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 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…
