Every once in awhile growing up I would spend the weekends at my Grandma Blanche's house in Franklin. After breakfast on Saturday mornings we would make the quick drive over to the library. She would pick out some books for herself and some reading for both of us. She was a second-grade school teacher by trade and enjoyed working with me on various subjects especially my grammar. We would work on spelling and writing for awhile once we returned from the library. She was a big sports fan as well and we then would spend the rest of the time watching sports on television or I would go into one of the rooms and play basketball with the nerf hoop she had set up for me on her closet door. Although that all stopped on Saturday evenings when it was time to watch the "Lawrence Welk Show." Even to this day when I am flipping channels and I see old episodes are on PBS I have to stop and LW for a little bit.
Here in Indiana growing up Lawrence Welk was on Channel 6 and that was the station which carried the state basketball tournament. I vividly remember one time my parents came to pick me up and literally had to drag me out the door as the Franklin Grizzly Cubs were getting ready to play in the semistate championshp game in March.
One day while we were at the library of course I landed square in the sports section and was looking at all the different basketball books and found a book with Kent Benson going up for a shot and Bob Knight's picture in an insert on the cover. The book caught my eye and I instantly began reading it. A few minutes later my grandmother came over to me and asked if I was ready to go back to her house and if I had the books I wanted to checkout. I said yes, we checked the books out including the one with Benson and Knight on the cover and we drove back to her house on Jefferson Street that cold rainy day.
Knight with the Hoosiers is the first book I ever read cover-to-cover. It's the book which pretty much entreneched my fascination with basketball. The book is authored by Bloomington Herald Times Sports Editor Emeritus Bob Hammel. He chronicles the 1974-75 season with Knight coaching the Hoosiers to almost perfection. Using anecdotes throughout, Hammel describes how Knight keeps his team motivated throughout the season. He also shows the reader how Knight goes through and prepares his team and how Knight believes this team can go unbeaten and win the national championship in San Diego.
For those basketball junkies out there who somehow stumble across the blog, you know how it ends. IU loses its leading scorer, Scott May, to a broken arm as the Hoosiers win for the first time ever against Purdue in Mackey Arena. The Hoosiers will defeat Ohio State, Illinois and Michigan State to round out the season and another Big 10 Championship. Indiana is undefeated going into the NCAA tournament. The Hoosiers beat UTEP in the first round and Oregon State in the regional semifinals.
The Hoosiers face long-time-nemesis Kentucky in the regional final in Dayton, Ohio. IU, which throttled Kentucky earlier in the regular season, 98-74, at the Assembly Hall, falls behind late in the game and falls short of the comeback losing to the Wildcats 92-90.
Throughout the book though Hammel talks about the season and also personal stories about some of the key players from that team - Steve Green, John Laskowski, Quinn Buckner, Scott May, Bobby Wilkerson, Jim Wisman and Kent Benson.
About the only six places I knew where basketball teams played at that time were - Hinkle Fieldhouse (because watching the state tournament on TV with Tom Carnegie and Tony Hinkle calling the games on Channel 6), the Assembly Hall, Mackey Arena (loved it when only the court was lit), Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center (Notre Dame), and Pauley Pavillion because it seemed EVERY UCLA game was on NBC every Saturday or Sunday and of course Market Square Arena where the Pacers played and eventually the state high school basketball tournaments from 1975-1990. I even watched the Final Four in 1978 and of all things they used the IU floor. Talk about being confused especially when the Final Four that year was played in St. Louis. Man, just thought about this in a four year period Kentucky ended IU's 74-75 unbeaten season and then won its fifth national championship on IU's court.
Actually my lure with basketball didn't begin just by finding
Knight with the Hoosiers, it did begin a lot earlier than that. I can't remember when basketball has not been a part of my life. I remember vividly being at my grandma Blanche's house during one of Franklin's Final Four runs as the Wonder Cubs were making back-to-back Final Four appearances led by a coach who would someday become a mentor to me in Dick Harmening. Both the 1973 and 1974 teams lost in the morning game of the state finals. Ironically both lost to conference foes. The '73 team lost to New Albany and the '74 team lost to Jeffersonville, but they did come home with some hardware as Gary Abplanalp ('73) and Don and Jon McGlocklin ('74) were named the winners of the Arthur L. Trester Award for Mental Attitude.
