a great team, though, and we would see them again later.


The first Desert Vista game was something I will never forget. Well, really, every game against them was memorable. But being part of the very first one was special. The gym was always packed when we played them, but the first one at MP had a full gym by the time the freshman game was wrapping up. It was an unbelievable scene as people were being turned away during the jayvee game. There is always a bit of extra pressure in a rivalry game, but this was off the charts. They were a young team and we had veteran players and beat them 56-31. It was actually 56-28, until at the buzzer a DV player threw in a shot from just inside half court. Being a defensive minded guy, I hated that. We beat them again later in the season at their place and I can still see in my mind the kids from MP in the stands chanting “we are- MP”. Over my ten years at MP, we would have many great games with Desert Vista.


We would play St. Mary’s during the year in the McClintock tournament semi-finals. Remember, MP’s 6’10” player had transferred there during the summer. I had planned to give a stirring pre-game speech, but as we walked in the locker room, I heard one of the players growl “this is going to be a f*****g war!” We stopped, turned around, walked out. Couldn’t have said it better myself. We won, and the MP fans really gave it to the kid who transferred.


We also beat Corona del Sol in both league games, and in the region championship game, which meant that we had four victories in one season against the team that had dominated MP over the years. We finished 13-1 in the Central Region, with our only loss coming at Marcos de Niza 72-71. The great thing about the season was the way the eleven returning seniors grasped our message about team defense and believed totally in it. They all were pretty good high school players, which meant we could play deep into our bench, which was a real strength. Even our juniors were good, and one of them, Adrian Aguayo was a starter. One thing you learn about high school coaching is you have to play the hand you are dealt. This was a good hand and one that could force a high tempo offensively and a tough defense in return. I have only been to one Coyotes hockey game in my life, and I had great seats- second row. What amazed me about that game was the intensity of the play and the frequency of substitutions. I always imagined what it would be like to have a basketball team that was pretty good and equal from top to bottom- then you could play hockey style- guys giving it all they had for two or three minutes and then being replaced with other guys who kept the level of play very high. The ’97 MP team came as close to that as I have ever had. It is funny now, because people have always associated me with the spread offense and slow down tactics, but those were the result of the various hands we were dealt over the years. We spread it in ’97, too, but we also pressed, and ran, and played up tempo because we could.


We made it to the state quarter-finals, which were played at Chandler High School against Mountain View. They were ranked number 1 and we were ranked number 2- in those days there were no power points and no seeding system. It’s a shame, because it was a terrific game- very much like the one earlier in the season. The place was completely jammed packed and very electric. Mountain View was loaded- they had five guys who would play NCAA D1 basketball, and also included a future NFL Hall of Famer in Todd Heap. They jumped us early and looked like they would blow us out, but then Adrian Aguayo got going- he was always a prime time guy. We were tied with two minutes left in the game and ended up losing 55-52. It was a fabulous season. Mountain View would end up 34-1, with their only loss to a nationally ranked team in a Las Vegas tournament.


Two things happened after the game that will forever be an emotional memory for me. When we got to the locker room, the guys were devastated. They gave absolutely everything they had and had taken a great and deserving team to the limit. It was everything that is good about sports. There was nothing to say to them and they hugged and cried and could not face taking their jerseys off for the last time. So, we were in that locker room for a good hour after the game, because there was just no hurry to go and get on the bus. Finally, we left and I waited until everyone was out, like I usually do, to make sure nothing is left behind and the locker room is in good shape. As I came out, I saw Gary Ernst, the Mountain View coach. He obviously had been waiting for me- all that time. He stayed to congratulate me, and our coaches for our team and the way we played basketball. It was an ultimate act of class by him and something that has always stayed with me. We walked through the darkened gym together and then, outside, I could see their bus- they had all waited. To me, that’s Gary’s greatness more than his titles.


The other thing happened when we got back to MP. The team, without saying a word to us, went into the gym and gathered around the center circle and locked arms. We looked in the door and decided to just stay out and let them have that moment together- one last time. I think we all had tears in our eyes as we looked through the window and they stood there- arm-in-arm.


Next…good years…

So I posed this question on social and am peeping a column on it but was wondering the groups opinion. If NHL/NBA expand playoffs and Suns/Coyotes make it in, does that mean the playoff drought is actually over or does it not really count?

The East Valley...


The summer after I committed to Mountain Pointe, our staff would go over and conduct practices in Ahwatukee in the morning, then go back to Camelback and run the summer league in the evening. We added Mountain Pointe to the league, obviously. A few of our Camelback kids were contemplating transferring to MP, so they blended with the returners from there. The first thing we all noticed when we started practices at MP was that the players did not really seem to care for each other. Like someone would be missing from practice and none of the guys knew where he was. That lack of communication is never good for a team. Another thing we noticed was that their star returning player, a 6’10” kid, was a bit lazy when it came to getting back on defense. That would be a big problem with me. He also exhibited a general lack of hustle, and one of our credos is “there is no such thing as a hustle slump”. So within two summer league games, he didn’t like our tone I guess and he decided to transfer to St. Mary’s. Immediately, the mood from the other MP kids changed for the better, and we won most of our games that summer quite easily, including the University of San Diego team camp. In the end, only one Camelback kid transferred to MP, however, and that was Adrian Aguayo, who would have an amazing career for us.


Now, remember the two Camelback coaches were sure the Mountain Pointe parents would “eat me for lunch”, so we needed to address that issue right away. The 90’s was the beginning of the open enrollment era and the rise of club ball all over the Valley. Parents were getting much more involved and nowhere was that more evident than out in Ahwatukee. We had a parent meeting and I handed out a list of parent do’s and don’t’s that I will share with you. Before I do, I will tell you what I told them up front- first, there are appropriate times to discuss a player’s progress on one of our teams. Before, during, or immediately after a game are not appropriate- period. Coaches are focused on the contest at hand and should not be approached at these times. That is a cardinal rule of etiquette, and is tantamount to me coming to their house and entering without knocking. Second, we will never talk about playing time, as that is a subjective judgment based on practice and/or game conditions. We will tell you how your son is doing in the function of ability and attitude. And third, we will never discuss what a parent thinks about other players’ attitudes and abilities- the old “my son is better than Billy, but Billy plays more” thing.


