A Roughrider…
After Dick Tamburo turned Coach Youree down for the ASU job, he told him that he would talk to the new coach, Bob Weinhauer, and tell him to hire coach as an assistant. In the subsequent meeting between the two, Weinhauer told Coach Youree that there was no way he would hire someone who everybody in the Valley wanted to be the head coach. And that was that for ASU. As a footnote, Ben Lindsey went 4-24 overall and 1-17 in the Pac-10 and was fired after one year. He was replaced by the guy who spent three hours listening to and taking notes from Coach Youree, Lute Olson from Iowa. To this day, Lindsey remains the only native born Arizonan to be hired as a head coach in basketball by any of the three state universities. Bob Weinhauer went 44-45 in three years at ASU before he was let go. He should have listened to his AD, right? Coach Youree went on to Mesa Community College, where he teamed up as a co-head coach with Tom Bennett for the next five years, where they went 126-37 during that span. Like Lute said to me one time, basketball is basketball no matter what the level, so I will always believe that ASU missed their golden opportunity.
I was going to join the MCC staff as a volunteer, as well, after East closed, and went over with Coach Youree to Spring workouts. Somewhere in there, Coach Y got a call from Dave Brown, the athletic director/head men’s and women’s basketball coach at Yavapai College in Prescott. He was looking for someone to help him coach the two basketball teams and asked if coach knew of anyone that he would recommend. He said he knew of one guy that Dave should hire immediately- me. So, Dave called and we met at a restaurant in Mesa for an interview. He was looking in particular for some defensive help and asked me immediately what I knew about that. By then, I was on fire with defense, having just spent a whole season with a basketball genius. I cleared part of the table off and used salt and pepper shakers, water glasses, jam packets, and whatever was necessary to lay out floor position and how to build it from the ground up. I must have been pretty lathered up, because after only about five minutes, Dave stopped me and said, “OK, OK, I get it. You know defense.” He said he would let me know, but as soon as I got back home, he called and offered me the job. It was a full time job just coaching basketball, which seemed unbelievable.
We had nowhere to live in Prescott, but this is where doing all those camps up there paid off. While doing the Phoenix Suns Camp, I had gotten to know Dick Van Arsdale, and he knew of someone up there where he had a summer home who was looking to rent their place out. It was in Groom Creek, which is eight or so miles up the old Senator Highway out of Prescott in a heavily wooded area- quite beautiful. So we moved in up there and started a trend that has lasted to this very day- and that is each job that I have gotten, I have thought “well, this is it, we’re going to be here until we retire”. Five jobs later, we are still thinking that!
Dave Brown was a great guy to work for, and we were together for one season, 1982-83. He loved offense and was always deep in thought about it. Dave was one of those guys that would write down a new play on anything handy, a napkin, toilet paper, or a gum wrapper. He turned the defense completely over to me and allowed me the necessary time to teach it- because it does take time and lots of it. When I got up there, I found out that the school was embroiled in a battle of whether or not they were going to keep the men’s basketball program any longer. Each junior college is at the mercy of it’s county governing body, and the Yavapai board of regents had been taken over by a very fiscally and socially conservative group. Dave had recruited a number of African-American players over the years and, in those days, that had rubbed this mostly white and conservative area the wrong way. The prevailing opinion was that the men’s program was doomed, whereas the women’s basketball team, volleyball, and baseball- which consisted mostly of white kids- were safe. The board was using the cost of the men’s program as its reason for cutting it, however.
I stayed out of the politics as much as possible and just concentrated on the basketball. Practices were great, but doing two teams a day made for hard work. When you are passionate about something, though, you don’t think about the length of every day, you just grind it out. Games were particularly demanding, because both teams had the chance to be very good. The men’s side was pretty even across the board, with the exception of Mesa, which, with the addition of Coach Youree, was top five in the nation on team defense. This was still in the era when junior college’s only had one division and if you wanted to play basketball, you were all in the same pickle.
I actually prefer that to what we have now with the three divisions and here’s why. Junior colleges are like no other when it comes to expectations of the participants. In high school, that will be the end of the line for 90% of the players- they are not good enough to play at the next level, and most know it going into their senior year. So having classifications and multiple champions is an OK thing. Not having a shot clock is an OK thing, too, because preparing someone for college basketball is not relevant for most of the participants. My 18 years of college coaching have shown me that high school players have absolutely no problem adjusting to a shot clock when they get to college. I have never had to sit a guy down one time to explain to him how a shot clock works. Four year college guys know that 99.99% of them will never play in the NBA and only about 5% will ever make any money at all playing basketball after college, so it’s off to the rec leagues for most who want to continue. So having different levels of classifications for four-year schools is an OK thing, since this is the end of the line for 95% of the players. What makes junior colleges different is that 100% of the participants want to and believe that they are going to move on to the next level. That is what junior colleges are for essentially with that level of expectation. Having a division I, II, and III makes no sense when everybody is trying to do the same thing- move up. Having a national championship is OK, and the juco’s have a great venue for that in Hutchinson, Kansas, but it doesn’t override the fact of why the programs exist. Feel free to throw in your comments on this, as this is my opinion based on 17 years of juco coaching.