Let me give you some background of how I became an IU and Bob Knight fan at an early age. Later on in this I will tell you why I became a Butler fan and when I began losing respect for IU and Knight.
My aunt and uncle had not moved to Arizona yet and on various Sundays during the basketball season after church when they were up from Bloomington I always remember sitting down watching the "Bob Knight Show" with my uncle as my grandmother Dorothy, my mom and my Aunt Lee fixed lunch. It was at these times my obsession for basketball and mainly IU and coach Knight grew.
My favorite segment was not the review of the games but when coach Knight went out to the Assembly Hall floor and demonstrated drills or plays. Immediately after lunch, if it was a nice day, my uncle would take me to the church basketball court in Bargersville. I would have him run me through the drills Knight showed during the show that afternoon. Even after my aunt, uncle and cousin would move to Arizona in 1977, I still watched the show on Sunday afternoons. I made it a point for my grandmother and mother to hurry up and shake Minister Roger Gifford's hand and get in the car and get to my grandma's house so I could catch the show and see what drill coach was going to show that day. I would later return to the church's parking lot...errr...I mean basketball court and work on those drills.
Anyway I am little off topic here so let's get back to the what this post is about - I FOUND
KNIGHT WITH THE HOOSIERS! You have no idea the importance of this book. I found it on line back in July of 2010. My wife doesn't get it and neither did my Dad at the time. My uncle Bill did though.
It's also signed by Hammel, Knight, Benson, Buckner, Wisman, Laskowski, Green and Wilkerson. There's also some interesting Bible verses in it. Which also brings me to a point in the book that still shocks some of my friends when I tell them the Knight quote that is in the book - "when someone who has all of a sudden discovered Christianity exists. They are amazed when they get a Bible and everything they want is there."
When my uncle came home (and yes when he comes back I always refer to him coming home) for my Dad's funeral last year while we were eating our White Castles the first thing I showed him was the book. He thumbed through it and remember most of the games of that 1974-75 season. Of course he asked "Why didn't you get the one from the 1975-76 team? That's the one that won the national championship and went unbeaten." I replied - "Because that's not the book that started all of this.
THIS is the book!" Like me, my uncle agrees the 1974-75 team was better than the 75-76 team.
It's this book that sometimes I look at it and wonder if I missed my calling. Instead of trying to find my way in sports media I should have went with my original gut instinct along with listening to Harmening - who by the way called me out of class on Halloween 1988 to inform me he wanted me to be a manager instead of a player. And if things couldn't worse that day the Colts thumped the Broncos on Monday Night Football at the Hoosier Dome. To say I did everything I could to not go to school the next day is an understatement. I was devastated about basically being the last one cut. I understood the reasoning Harmening gave me. He wanted to still be connected and be the team's Sports Information Director. I did do that for those two years. After the Sexton brothers moved after the first game of the year I did become a "practice player." I should have done more. I should have been a full blown manager and watched how Harmening conducted practices and how he went into preparing for upcoming opponents.
I look back at it now that my sports media career from a paid standpoint has quietly drifted off into the sunset and I do realize I was at my most content in regard to sports when I was coaching or playing basketball.
My absorbtion with basketball began before I even found the book. I was already playing and watching hoops on television. I vividly remember watching IU games and the state tournament games on Channel 6 when I was young. And of course the Bob Knight Show on Sunday mornings at Grandma Dorothy's immediately after church.
You know growing up playing basketball in the driveway of my parents' house I was everything - the players, the coaches, the officials and of course the play-by-play and color commentary announcers. Even more so when it was too cold to play outside and I played downstairs on the full-court nerf hoop court I had in one of the unfinished rooms of our basement. It was the same way when I was in Bargersville on the weekends - you could find me playing basketball in the church parking lot and sometimes not only going half court but playing full court by myself. I also did the same thing when I would go and visit at both my grandmother's houses. The hallway in my grandma Dorthy's house and the middle room of my grandma Blanche's first floor served as the courts. I'd do the whole production too - warmups, captain's meeting, starting lineups, national anthem, game, etc.