So, here is my list of parent do’s and don’ts. Parents have a unique role in the team equation. They are not impartial observers, so their entry fee does not absolve them from their connection to the team. They cannot use the cliché “I paid my money, so I can say what I want”. They can seriously, and often do, embarrass their sons with that mentality. I’m sure many parents will have their own feelings about this, but here is how this one coach stands on the issue. Parents:


DO- be supportive of your son by giving him a pat on the back, whether he plays or not.

DO- listen to your son talk about how he is doing.

DO- be there to support his commitment with rides, punctuality, and whenever possible, financial support.

DO- help the booster club by volunteering time or money to help the program. Your sons’ appreciate your involvement.

DO- attend games, no matter if your son plays a little or a lot or not at all. If he is hurt and cannot play, go to the game anyway. It says a lot about commitment.

DO- encourage your son to talk to the coaches often about how he is doing and how he can improve.

DO- communicate with coaches in the appropriate manner and time if you have a desire to talk about your son’s attitude and abilities, and how he is doing generally. Call and make an appointment, or send an email or text.

DO- sit in the stands and be supportive of the team.


DON’T- be an antagonist if your son complains about his place on the team. Statements like “I know you’re better than Bob, the coach must be nuts”, are harmful. Encourage your son to communicate with the coach.

DON’T- sit in the stands and bitch and moan about the coaching, the players, or the officials. You may think that will do some good. It does not. I have had many players tell me privately how embarrassed they are about this kind of behavior.

DON’T- go above the coach the first time there is a problem. The AD and the principal will ask you “have you spoken with the coach?”

DON’T- try to talk to coaches about playing time. If you have sat through every practice and game, then the coach may be willing to share his feelings about that issue. If not, then you must trust the coaches who are with your son everyday. Many players come home and tell their parents they don’t know why they are not playing. That is usually incorrect, as the coaches have probably shared that information with the players on a daily basis. The players just don’t want to talk about it with their parents. There are a lot of things that teenagers don’t want to share with their parents, face it. I had three in my family. I heard “I don’t know” a lot.

DON’T- try to talk to a coach about your son before a game, during halftime, or immediately after a game. They will not appreciate that.

DON’T- try to talk to a coach about your son during practice. Make an appointment.

DON’T- walk up to a coach while he is talking to someone else and butt in with your two bits about how he is doing with the team or your son. Be polite. Scott Clayton from azprepsports.com was with me a long time ago when a parent burst into our conversation with some statements about how we were playing “head games” with her son. It was not appreciated and was the last conversation I ever had with that person about their son.

DON’T- expect the booster club to be a vehicle by which coaches favor one player over another. It is not.

DON’T- lend your expertise without being asked. I was at South Mountain Community College one year to watch my son, Jordan, play against another college, when a parent approached me prior to the game and said “watch (the opponent’s) offense- you need to run this at Mountain Pointe.” After that college was pounded by SMCC by about 30, I cruised by the parent and said “are you sure you want me to run that?” It was a subtle way to let the parent know how unappreciated his advice was.


There it is. The parents signed off on it, and I did it every year after. There were breeches in etiquette every now and then, but by and large the parents understood. Maybe it will help you.


Next time…the Central Region…

The Pride…


The last two years I had at Camelback, ’96 and ’97, were good solid years with competitive teams in the still tough Metro. We had, through the efforts of all of the coaches, and clinics, and camps, built the kind of program that represented the community. I thought I would stay there forever, especially after the way the Madison parents had stood down the board. The soon-to-be-fired principal had been forced by the lawsuit to back off, and within a year would be gone altogether. Things were looking really good. As I mentioned, I lived right down the street from the school, often walking to work, or to and from games. When my family went places in the area, our Camelback students were working in the stores and food places, so we Talways had hookups for deals. My wife was teaching French at Camelback by then, and the Camelback kids knew where we lived and always looked out for us. In many ways, it was a dream situation for a high school coach. I had no plans to go anywhere.


Then, one evening, I got a call from Coach Youree. He said that he had received a call from Harold Slemmer, who was the principal at Mountain Pointe High School. Coach Y told me that MP was going to make a coaching change, and that Harold wanted to know if Coach Youree had a short list of guys he should go after. Coach Y, like he had done with Dave Brown many years before, said there is just one guy Harold should consider. Before that night was through, I got a call from Harold asking me if I wanted to come and talk to him about the job. In deference to Coach Youree, I said I would, even though all the things I described above made me very hesitant to move. Many years earlier, when Mountain Pointe first opened, Coach Youree said I should drive out there and take a look at it, and drop in on the principal. So I did, and in those days, there was no fence around the school, and I just drove right in. One thing I noticed right away was that there were no outdoor basketball courts anywhere to be seen. I had never seen an urban high school with no outdoor courts. Another thing I noticed was that it was really a long drive from my house to MP- about 17 miles. I did not even get out of my car- just drove away and thought this would never work for me.


