For the Love of the Game

“Hey! Tom you going to the playground?” asked Ron

“What for?” I replied.

“To play basketball with the East End kids.” was Ron’s answer.

This was my introduction to the game of basketball. I was nine and it was the 1950’s. During the 50’s a boy growing up on Cape Cod had three things to do during the summer. You could dive for money that tourist’s threw from the wharf as they visited Provincetown, you could hit the beaches, or you could find a group of boys and play basketball on the playgrounds of P’town. Games where played every day and all daylong. If more than ten guys showed up then a series of round-robin games would be played. Every once in awhile we would go to the west side of town and played the guys from the west-end. This where we learned the fundamentals of basketball and learned the toughness and conditioning to play the game at a high paced level.

Some of us would go on to play for Provincetown High School’s legendary Coach David Murphy, some on the varsity team, others only as far as the JV team. Coach Murphy was a disciplinarian that got the most from his players. Players said he was hard but fair, that he emphasized teamwork.  What I learned from him was to take the talent you had, improve it, do not try and change it. If you were a rebounder he made you a better rebounder, if you had a gunner’s mentality he developed your shooting touch and provided you with the opportunities to shoot.  Coach Murphy also believed that the game had to be played full out for the entire game. In years when his team lacked a lot of talent it was not unusual for Coach Murphy to not substitute at all during the game. Newspapers often referred to Provincetown’s basketball team as the “Iron Five”. In his day, Coach Murphy was one of the best coaches on Cape Cod. From the mid 1930’s to 1967 Murphy’s teams collected more than 30 championship trophies, including three state titles. These accomplishments came while coaching one of the smallest high schools in the state of Massachusetts. In 2004, Provincetown named the High School Gym in honor of Coach Murphy and his coaching partner Betty DeRiggs, who also had a tremendous record while coaching the Provincetown’s girl’s basketball teams.
In 1958, I played for Coach Murphy on his JV team. He had followed me since Grade 7, then I was 5’7” tall and Coach Murphy, I think, had visions of a center. By Grade 9, I was 5’ 8” and a center was no longer in his or my mind. By my senior year, I was one of the two team managers. One day, Coach Murphy informed my partner and I,  were the worst managers he had ever had. Then he showed us what we needed to know in order to improve. I did not know it, at the time, but that was the day I began my love for the game of basketball. From that point on, I watched as Coach Murphy developed his players and how he used the small confines of our gym to the best advantage for the team’s success.

When Provincetown gym was being built the engineers hit solid rock, unusual for a community developed on a sand bar!  The result was the gym had a very low roof with steel beams only 15 feet above the floor. Play in Provincetown was like playing in a swimming pool. The walls on three sides were concrete that ended inches from the end of the court. The third side was where spectators sat. The gym held 750 fans and every game was sold out. Coach Murphy took the disadvantages of the gym and made them advantages for his team. He used a zone defense and the fast break in our gym, but the team slowed down the game and pressured teams when playing in the bigger gyms of our opponents.

The second coach that I watched as I grew up on Cape Cod was Coach “Red” Auerbach. In the early1950’s TV was in its infancy in bringing the professional game to every home. It was the time of the Boston Celtic’s Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, the Jones boys, Bill Russell and “Jungle Jim” Loscutoff. They and their coach “Red” Auerbach would teach me lessons that have lasted a lifetime.

The Celtics used an inbound play that I called “Set One”  and it is still used today. I do not know where Coach Auerbach got it from, but I do know where I got it. In addition to learning some plays that would prove to be useful over the years Coach Auerbach also taught me some things about the psychology of the game.
Whenever Cousy or Sharman were being hacked, in would come “Jungle Jim” Loscutoff who was also quite capable of hacking. He would do it once or twice and then he would get substituted, as he left Loscutoff would turn to the offending player and show three or four fingers. This very neatly told the opponent how many more fouls Loscutoff could deliver. Cousy or Sharman would then go back to the offensive part of their game.