I was quite ecstatic when the park across the street from my grandma Blanche's house on Jefferson Street tore down the BMX racing track and installed a full-court basketball court. In the summer and the few Saturdays in the fall I would love going to grandma Blanche's house and while Dad mowed her yard I would go across the street and play basketball. A lot of times the college guys from Lambda Chi Alpha and Kappa Delta Rho along with some of the other fraternities at Franklin College would also play pick-up games on the court. Most of the time though it was me playing full court by myself or practicing. I absolutely hated it when it rained a lot because if the creek next to the park ran over the court was flooded for almost two weeks at a time it seemed like.
You wanna know what really burns me these days - all these basketball courts in the parks around the area and I drive by on a weeknight or weekend and they are
EMPTY! I understand a lot of places have leagues and the such now, but there was nothing better than playing pick-up at the park until the park management came and turned off the lights on a hot summer night in Indiana.
I vividly remember at night after I had finished playing pick-up basketball at Westside Park in Greenwood and playing snooker downstairs in the basement I would fill out my journal with my shooting performances from each spot on the court and also how I shot from the free-throw line that particular day. I would then spend sometime drafting up my own offensive and defensive plays. It was funny all these years later I found the notebook I kept all the plays in while cleaning out my parents' house over the last year. Somewhere in that notebook is a play possibly that would have won a championship or two or three or...
There were even times when I wouldn't play the imaginary games but instead have practice. And my "team" went through all the different scenarios of a practice. We worked on offensive plays, defensive plays, out-of-bounds plays and we also did drills. I know for a fact the people in my neighborhood on Jackson Place thought I was nuts. That or they thought "there's a basketball coach in the making and we can say 'we knew him when'."
Yes I even did it on those Sundays and even Thursdays when I was down in Bargersville after church or while my mom was at choir practice. I always looked forward to when choir practice would start for my mom and I could go down there and play on the goal in the church parking lot especially when Marilyn Ramsey would come for practice. Marilyn was the head coach at Southport and coached her team to the state championship over Columbus East in 1980. I remember writing a newspaper article for the newspaper I was putting together for classroom project in fifth grade. I also remember specifically telling her I wanted to coach some day if I couldn't play.
Some of the plays were so ordinary and simple. Still some of the plays though I think were quite complex and were offsprings of some of the ideas that Harmening and I have discussed through the years.
In the back of my mind I have always wonder what caused me not to pull the trigger and listen to the coach's advice and become a coach. Was I too over confident in myself? Did I think as I have thought over the last year about what some people say when I tell them all I want is a job where I go and do my thing and leave and they tell me "I know you. You can't be satisfied just punching a clock." Maybe I thought that way 23 years ago as well. That Harmening thought he knew me...when indeed maybe he knew me better than anyone even myself during my high-school years even to now.
Want to know the first time I had interaction with Harmening? You may answer no and of course you know I am going to tell you. It was March 2, 1984 after Center Grove had beat Greenwood 52-40 in the second semifinal of the sectional. After coach had talked with Ric Burrous from the Franklin Daily Journal and his wife Kitty, I handed him three pages of notebook paper. The conversation went something like this if I remember right.
"What's this?" Harmening asked.
"It's my scouting report for Franklin," I replied. "I had my Dad take me to watch them play on a night we didn't have a game. I also watched them play against Avon on the Channel 4 Game of the Week and then tonight against Indian Creek."
At the time I was in sixth grade. I can only imagine what Harmening thought. He probably looked at it and laughed. Funny thing is I don't think so. Not from the conversations we have had through the years. I honestly think the now Hall of Fame coach looked at it and thought to himself - "The kid has promise." Seriously I totally believe that because of the conversation we had that afternoon in his classroom once he told me "Robbie, I hate doing this but I have to let you go."
Even during middle school I remember putting a scouting report together for our eighth grade team as we prepared for the county tournament. My mother took Todd Jensen and me to Greenwood Middle School one night to scout Greenwood and Franklin. After I got home from the game I finished up my homework for the night and then stayed up finishing my notes. The next morning I handed the notes to my coach, Gary Robinson. I took great pride after we beat Indian Creek on that Thursday night that coach Kelly Rowand and Robinson used some of my thoughts in our practice that Friday.