The second time around, though, Coach Youree told me that after everything I had been through with the administration in the Phoenix Union District, that Harold Slemmer was definitely someone that I would want to work for. His commitment to excellence, and in particular sports, was top shelf. It couldn’t hurt to just go talk to him, right? When I got to the meeting, there was Harold, Dick Baniszewski (Bano) who was the school AD, and Don Wilkerson, the district AD. This was serious. We talked for two and half hours- mainly about basketball and program building. For the first and only time in my entire career, I was asked by the man in charge, what it would take to have the top program in basketball. I told him that there were three essential items- first, to have me and all of my staff on campus; second, to have access to the gyms in the summer rent free to have camps, leagues, and clinics; and third, to have a seventh hour PE class. Harold looked at Don and Bano, and said “I think we can do that- right, guys?” That moment was absolutely stunning and one of those moments that I can still see in my mind- like 9/11 or something. The last thing Harold asked me, almost as an afterthought after two and a half hours was “what do you teach?” I said social studies, and he looked over at Bano and said “do we have any openings in social studies?” Bano said no, but Harold said don’t worry about it. You have got love that response. To wrap it all up, Harold asked me if I had any questions for them. I said I just had one- “will you be here for the long haul?” Now I know that is naïve on my part, because great administrators are rare and they usually don’t last long- either because they are moving up rapidly, or they piss their districts off and they move out. But, after what I had been going through at Camelback, I had to ask. Harold basically said that this school was his baby and that he would be there. He told me to take my time thinking it over, they wouldn’t make any move on the job until I gave them an answer.


As great as that meeting was, I went back to Camelback and really tried to make it work. We had a parent/coaches get together in my back yard within a few days of the meeting with Harold. They, of course, knew nothing about my interaction with Mountain Pointe, and we were talking summer plans and next year’s team. As much as we had won in the battles with the district, I could see and feel that it had really taken a toll on everybody. There was no guarantee that the district wouldn’t hire someone as bad once they dumped the principal. It left me wondering if it would just be best for everyone if I moved along. A few days later, our coaching staff hopped in a van and drove to Las Vegas for the Nike Basketball Coaches Clinic. That is an annual rite for me, and I have attended every one of those since 1980. Most of the time, my wife would go, as well. This year, the pandemic forced them to cancel the clinic, which broke a 40 year streak. In ’97, with all that had happened, I broke the news of my meeting at MP with my coaches in the van, and for three days that was all we could talk about- the pros and cons. While we were up there, we ran into Bano. Harold had sent him up there with some flyers about the job, and he was holding a stack of them when we ran into him. He said “just take the job so I can dump these in the trash”. I told him that I thought they weren’t going to do anything until I gave them an answer, and he said that Harold just wanted to have a back up if I said no.


Of course, as history shows, I ended up saying yes. I remember after it became public, that I was walking through the weight room at Camelback when I overheard two coaches from other sports talking about it. They didn’t see me coming and I heard them say that the Mountain Pointe parents would eat me for lunch- that they were the toughest crowd in the city. I never forgot that. It turns out that the basketball program at Mountain Pointe had a super booster club that had consistently raised a lot of money for the program. Coming from Camelback, where the booster club for most of our tenure had been me and my wife, this was a whole new world. More about them later.


Telling the Camelback players was the toughest thing of all. We really had put together a strong team of mostly Madison area kids and now we were leaving. Some of them wanted to go with us, but there really wasn’t much I could do to help them. They would have to deal with the AIA. Pat Donaher, a 6’7” sophomore was going to transfer, and he asked me if I could give him a ride out there each day. I said sure, since he lived right down the street from me. Later, when he was interviewed by the Republic, he said that I had offered him a “full ride”, which some people believed meant money or something- no, people, a full ride in my car. Funny.


Next…the East Valley…

The virus…


Have to take a timeout from the background story for me to discuss the elephant in the room. The big reason I started the blog was because I was going nuts during the stay-at-home phase of the pandemic. I was trying to roust up a little discussion along the way, but there hasn’t been very much so far. Maybe when I get into more recent times there will be.


The elephant is, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic. There are so many things to hate about it- the apparent lack of concern globally when it broke out, the severity of the illness it causes, the horrible deaths inflicted on so many, and the taking away of so many things we love about life that it has caused. For this discussion, one of the main things it took away was sport. I am a college coach and for the last twelve years at MCC, I have been in the gym on most days year round. Now suddenly, that has been taken away- it has been almost three months since I have set foot in the gym. Like you, I am eager to get beyond this and get going again. But I am also cognizant of what we are facing when/if we do. Remember, the NBA came to a screeching halt when one or two guys were found to be infected. I mean the whole league stopped dead- followed by all professional and amateur sports.


So, what has changed since to make us believe that we should get back to competition? Really nothing. The virus is still out there and our lack of testing has made it difficult to follow. The infection rate slowed because radical steps were taken by society to not mingle with each other. Now, even though the rate of infection is not in an overall decline, it has slowed and we are ready to get back out there. Professional athletes are now being asked if they will begin to play in very altered circumstances- social distancing, daily testing, quarantined in hotels between games, empty stadiums. Many of those athletes are asking themselves and their player unions if it is worth the risk. Germany fired back up the Bundesliga soccer league, but within a week had new infections among players. Anyone who has come in contact with the player now has to quarantine for two weeks. If you are being paid, you just have to ask yourself if it is worth the risk, and if you believe it is, then go for it. That’s your livelihood, and you can make that decision. Heck, in Florida, they have even deemed pro sports as “essential”.


That’s not what we deal with, however, on this site and what most coaches across the country deal with. Our participants are amateurs and risking their lives and their coaches lives without having a vaccine is crazy. You can sign all the liability waivers you want on this one, but it is still unethical to the extreme, and no amount of phasing in will convince me that it is not too dangerous without a vaccine. When I first started coaching, there were no flu shots, and every year like clockwork, I got the flu- usually from one of the players. Since the advent of the flu vaccine, I don’t get the flu anymore, but most of our players do not get a flu shot, because we cannot force them to, and inevitably it strikes several of the players intermittedly through the season. Therefore, I must conclude that it is not a question of IF a player will become infected this fall with Covid-19, but a question of WHEN a player will get infected. Most schools are in no way able to commit to the finances of 24/7 monitoring of athletes. They could leave your facility negative today and come back positive tomorrow. How long will they have been contagious with it, and who did they have contact with? Did they play in a game against another team while they were contagious? Will our entire team, our trainer, and others around them have to be quarantined for two weeks after we find an infection? Will we have to forfeit games because we are in quarantine? I don’t think MCC can afford daily testing of athletes and I think that will an issue nationally. People are saying that this is just like the flu in severity, but Covid-19 has already killed almost 100,000 Americans in the short period it has been with us. It certainly seems more deadly, so if we want to try and build a herd immunity over the next several months by sacrificing student athletes, it will come at a high cost. Almost every health professional is predicting another more disastrous outbreak in the fall, once we have all relaxed and are mingling again. Basketball is very much a mingling sport, and without a vaccine, it could be a lab for Covid-19.