Our men’s team in 82-83 finished 16-8- good but not good enough to overcome MCC. They were the conference champions and represented the ACCAC in Hutchinson. We did finish second in the conference in team defense behind Mesa, however, and had a ton of close games. Then the program was cancelled by the Board of Regents. The women’s team was the story…
Next…becoming a women’s coach…
After Dick Tamburo turned Coach Youree down for the ASU job, he told him that he would talk to the new coach, Bob Weinhauer, and tell him to hire coach as an assistant. In the subsequent meeting between the two, Weinhauer told Coach Youree that there was no way he would hire someone who everybody in the Valley wanted to be the head coach. And that was that for ASU. As a footnote, Ben Lindsey went 4-24 overall and 1-17 in the Pac-10 and was fired after one year. He was replaced by the guy who spent three hours listening to and taking notes from Coach Youree, Lute Olson from Iowa. To this day, Lindsey remains the only native born Arizonan to be hired as a head coach in basketball by any of the three state universities. Bob Weinhauer went 44-45 in three years at ASU before he was let go. He should have listened to his AD, right? Coach Youree went on to Mesa Community College, where he teamed up as a co-head coach with Tom Bennett for the next five years, where they went 126-37 during that span. Like Lute said to me one time, basketball is basketball no matter what the level, so I will always believe that ASU missed their golden opportunity.
I was going to join the MCC staff as a volunteer, as well, after East closed, and went over with Coach Youree to Spring workouts. Somewhere in there, Coach Y got a call from Dave Brown, the athletic director/head men’s and women’s basketball coach at Yavapai College in Prescott. He was looking for someone to help him coach the two basketball teams and asked if coach knew of anyone that he would recommend. He said he knew of one guy that Dave should hire immediately- me. So, Dave called and we met at a restaurant in Mesa for an interview. He was looking in particular for some defensive help and asked me immediately what I knew about that. By then, I was on fire with defense, having just spent a whole season with a basketball genius. I cleared part of the table off and used salt and pepper shakers, water glasses, jam packets, and whatever was necessary to lay out floor position and how to build it from the ground up. I must have been pretty lathered up, because after only about five minutes, Dave stopped me and said, “OK, OK, I get it. You know defense.” He said he would let me know, but as soon as I got back home, he called and offered me the job. It was a full time job just coaching basketball, which seemed unbelievable.
We had nowhere to live in Prescott, but this is where doing all those camps up there paid off. While doing the Phoenix Suns Camp, I had gotten to know Dick Van Arsdale, and he knew of someone up there where he had a summer home who was looking to rent their place out. It was in Groom Creek, which is eight or so miles up the old Senator Highway out of Prescott in a heavily wooded area- quite beautiful. So we moved in up there and started a trend that has lasted to this very day- and that is each job that I have gotten, I have thought “well, this is it, we’re going to be here until we retire”. Five jobs later, we are still thinking that!
Dave Brown was a great guy to work for, and we were together for one season, 1982-83. He loved offense and was always deep in thought about it. Dave was one of those guys that would write down a new play on anything handy, a napkin, toilet paper, or a gum wrapper. He turned the defense completely over to me and allowed me the necessary time to teach it- because it does take time and lots of it. When I got up there, I found out that the school was embroiled in a battle of whether or not they were going to keep the men’s basketball program any longer. Each junior college is at the mercy of it’s county governing body, and the Yavapai board of regents had been taken over by a very fiscally and socially conservative group. Dave had recruited a number of African-American players over the years and, in those days, that had rubbed this mostly white and conservative area the wrong way. The prevailing opinion was that the men’s program was doomed, whereas the women’s basketball team, volleyball, and baseball- which consisted mostly of white kids- were safe. The board was using the cost of the men’s program as its reason for cutting it, however.
I stayed out of the politics as much as possible and just concentrated on the basketball. Practices were great, but doing two teams a day made for hard work. When you are passionate about something, though, you don’t think about the length of every day, you just grind it out. Games were particularly demanding, because both teams had the chance to be very good. The men’s side was pretty even across the board, with the exception of Mesa, which, with the addition of Coach Youree, was top five in the nation on team defense. This was still in the era when junior college’s only had one division and if you wanted to play basketball, you were all in the same pickle.
I actually prefer that to what we have now with the three divisions and here’s why. Junior colleges are like no other when it comes to expectations of the participants. In high school, that will be the end of the line for 90% of the players- they are not good enough to play at the next level, and most know it going into their senior year. So having classifications and multiple champions is an OK thing. Not having a shot clock is an OK thing, too, because preparing someone for college basketball is not relevant for most of the participants. My 18 years of college coaching have shown me that high school players have absolutely no problem adjusting to a shot clock when they get to college. I have never had to sit a guy down one time to explain to him how a shot clock works. Four year college guys know that 99.99% of them will never play in the NBA and only about 5% will ever make any money at all playing basketball after college, so it’s off to the rec leagues for most who want to continue. So having different levels of classifications for four-year schools is an OK thing, since this is the end of the line for 95% of the players. What makes junior colleges different is that 100% of the participants want to and believe that they are going to move on to the next level. That is what junior colleges are for essentially with that level of expectation. Having a division I, II, and III makes no sense when everybody is trying to do the same thing- move up. Having a national championship is OK, and the juco’s have a great venue for that in Hutchinson, Kansas, but it doesn’t override the fact of why the programs exist. Feel free to throw in your comments on this, as this is my opinion based on 17 years of juco coaching.
Our men’s team in 82-83 finished 16-8- good but not good enough to overcome MCC. They were the conference champions and represented the ACCAC in Hutchinson. We did finish second in the conference in team defense behind Mesa, however, and had a ton of close games. Then the program was cancelled by the Board of Regents. The women’s team was the story…
Next…becoming a women’s coach…