It was a prime example of a great game-plan, but if it doesn't get executed it's not as good. That's what happened that Saturday morning in the championship game as Franklin beat us.
I went to a basketball camp at then Indiana Central University (now University of Indianapolis) for a couple of years. I also began attending coach Harmening's camp during the month of June at the middle school.
I didn't make the school team in sixth grade and truth be known I barely made the team when I was in the seventh grade. One of the players flunked off the team and it allowed Scott Hutton and I to go from being managers for the team to player-managers as we both played on the "B" team. The highlight of my season was in a game against Avon when I scored 14 points. It was also during this season after practice we went as a team across the street to the high school to watch the varsity and JV take on Franklin in a make-up game (the CG-Franklin game is usually played on Thanksgiving Eve but Franklin's football team had made the playoffs and the game was moved to January). While watching the game I was getting highly emotional about it. I remember Amy Comella - who was sitting with us at the time made the comment to calm down or something. I replied back with "You don't get it.
Basketball is my
life." Center Grove lost that game but came in March to beat Franklin and advance to the Columbus North regional.
Doing that allowed me to get better during the winter and not just goof around playing imaginary games outside on the driveway or downstairs in the basement. That summer though between my seventh and eighth grade year I felt it was a make or break summer for me. During the CG camp that summer we went to see Steve Alford and his father, Sam, speak at Perry Meridian High School. Steve performed his workout and it was then I decided that's what I needed to do to solidly make the team.
I made some tweaks to the workout when I did it. Ballhandling drills, jump rope, dribbling drills dribbling between lawn chairs and then took the chairs and had them in different places around the driveway in about 10 different positions. I would spin the ball back to myself and fake then go left five times, then right five times and then straight up five times. After that I would shoot 10 free throws and then go to another chair on the court and repeat. One the workout was done I would have shot 150 jump shots and 100 free throws.
Not only was I doing that workout every day with the card-table chair with a boom stuck through it as the defender but I also attended my first away-from-home basketball camp at Taylor University. In one week I learned so much from my instructors. I was completely bummed though I had to miss about a day of action. We were in our second game of the day in the league play. I grabbed a rebound and led the fastbreak. I put on the brakes too fast and rolled my ankle. I thought great the first real injury I ever sustain and it has to happens on the very first full day at a basketball camp where my parents spent a lot of money to send me.
While I was icing the ankle and taking treatment from the trainers so I could at least enjoy most of the week playing (I was back at it by Wednesday morning), I sat with the various instructors and picked their brains on certain things. Granted most of them at the time were college basketball players but there were a couple of instances where I could actually sit with a high-school coach or one of the Taylor assistants and ask questions or listen to them instruct us campers. I came home after that week with a totally different understanding of the game of basketball. Not only did I get equipped with ways to make myself better as a player but I also had a better knowledge of the game.
After a successful eighth grade year (played a lot on the "B" team and dressed the "A" team) and twice tied my all-time high for points with 14 against Plainfield and Martinsville East. Our only loss on the "B" side came against Mooresville. It was a game we all had marked on our schedule as a "must-win" because of how bad they had beat us the year before. I thought I was ready for the game. It was one of the rare occasions I can honestly say for whatever reason I failed to play to my potential that night at all. I was reminded of that as we loaded the bus on our way back to school. Coach Gary Robinson basically told me that as he called me up to the front of bus and took my walkman away for the rest of the season.
It was December in Indiana and it was cold. After I got home that night I changed my clothes and went out and did the workout - all the way through just as I had during the summer. I then went and finished studying for the night. I never again wanted to let my coach or teammates down for not giving a full effort on the court.
Although I did go to the Taylor and CG camps again that summer, I didn't workout as much on my own as I had the previous summer. I made the freshmen team but again played mostly "B" and dressed "A". I also developed a quick trigger in regard to my shooting. If I came off a screen and caught the pass and saw I was open that ball was automatically going up - I remember in fourth grade Pat Cooney's Dad gave me the nickname "Auto" because everytime I got the ball he knew I'd look to shoot first and then pass or something else. One night against Martinsville in the "B" game I scored like nine points in a two-minute stretch - definitely one of the best memories of my basketball life as a player.