As much as I hate being in this mess, we are in fact in it. We must do what’s right for our charges- the kids and the student athletes. There are some hard choices ahead.

Rosenberg Q&A: Past and Present with Tri City Christian alum, and Kansas State to Pacific transfer Nigel Shadd

https://arizonavarsity.rivals.com/news/rosenberg-q-a-past-and-present-with-nigel-shadd

Jared Cohen interviews AZ native Markus Howard, the #21 all-time scorer in NCAA history, as he prepares for the upcoming NBA Draft, and his family launches their own YouTube show

https://arizonavarsity.rivals.com/news/jared-cohen-goes-one-on-one-with-markus-howard

The lawsuit comes…


First thing I want to say to any young coaches out there is a piece of advice that I was given along the way in this business. There are so many battles that you must fight as a coach- with players, with fans, with parents, and with administrators- that you must choose which hill to die on. There is a transience among coaches that is so prevalent that on this website they refer to it as “the coaching carousel”, and if I am not mistaken, this year is a record number. When coaches say “I want to spend more time with my family”, that is more often than not coach speak for I can’t take this place anymore. I’m sure a lot of coaches go into a job like I did- that is, I thought this would be my job until I retired. Due to the factors listed above, however, longevity in one position is actually quite rare, and a forty plus year career in coaching is even rarer.


My hill to die on at Camelback came with the arrival of a new principal in 1996. He obviously had been warned that I had caused the district no end of embarrassment with the whole rent thing. He was also probably had been told to get me in line or get me out- either way, I had to pay. The district athletic director then went so far as to contact Coach Youree and tell him that I had better shape up- obviously wanting Coach Y to relay the message to me, which he did.


The battle started early in the Fall. I was painting part of my house on a weekend, when two of my players showed up at the house wanting to shoot in the gym. Our program had good kids- kids you could trust, or they wouldn’t make it with us. Still, I knew that I would have to go over and supervise them while they shot, and usually we would do some kind of shooting drills. So I gave them my gym key and told them I would be over as soon as I cleaned up from painting. My house is literally within sight of the school- three houses down. They went over, and as luck, or fate, or the Universe would have it, there was a district security guy who just happened to be making his rounds at Camelback. He saw the guys enter the gym, and immediately asked the guys how they got the key. They told him that I was at that house- they pointed it out- and said that I would be over shortly. The security guy confiscated the keys and told the players to beat it. They came over to my house and told me what had happened.


Now, you might be saying to yourself that was pretty dumb of me to give the gym key to the kids. But I was no rookie to the business of teaching and coaching and knew full well that there was the letter of the law and the spirit of the law in schools, just like in society. Throughout my entire career to that point, I had seen teachers, coaches, and administrators hand keys to kids on countless occasions to do things that were convenient to them. I had seen kids on athletic fields and in gyms unsupervised with equipment that they had unlocked from somewhere. Keys were given to students that were trusted by almost everyone, everyday. It probably still goes on to this day. Where I was probably dumb in all of that was not realizing that they were just waiting for me to screw up so they could bring down the hammer, and I gave them what they needed.

So, on the following Monday, the principal calls me in and says that they are going to remove me from my coaching position. Now high school coaches will tell you that coaching contracts are weak and you can be fired from them for any reason or no reason. Where the principal made his big mistake was to also take on my teaching position. Those contracts are a lot more solid, thanks to teacher unions of the past, and you have to show cause for discipline or removal- and there are progressive steps in each. The principal was just going to waive any of those steps and go right for the jugular. I went to my union rep, Juan Armijo, who thankfully was a man of real courage and unafraid of administrators, and this became my hill to die on.


The next two years of my life were spent battling a large, urban school district, which had unlimited resources. The principal and the new school AD who he brought with him from Colorado did everything they could to make my life miserable. When they tried to terminate my coaching contract, there was a wild school board meeting where the building was completely jammed with people overflowing into the street, who wanted to speak in support of our program. My attorney and the union rep said I should not attend the meeting, so I waited at home and was getting updates from my wife and my son, Jordan. At first the board said they would only allow a certain number of people to speak, which was met with refusal by the crowd- they insisted that everyone wanted to speak should be allowed to speak. The board relented and everyone who wanted to speak was given two minutes. At 1AM, the meeting was still going. Coach Youree spoke and said “you don’t fire good coaches”, which is what I want to say about the Gary Lee situation going on right now. It’s hard enough to get good coaches to stay in a struggling district like PUHSD without chasing them off. Gary has been there for twenty years plus and given them the best years of his life- and won a lot of games to boot. Mike Ellsworth also came down and spoke on my behalf- which meant he was risking his own security in the district. I have never forgotten that act of loyalty. The district decided not to fire me from coaching.


Teachers can tell you how miserable administrators can make life for you once they get started. A year of harassment began right after the board meeting that even included my family. It was intense and sometimes just like you see in the movies where people follow you and you get strange phone calls. Juan, my union guy stood strong though and fought them at every turn. He said things to the principal that still make me laugh- like opening a meeting by calling the principal a liar. One time, we went to an arbitration meeting and the first thing Juan did was put a recorder on the table. For the next two hours, no one spoke then we left. Eventually, the union suggested that I go to a full-blown law suit, which ultimately I did. After that was filed, I was leaned on by the Superintendent and one of the school board members. This was all being played out in the news media, by the way, which is where Gary’s story should be. School districts, like politicians, generally hate it when things like this are open to the court of public opinion. The Republic tied the whole thing back to the rent debacle and said the district was just trying to exact its revenge. I was sitting in my classroom one afternoon with Juan Armijo, when a school board member came in and asked me what I really wanted. Before I could answer, the member said that he would see that the district cut me a deal- fire the principal and move the school AD. Ultimately, we settled out of court, and within a year, the principal was indeed fired and the AD moved. Publicly, the district said that the principal’s job performance did not meet expectations and the AD was just a routine movement. The Republic didn’t buy that explanation and surmised that the principal’s dismissal related directly back to my case. I didn’t die on that hill, but it wasn’t because they weren’t trying to kill me.