When I first came to Canada many high school coaches lacked an understanding of the basic elements of the game. They tended to use tactics that were very successful in Canada’s national game of hockey. It was common for players to get hacked, especially if they were talented.  My introduction to high school basketball, in Canada, saw my best offensive players getting frustrated until I remembered “Red” Auerbach and “Jungle Jim”  Loscutoff.

The lesson I learned is that everyone brings something to the game and a coach needs to do two things in developing a player. The first is to find out what the best role for a player is and the second is to get the player to buy into that role. A good rebounder and outlet passer can make as much of an impact on the outcome of a game as a player who can average 20 points a game. Players need to develop mental toughness as well as the skills of the game.

Today it is very tricky for a rural high school coach, whose biggest player is 6’4” and needs him to play post for his team, knowing, if the player is to go to the next level, needs also to teach him how to play facing the basket and develop his ball-handling skills. Realizing this we made every attempt to provide all of our players with an opportunity to play the guard position.

In 1959, I headed west to New Mexico to become an unknown college student that wandered through the halls of academia for the next seven years. This journey would cross the United States three times. Two years later, I was attending Cape Cod Community College and listening, on the radio to Coach Murphy’s last run at a State Title. It was the College’s first year in existence and it would be Coach Murphy’s last solid run at a state title. The following year I was at the University of Massachusetts, and a freshman by the name of Julius Ewing was setting all kinds of records for the freshman team.  He was so good that more students attended the freshmen games than the varsity games. These experiences, unknown to me, nurtured the seeds for a love of basketball that would take a few years to develop, but the roots would prove to be strong.

By the summer of 1965, I was attending Colorado State University and discovered that I liked teaching. In May of 1966, I said good-bye to college life after seven years and that fall began my teaching career in the small community of Brighton, Colorado a hop and skip from Denver.

After seven years of being away from the game of basketball, I had little idea of the skills, rules, and techniques needed to be successful in coaching the game. About the middle of October, the Special Needs teacher came up to me and said.

“ Tom, how much do you know about basketball?”

‘A little,” I replied, “Why?”

“Well I am going to coach the grade seven team and I need some help.” He answered.

“Why two of us? I asked

“Well,” he said, “ The grade eight and nine teams practice right after school. If we do the same thing we get stuck on the stage, but if you will share the time with me we can go before school starts from 7 to 8:30am. If you can take the defense I will take the offense. That way you come in on Tuesday and Thursday morning and I get Monday and Wednesday. Games are on Friday.”

Thus began my introduction to the game of basketball as a coach. Lucky for me there was a college coach that was beginning to get national recognition who had developed some sound principles in the defensive aspect of the game. Coach Wooden did not know it but he became my best friend and my mentor. His pyramid of success would be the foundation and building blocks of my own coaching philosophy.

That first year we were successful in developing a strong team both on and off the court. We placed second in our conference, but the thing I remember most about that season was the smallest player coming to me at the end of the season and saying, “Coach look at me!”

“Yes Johnny I see you, what do you want?” I replied.

“Look coach! You said if I worked hard that good things would happen and now it has!” he said. “Don’t you see?”

It dawned on me as I stood up and realized that Johnny had shot up over 6” during the season and now was almost as tall as me at 5’8”.

“You're right Johnny a lot of good things happen this season and your hard work did paid off!” I said.

It was a moment where I realized that the sport of basketball was more than developing player skills or the winning or losing of a game. It was about the development of people. Early in the season, Johnny was the shortest player on the team. I had told him he would not always be that short, that there would be a day that he would be as tall as me or taller, (Had you seen his arms and legs you would know that was not a guess on my part). Johnny would learn later that his growth spurt had more to do with genetics than hard work, but today Johnny’s lesson was about accomplishing a goal through hard effort and a positive belief in himself. I truly believe that first team taught me far more than I ever taught them, for they had developed a love for the game deep in my soul. My first year as a basketball coach had been successful. Little did I realize that it would be just the beginning!

Though the year was very successful career and coaching wise, my personal life went into the toilet. By early July of 1967 not only was I on my own, I was also living in a new country. I arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on the eve of what they called “Klondike Days”.

My second year as a teacher found me far from home and miles from the nearest basketball team.