As it was two years prior, I knew I had to take it upon myself to get better. I again did the Steve Alford workout, played pick-up with my teammates and even had my Mom or Dad take me to the two parks in Greenwood to play games or to Scott Long's house to play. I also made sure to make it to every open gym and weight-lifting session coach Harmening held that summer.
I made the junior varsity team my sophomore year. Not only that, but I got to start the first few games because the football team went deep into the state playoffs and not all of our players were back. We also had some with disciplinary issues. Being able to start the opening game of the season at Vandivier Gym was one of the best feelings. We lost the game to the Grizzly Cubs, but I did score four points (a rebound basket and then of course coming off a screen and draining a 15-foot jumper off the left wing). Unfortunately for me when these players returned they got hot and took my spot in the starting lineup and also my playing time. I only got to see playing time when the game was a blowout or they were having an off-shooting night. My white shorts were becoming red on the bottom from me sitting on the red bench at Trojan Gym on a more regular basis.
One of the highlights of that season though came Dec. 11, 1987 at Bloomington North. We had gotten behind and coach Clodfelter had inserted some of us from the bench into the game to give the team a spark. Bob Knight was at the game getting ready to watch his son, Pat, play in the varsity game.
I believe Tim Schafstall was shooting a free throw. I was lined up in the second lane space. I spun around the Bloomington North player and got the rebound. The official called the opposing player for over-and-back. I went to the line to shoot one and the bonus. I had practice free throws all summer while doing that workout (shoot 15 jumpers faking one way and then the other and then over the top of the broomstick in the chair and then shoot 10 free throws before going to the next spot). I averaged about 86 percent per day.
I swished the first. I got the ball from the official for the second and did my normal routine - four dribbles, spin the ball, four more dribbles, spin the ball, aim it, fire it - nothing but the bottom of the net. Well wish it were that simple. A good shooter can always feel the ball rolling of his fingertips. I had gotten that way with my shot through all these years. When I would get into slumps I would always remember my uncle Bill teaching me to shoot in the parking lot at the Bargersville Church and how he showed me the proper form (I also tried to emulate the players I saw on television as well).
This time the shot rolled off my fingers and it didn't feel right. I instantly yelled "off" because I was sure the ball would either hit the front of the rim or heaven forbid not even make it to the rim. Well it might have been a tad off center as it swished through the net. And most of the people in the gym who heard me (because the game was only in the third quarter and the fans for the varsity game continuously trickled into the gym) began laughing.
Because of some silly rule by the Indiana High School Athletic Association, I was no longer able to attend Taylor's basketball camp. Instead I went to Bob Knight's Basketball School at Indiana University. For the most part it was an all right camp. To be honest I felt like it was a camp where parents sent their kids because it was "Bob Knight's Camp." There were some decent players none that really stood out to me as being great or even would be considered being recruited by Knight and his staff.
The one great thing about this camp though was that most of the instructors were not college basketball players like at Taylor. They were assistant coaches at various high schools around the state of Indiana or were head or assistant coaches at smaller colleges from around the nation, who came to the camp to pick Knight and his staff's brain.
At every breakfast, lunch and dinner just as I did at Taylor when I made sure my friends and teammates sat with coaches or instructors, I did the same thing at Knight's camp in Bloomington. I don't remember the coach's name, at the time he was an assistant at Bloomington South, but we stayed up later than we probably should have every night discussing plays and different strategies.
From a knowledge standpoint I came away with a lot of information to use. Unfortunately that summer I didn't put forth the effort in my individual workouts. I played a lot of pick up, went to the open gyms and played in the summer league, but that was the extent of it.
I knew better because I hadn't grown hardly at all. Here I was a forward (the position I had played my entire life) now in a guard's body. For the position I would have to play at the varsity level my ballhandling skills were marginal at best. We had a good team assembled at the varsity level. We were coming off a 15-8 campaign and a sectional championship. Expectations from everyone were high on this team to have a great regular season and to also have a great tournament run come March. The football team was back to its normal self and had its usual early exit (yeah for those from Center Grovers reading this now and hearing "usual early exit" in the state football playoffs probably think I am lying). I wasn't given the luxury of the football players not coming to practice until Thanksgiving.