Next…the Pride…

@Zalvira with a great column on azfootballarchives

Link: https://arizonavarsity.rivals.com/n...ing-arizona-high-school-football-s-hidden-gem

The lawsuit…


There were some great moments at Camelback for us. My wife got a job there as a French teacher, we bought a home right down the street that we still live in, and we raised our three children there. It is a great neighborhood. I remember right after we moved in, my son Jordan was playing in the Madison Little League and we went to a game over at Madison #1 Middle School. We were sitting in the stands behind two ladies, who happened to be talking about where they were going to send their children to high school. Their general opinion was that anywhere but Camelback would be best, as Camelback had become an “inner city” school, if you know what I mean. The school was definitely losing most of the Madison School District clientele to Brophy, Xavier, Arcadia, and even Shadow Mountain. It became our mission to win the Madison people over, at least in the basketball program, and have the neighborhood kids come to Camelback. We ran summer camps, did coaching clinics at the Madison schools, and I joined the Board of Directors of the Madison Basketball League, which was the youth league in the area before the clubs took over. I found out where their board was meeting and just walked in and offered up Camelback to help them in any way we could. Next thing you know, I was a board member. The effort started to pay dividends and by the time I left in 1997, most of the players in our program were neighborhood Madison kids.


In 1993, I was chosen to coach the North squad in the annual North-South All-Star game. This was something that meant a great deal to me, because as a player at East High, I felt I had been overlooked in 1968 when the All-Star teams assembled at NAU. In those days, there were just two teams. In ’93, there was a 5A North-South, and a 4A thru 1A set of teams. I had the 5A North. We assembled in Thatcher, at Eastern Arizona College, and spent a week in all-star festivities, practices, and game. Everyday, we practiced at a different high school gym in the area, and were given tours of the copper mines in Morenci. The people in the area proudly hosted the event and it was very meaningful. I took my son, Jordan, and really enjoyed the whole experience. The South team was coached by Joe Partain, the legendary Chandler coach, and I got to know him pretty well. Great guy. My assistant was Tim Wacker from Ironwood HS, who was an old friend from the camp days. It’s a shame they don’t still do the all-star game the same way. We won the game 80-54, and it didn’t hurt that we had Gerald Brown from Carl Hayden, the 5A player of the year from a 29-1 team. The 1 was the game at Camelback with the big brawl, however, a fact which I never let him forget. We had two Camelback players, Steve Reed, who was all-state, and Gary Biscoe, who was all-Metro Region. It was such a great experience, that I never wanted to do it again, because it could only go downhill from there. The all-star week got ditched soon after as the copper mine sponsors went bust in a bad economy and no one ever picked it up. Like I said- a shame.


One day, in the summer of 1995, I was conducting a summer camp for grades 1-8, using both gyms, when the district athletic director walked in. He pulled me aside and asked me what rent I was paying for the gym. I told him that I was not paying rent and that we kept the gym clean ourselves. He walked out and said that he was going to have to look into that. One thing led to another and I was handed a bill for an amount that we could not possibly pay. I went to our principal, but he was just an interim guy and said he could not really help. Whether you know it or not, principal’s are pretty autonomous and can basically do what they want with their schools. If they have to make unpopular decisions, they might hide behind the old “it’s district policy” excuse, but that is usually just baloney to get you off their back. Our district AD had been there for several years and he knew full well the arrangement that had been made with the basketball program by the previous principal. He didn’t like it and was using the weakness of an interim’s position to take over the situation.


As mentioned, there was no way we could afford the cost they imposed on us, so I had the unfortunate task of getting all the kids together and telling them that we were going to have to shut down the summer programs. A parent called me that day and said would it be OK to contact the Arizona Republic, and I said to hold off until I could go see the district AD and tell him that this might make the news. We didn’t charge the kids very much to run the program and the gyms were paid for by taxpayers- it might reflect badly on the district to run programs out of these schools. I wanted to tell him that this might not go down well.


We met and I told him that a reporter would be snooping around. He was arrogant and told me to go for it- he could handle any heat that would be generated. He was wrong. The Republic was there with a cameraman when I assembled a group of kids to tell them the program would have to be shut down. The reporter interviewed some kids and some parents. The story broke on the front page of the Valley and State section of the paper. The feedback to the district was immediate and overwhelmingly critical. Soon after, there was a meeting at Camelback set up by the district AD that was to be attended by the interim principal, the school AD, the district AD, and myself. I felt as though I should not go into such a meeting without representation, so I contacted my good friend Gary Fadell, who was an AIA referee that scheduled our refs for the summer league. He was also a practicing attorney. One bit of advice for you young coaches- never go into a meeting where your job might be an issue without being represented, either by your union rep or an attorney. People don’t think of educational institutions as being very political, but they are, in fact, highly political. Everybody you are dealing with has at least a bachelor’s degree, many have a master’s degree, and most of the higher ups have PhD’s. The common joke in the business is you have a BS (bullshit) degree, an MS (more of the same), and a PhD (piled higher and deeper).


When Gary and I walked into the meeting, the district AD asked me who Gary was. I told him that he was my attorney. The meeting came to an abrupt ending, as the district AD said he was not going to go on with Gary in the room. So, we got up to go, and the AD said, “can I speak to you for a moment?” meaning without Gary. I asked Gary if I should do it, and he said yes, but if he mentioned anything about my job that I should immediately get up and walk out. So I sat back down, and Gary walked out. It didn’t take a minute before my job was an issue, so I got up without saying a word and walked out. This was like TV stuff- school officials acting like mafia characters. That briefly ended the debate about the gyms. The public outcry caused the district to back down. But they never let an employee get away with something like that- they are going to come after you, and they did.


Next…lawsuit arrives…

Four Star OL Jonah Miller announced his top 6 today

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Who is your favorite guy to ever play for the Phoenix Suns? Not just the guy you think is the best (though answers like Booker or Nash are definitely acceptable for a favorite, too) but your favorite blend of personality, skill and other things.

My choice is Boris Diaw. He had such a unique style of play, and reading “:07 seconds or less” by Jack McCallum and learning about all his funny habits and musings made me like him more.

Second is probably Barbosa, because he just seemed to have irrational confidence about his ability to score.

Building it back up…


I ended up staying at Camelback for seven more years. After the first overtime year, we had the great opportunity to take over the best high school summer league in the valley at that time, which had been held at Brophy Prep for many years. Out of the blue, Steve Silvernail, the Brophy coach, called me and asked me if I wanted the league. I immediately said yes. Money was always an issue for our Camelback kids, so here was a chance to host a league for them. Plus, we might be able to make some extra money for our entire program and our coaches by running the league. Anyone in our profession will tell you how important fundraising for program needs and coaches is. For the next seven years, it ran like clockwork, and was instrumental in building our basketball program. But it was work. We ran two gyms, four nights a week all through June and July. This was just before club ball came in and took the month of July, which it has held ever since. The coaches ran the gyms, my wife ran the snack bar, and we paid players to run the clocks. In order to avoid the district charging us rent, we also did all the janitorial duties. Every morning, we would go in and mop the floors and clean the bathrooms, then, in June, we would run our basketball camp during the day, and in the evenings the league would go, so we were putting in sixteen hour days. Every Thursday night after the league, our coaches and anyone they would want to invite would assemble at a place called Peyton’s, on 36th Street and Indian School. We would occupy the whole patio usually and have wings and beers until very late at night. Our favorite waitress knew us well, and it got to the point where we never even had to order- she would just bring it all out. And, of course, we would talk hoops. I miss that.


In my years at Camelback, the Metro was still dominant. One year, for example, we started out the year ranked 5th in the state, and all four teams above us in the rankings were Metro teams. We looked forward to playing out of region to catch a break. There was still no power point system, or I think all of us would have been in every year. You had to come out of the region tournament in the top three to get into state, so each year some very good teams were not making it. Somewhere in there once, we were 19-3 going into the regional tournament and got to the semi-finals, and were playing Central, who we had beaten twice during the year. We had won the Phoenix Union Holiday Tournament by beating a very good and eventual state champion Carl Hayden team. Central had gotten hot down the stretch, and had a very good inside player named Robert Figueroa. We had kept him in check during the season, but he was a different guy in the regionals and they beat us by 3. South and Carl Hayden had played a thrilling game in the other semi-final and South had come out on top, so we were stuck with playing Carl Hayden. We were 19-4, and playing one of the best teams in the state, just to get in. We lost and were done- after playing in the state’s toughest region and going 19-5. Crazy.


Here is how intense it could get. We were playing at Carl Hayden one night, with first place in the conference on the line. It was a typical battle between us- very physical. We ended up losing 56-53, and I remember walking by Carl Hayden’s coach, Argie Rhymes, afterwards in the hallway as he was being interviewed by the Republic. He didn’t see me, but I could hear him tell the reporter how much respect he had for how hard we had played under the circumstances. I thought, what circumstances? As we got out to the parking lot, our scorer, John Farmer, walked up to me and said he had never seen that before. I asked him what he was talking about. He said that we hadn’t shot a single free throw in the game, and that he couldn’t believe how I never complained about it to the refs. That was the first I knew of that- we had been concentrating so hard on each play that it never occurred to any of us that we were getting screwed.


Another year, Hayden was ranked number 1 and came over to Camelback to play us. We were ranked seventh, and the gym was packed on both sides. We always used both sides of the bleachers in those days, and it pains me to go into gyms where they don’t use both sides today. Once or twice at MCC, they have tried to do that to us, because JUCO games don’t draw that well in a large metro area, but I refused. Use both sides- show some respect for the game. Anyway, that night against Hayden, they were 20-0 and we were 17-3, so it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. The game went into OT and with 14 seconds left, we were up 5. Hayden took a shot and missed and our player, Steve Reed, got the rebound. The Hayden players rushed him to foul, as you would expect in that situation. The foul, however, was especially hard and the next thing you know, all hell broke loose. Their bench, our bench, their coaches, our coaches, their fans, and our fans took to the floor. It made Gary Lee’s thing at Chavez look like a hug fest. Lee getting fired for that is utterly ridiculous, but par for the course in what that district has become. I’ll have more on that later. Our game was called immediately and we were declared the winner. The brawl was amazing and I remember being out there trying to find players and grab them to get them to the locker room. We heard later that street gangs representing both sides of the city where the schools were, had been throwing up sets during the game and taunting each other- something the game film would later prove. I suppose we should have been happy that no one got shot, but there were a lot of banged up faces and hands. Once again, Argie was magnanimous to us saying in the paper that we had outplayed them and that we had obviously won the game and deserved it, even though it never quite finished. One thing for sure to say about Argie is that he was always a gentleman- a ferocious competitor, for sure, and another guy like Bill Farrell who rightly has a gym named after him. And, by the way, after the brawl, no players were ever suspended, and no coaches reprimanded. Fire Argie? You have got to be kidding.