So on Oct. 31, 1988 as I was walking into Mrs. Atkinson's classroom for newspaper class, she told me coach Harmening wanted to see me in his room downstairs in the science department. You know you have to be totally impressed that not only was Harmening the varsity head coach for basketball but he was also the head of the science department. Yeah name me another coach who could fit that mold - yep didn't think so.
Anyway after he asked me to have a seat, Harmening began talking about my knowledge and love of the game. He discussed how he enjoyed watching me improve every year from the time I went to his camp as a seventh grader to this point. He then finally got to the point and said he knew I would be disappointed but wanted to make it as easy on me as he could and then he said those words (and let's face it any kid who has played basketball in Indiana and tried out for the high school team remembers the day they were told they would never play for the school team again) - "Robbie, I hate doing this but I have to let you go."
I was crushed, but Harmening soothed the blow he had delivered to my gut. We talked about ways I could still help the team. I could keep statistics during the games and call in the scores to the Indianapolis Star and get this - get paid for it! Then when the Sexton brothers suddenly moved after the first game of the season I immediately went to him the following Monday morning to see if I could either get a spot on the team or at least help out during practices - advice I got from Jim Williams, who had helped coach me during my freshmen year. Through clearance from the athletic director I was able to help out during practices as a fill-in player.
When we weren't playing I found myself going to other games of teams we would play later in the season and having my notebook filling out scouting reports. I didn't date hardly in school so what else was I going to do on a Friday or Saturday night if we didn't have a game during the winter
Yeah, I kind of got into coach's bag one afternoon during practice and took a copy of his scouting report file and made copies for myself. I also remember seeing either Harmening, Steve Clodfelter, Joe Lentz, John Frank or Williams' faces when they suddenly saw me at the game. At first it was "What are you doing here?" Then it got to the point of them saying - "Why am I not surprised you are here?" I would sit with them and they would give me something to look at during the game - either what kind of defenses teams played or even to look at the different signals the coaches were using to call out plays.
See that 88-89 team that we all had expectations of going as far as the 1972 Center Grove team (elite eight) or even two of Harmening's Franklin teams in 1973-74 (Final Four) fell apart after the near upset of Pike - I have yet to hear or see a Center Grove home game that loud since. The next game they lost to a very under-manned Perry Meridian team (and of course that was the day the rankings came out and even though we lost to Pike we were ranked 15th). The team had one last good home game against Martinsville (beating a young Artesian team by about 40), but from there it struggled. The team barely beat Greenfield Central and then after hearing Pike had beat Lawrence North at Hinkle for the conference championship, the team fell apart and lost to Lawrence Central.
It got worse. In the first game of the Franklin sectional that season we got behind early and never recovered and lost to host Franklin by 18 after beating the Grizzly Cubs by 22 to begin the regular season on Thanksgiving Eve.
It was the most quiet of a bus ride back I have ever been on in my entire life. I so wanted to stay on the bus and hear coach Harmening's talk to the team. I was forced off the bus by one of the other statisticians. I never asked any of friends who were on the team what was said and I never heard. I wanted to hear it mostly because if I ever did become a coach and suffered a loss like that one I wanted to learn how to react to it and how to talk my team after such a loss.
After a few college visits my senior year I decided to enroll at Butler for the radio/tv program. I thought it would give me the best hands-on experience and also the ability to make great contacts in the industry. Butler at the time also had a 50,000 watt FM radio station ran by students. I could get experience with play-by-play calling Butler football and instead of Butler basketball the station did the Indianapolis High School Basketball Game of the Week.
Things never changed with me when it came to basketball. I had decided I wasn't going to keep statistics my senior year. I wanted to be in the stands and watch for once.
"Who was I kidding?" as the season approached. I naturally changed my mind and went ahead kept stats and called the games into the Star. And of course the night before our first regular season game against Indian Creek I was at Indian Creek watching the Braves take on Eminence. Didn't tell Harmening or Lentz. Just as I did back in February of the 88-89 season when I met up with them to scout both Indian Creek (possible sectional opponent) and Columbus North (possible regional opponent) I met them in the southeast corner of the gym. They weren't shocked to see me. I believe they both expected to see me there.