And, of course, there was South Mountain with Clement Chapman, North with Hector Bejarano, Alhambra with Bob Rossi, Trevor Browne with Mike Ellsworth, Central with Bob Strong, and Maryvale with Dan Nichols. Every night you had to prepare your absolute best effort, because that league would grind you up. I remember one time where Mike Ellsworth had complained in the news media about the spread offense that we and North employed frequently. I had a chance to talk to Mike afterwards and told him how hard it was to prepare for his team’s diamond press- you could hardly simulate in practice how much pressure they put on you. I told him that it was like that for all the teams in the Metro- they all did things that you had to work on, or they would beat you. It is our job as coaches to prepare our teams- and not to judge what others did. Bob Knight told me once that there are all kinds of ways to get it done, because I had been kind of head strong about our defensive philosophy and thought everyone should do it that way. That was one of the best coaching tips I ever got and I tried to pass it along to Mike. Mike Ellsworth, by the way, was a hell of a coach, and our state misses him. His teams loved him and played incredibly hard for him. Great league then- the Metro.


Next…the lawsuit…

Link: https://arizonavarsity.rivals.com/news/rosenberg-q-a-past-and-present-with-dre-marin

@Brett Quintyne is going to take a look at some alternate realities in sports- and I think it'd make for a great roundtable opportunity. I know @EspoAZ has a ton of these ideas as well.

I think it would be best to pose the question on the board, allow us to respond, and then include the responses in the article. I'll also solicit reader answers, and paste those at the end of each subsequent article with a link back to the previous piece.

Link: https://arizonavarsity.rivals.com/n...-girls-wrestling-results-in-team-sport-status

All ASU Sun Devils Discussion, News and Updates can be posted here

The Spartans…


After PC, I had a chance to become the head coach at Paradise Valley, since I was still teaching there, and was offered the job by the Principal, Gary Damore. He was a great guy, and I would probably have enjoyed working with him. But there was one problem- the athletic director at Camelback High School, Barbara Walcott, wanted to hire Coach Youree and get him back in high school. After MCC, he had served two years as Brad Holland’s assistant at the University of San Diego, where he worked with Randy Bennett and Lorenzo Romar- a great staff you must say. I went over to watch them play Kansas in the San Diego Sports Arena, and it was great. Kansas was awesome- ranked number 1 with Roy Williams as the head coach. Their starters included Paul Pierce, Jacque Vaughn, Scott Pollard, and Raef Lafrentz- all future NBA players. It was amazing to watch how fast Vaughn got the ball down the floor made or missed, and how hard the two big men worked to get position on every possession. USD was severely out-talented, but made a game of it because they were switching from man-to-man to match-up zone constantly. It was great to see Coach Youree working the sideline, in charge of the defense. They ended up losing by around ten points, and the next year would play Kansas in Lawrence and lose in overtime. After the game, all the coaches met at a Mexican food place in Old-Town San Diego, and traded stories until well after the place closed to the public.


Coach Youree promised Brad Holland he would do two years, and that’s what he did. After that, when Camelback came calling, he said he would do it if they hired me as his assistant and gave me a job on campus. Then he called me. My answer was yes and right after that was the conversation I had with Gary Damore about the PV job. I told him how much I thought of him, but that I was going to go to Camelback and work once again for Coach Y. He was a bit incredulous, asking me if I would really give up the opportunity to be a head coach to be somebody else’s assistant. I said in this case- absolutely. Coach Youree was one of a kind and you could never learn too much being around him. I left for Camelback, got a job in the social studies department, and thought I would be his assistant for many years ahead. That’s not what the Universe had in mind, however.


Our first (and only) season together at Camelback was great. We went 19-7 and, once again, Coach Youree took a team and qualified under the old system for the state tournament. We were in the Metro, which in those days was still the premiere basketball conference in the state, but Coach Y made it 14 consecutive years of qualifying. We lost to Brophy in state, after beating Chaparral in the opening round. The Brophy game was very reminiscent of our last loss at East back in ’82. We were up 5 with under a minute and had a very bad turnover (all turnovers are bad, but some are worse than others), and missed the front end of two one-and-one’s. They banked in a shot from the top of the key at the buzzer to beat us by 1. I always get a chuckle when people say that running a spread offense is easy. It is most definitely not, and you had better be able to step up to line and make free throws when you spread it.


After that, Coach Youree told me that he was not going to return to Camelback, or any other high school. He was subsequently hired by Pete Babcock to be a scout for the Atlanta Hawks. So, I was hired to take over at Camelback, where I stayed for the next seven years. My first year, we had no returning starters from our state qualifying team, and no starter bigger than 6’2”. We set a state record for overtime games that may never be broken- 12 out of our 28 total games went into extra time. South Mountain went 32-0 out of the Metro and Carl Hayden was very tough, as well. We played South three times, and twice lost in OT. The first OT loss came in the Phoenix Union Holiday Tournament, where one of the most bizarre plays you will ever see occurred. Late in the game, we got fouled in the act of shooting. South was terrific and had a large following of fans who were making a lot of noise as our player, Quincy Crawford, stepped to line- shooting two. He missed the first, and a South player rebounded the ball and passed it out to a guard like you would on a fast break. The player then went the length of the court and laid the ball in while our players just stood there and watched. We were shooting two, and that was just the first shot. The scorekeeper put up two points for South, which, of course, I jumped up and immediately protested. One of the refs came running over to me and said to calm down, he would talk with the other official. I mean, talk about what? No basket, right? Maybe even an unsportsmanlike technical against South for doing that. The crowd was going nuts and eventually the same ref walked over to me and told me that they were going to award the basket to South, but then let us shoot the second free throw. I came unglued, as you might imagine, and the only reason I didn’t persist to the point of being ejected was that we were still in the game and had a chance to win. As it turned out, the basket was critical, as the game went into overtime and we lost by three.


Our second overtime loss to South came during the conference race. We were playing them at Camelback in front of a packed house. Our guys played absolutely the perfect game and led by three with 4 seconds left, when South took a desperation shot that was an airball. All of our players blocked out and watched as the ball went- without changing trajectory- out of bounds. The ref closest to the shooter, but farthest from where the ball actually went out, awarded the ball to South, saying that one of our players, while blocking out, had tipped the ball as it went out of bounds. We protested, but could not spend too much time on that, as there were now only 2 seconds left and South would have to make a three to tie. We covered the three point line great on the inbounds play, and their only option before a 5 second count was to heave the ball out towards half court. The play happened right in front of me, and I can still see it to this day. Our player, Ed Heard, a football defensive back with great athletic ability, had a bead on the ball, and was going to go up and steal it or knock it away. Just as he started to jump, he tripped on his own feet and fell. The South player, Terrence Harraway, caught the ball, came down, went right back up into a shot two steps in from half court. It banked in, and the south fans and players went nuts- and stormed the court- which could have been a technical foul from a courageous crew. There was no T and we ended up losing by 1 point in OT. I have been in some sad locker rooms, but never one sadder than this- players were laying on the floor crying like babies. There was really nothing to say- they had played brilliantly and deserved the win. The referee, Fritz Goreham, who made the call awarding South the ball with 2 seconds left, told me repeatedly for many years after that he had blown the call. When I got home that night, I found that our home had been broken into. What a day.


Next…Building it back up…

Trojans and beyond…


After Yavapai, I got back into boys basketball at Paradise Valley High School, working with Bill Farrell. Putting us together at that point in our careers was one of the best things that could have happened to either of us. We were total basketball junkies, and honest to God, I don’t know how our wives didn’t throw in the towel that year of 85-86 when we worked together. I got a teaching certificate for physical education, because I had worked at Judson for the required two years to qualify. PE jobs are like gold in the high schools- I mean they have to be pried away from the cold dead fingers of a coach to have one open up, but Paradise Valley did have an opening in Social Studies teaching “B” classes. Thanks to my misguided advisor at Wyoming, I had accumulated enough hours in political science and pre-law to qualify to also teach social studies. This was during the time when tracking was big and you had three groups of kids classified in many schools- AP students, who were headed to college; regular students, who were headed into the blue collar workforce; and the mighty “B” students, who were headed to parties, jail, or worse. Kids walking around with a student number that had the letter B in it knew where they were headed and had kind of an attitude about it. Well, actually, they had a big attitude about it. A few years later, B programs were scrapped and nothing more was ever mentioned about it. So, I had to learn how to be an entertainer more than a teacher.


Bill’s classroom was right next door to mine, so every spare moment during the day- everyday- we were talking basketball. My reputation was about defense, even though I had been around some great offensive minds in Coach Youree and Dave Brown, and had soaked up quite a bit of knowledge. Bill Farrell was kind of like Dave- always coming up with new ways to do something and a very innovative thinker. He understood tempo and how to win with less talent than your opponent. He had a good spread offense, “41”, which was very effective in opening up the floor. I would recommend that all high school coaches have a spread offense, unless you know your team is always going to be the most talented. I worked with two of the best who ever did it, Coach Youree and Bill and became a big believer. It is still usable with a 30 second shot clock, and we have gone to it at MCC on many occasions. Bill and I only spent one year working together- thankfully for our wives- because at the end of the 86 season, Bill got into a dispute with the Principal of PV, Hal Buckley, and promptly retired. He was so intense that I think he retired on three or four different occasions in his career, which was all at Paradise Valley. But that 85-86 season was one of the most memorable in my career. We won the Central Region and got to the state semi-finals- the first time ever for a PV team- and lost to the eventual champion Carl Hayden 52-51.


Even though Bill and I worked together just that one year, I kept my teaching job at PV for a while longer. Always teaching “B” classes, too. Bill would “un-retire” later, after I had left PV and would go on and win two state championships. The gym at Paradise Valley High School is named after him, which is appropriate. He was a hell of a coach. He lives in Payson now, and when I take our MCC team up to Camp Tontozona for our annual retreat, we have touched base. As soon as we get near each other, we just start talking hoops and telling stories like we had been working together the whole time- even though it has been 35 years since we did.


Brigitte and I, and now our children Jordan and Morgan, lived right across the street from Phoenix College in those days, which was a pretty good haul from Paradise Valley. My old friend from the Adams-Westphal Camp days, Rob Babcock, was the head men’s coach at PC by the 1986 season. Once he knew that Bill was “retiring”, he asked me if I wanted to join his staff, which seemed from a family sense to be a smarter thing to do than to continue coaching way out in Paradise Valley. Rob, like everyone else in those days, wanted to get that defensive system into his program. So, I obliged and came back to the ACCAC. It hadn’t changed all that much on the men’s side, as Coach Youree and Coach Bennett still had MCC on top. We had a so-so year, and Rob couldn’t believe how much practice time it took to install and perfect the defense, until gradually he cut the amount of time he wanted to spend on it. The effect was that it wasn’t as good, and that will always be the effect of not spending enough time on what’s important. Rob and I worked together only that year and he eventually followed his brother Pete into the NBA, where he had a very successful and long career as a player personnel director and eventually General Manager of the Toronto Raptors. Pete, the former head coach of Greenway High School, went on to become the President of the Atlanta Hawks. The third brother, Dave, is currently the Director of Player Personnel for the Milwaukee Bucks. Rob, sadly, passed away last year from pancreatic cancer.


One of my fondest memories from the year at PC was the time the Los Angeles Lakers needed a practice court, and with his NBA brother connection, Rob’s name came up and they came to Phoenix College. This was 1986, and if you recall, “showtime” was in its heyday in Los Angeles. I got to stay and watch practice and I will never forget the sight of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at 7’2”, Kurt Rambis at 6’9”, James Worthy at 6’9”, Byron Scott at 6’4”, and Magic Johnson, their point guard at 6’9”, taking the floor. It completely changed the way you look at basketball. The court looked small and they covered the entire length of it so rapidly- it was a different game from what we knew. And when you think that the ’86 Lakers would not even make the finals- they would lose 4-1 in the Western Conference finals to the Rockets, who would then lose to Larry Bird and the Celtics in the championship round, it was like they were from another planet. I walked by Kareem and, at 6’8”, I hadn’t felt that small since I was a little kid walking with my Dad.


Next…the Spartans…

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