"What else am I going to do on a Friday night?" I asked them. "Basketball pretty much is my life I have come to believe." Both looked at me and laughed. We got out our notebooks and began watching the Braves. We were positioned right in front of Indian Creek's Future Farmers of American homemade ice cream stand. I think I got two bowls that night. No wonder my gallbladder bit the dust at age 40.
That season was spent going to games here, there and everywhere. Any night we didn't have a game I was going somewhere watching future opponents. Took full advantage of the Hall of Fame Classic at the Assembly Hall in Bloomington that season as conference foes Pike and Lawrence North were both in it. Saw Pike fall apart against Damon Bailey in the morning game and Lawrence North thumped New Castle in the second game. In the night session I saw Pike hand New Castle its first loss of the season. LN held on for a one-point win against Bailey and his Bedford team.
When I got home from watching those games that night I had about 20 pages of notes. Unlike the previous season when we beat Lawrence North and came from 18 down at halftime to almost beat Pike, we were too undermanned. Both beat us by about 40 points each later in the season.
I took great pride when I went to the Marion County Tournament semifinals and championship at Southport Fieldhouse and to some other places to scout opponents and the future opposing coaches saw me in the stands. They had seen me at other places throughout the season and they
knew why I was at their game on that respective night. It wasn't because I had friends or wanted to see a cute girl who went to that school. We began the season 3-1. We ended it 4-17 and in the first game of the sectional we again lost to the host school in the first game. This time Greenwood, which avenged its loss to us from the beginning of January.
Yet somehow despite all the signs of a future-basketball-coach-in-the-waiting I still thought my best avenue for a career would to get into the media business. All I can say now looking back - "What The Heck was I thinking!?"
Harmening again pulled me aside after our dismal 4-17 season. He again made his pitch for me to think about going to school and becoming a basketball coach. "If you are dead set on going to Butler, I'll call coach Collier and write him a letter to recommend you as a manager. I really think you need consider it for the long run."
Even one night as my Uncle Bill and I were preparing to go see the Phoenix Suns play while I was there on spring break we discussed my "career" options. Neither one of my parents really pushed me in any direction. They only ever said they wanted to do what I thought would make me happy.
If I was ever going to coach I thought my best possibility would be somewhere at the college level. Even though I was in mostly college preparatory classes at Center Grove I mainly got average grades. I got a few A's here and there but for the majority of my academic career I got B's and C's. Besides what would I teach? There really wasn't any subject I was particularly good at when it came to school even English. Here I thought I could make it as a sportswriter - Seriously?! It seemed every time I turned around I was writing some sort of story about basketball, but my writing was probably for the most part like my grades - average at best.
I have to admit though through all of this the times I have been happiest with basketball was when I was either playing or coaching. I can't really describe it but even when I was broadcasting or writing about basketball it wasn't the same fire in me as it was when I played or coached. It is by far here where my true passion for the game lied and for some reason I never did a thing about it. Even when people would notice that certain "spark" in my eye when I began talking about coaching a team or wanting to coach.
I so badly wanted to be counselor at a basketball camp and give back to the game just as those counselors who had done the same for me all those summers when I went to Taylor's basketball camp. Before I was cut from the basketball team at Center Grove, I always thought I would spend at least a week or two at Taylor's basketball camp as a counselor. I had talked to Dave Odle (who ran the camp back then) on several occasions about possibly beginning with the younger kids and then eventually working my way up. Unfortunately I never got the opportunity to return to the camp I loved as a counselor. I still hope though that at some point my sons will be able to attend the camp on the Upland campus.
I got the opportunity twice while I was in college when I was counselor at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes basketball camp in Marshall, Indiana. Next to helping Chris Wood coach a couple of times that was when I was truly happiest about being around the sport. I still wish the National Conference Center was owned by FCA. It was truly a place touched by God's presence. To me I was finally giving back to the game I had grown up with my entire life. I was almost out of college at Butler to try and change the major or career choice now to me felt like a mute point.
Obviously I didn't take the hints I also received while looking for a job toward the end of my senior year in high school at Center Grove. It seemed every time I was in an interview with a potential employer and even in my final interview at (of all places) Shoe Carnival, I found myself talking with people who had also went to college for radio/television and found out what I would find out just a few years later - it's not the glamorous life you dream it being when you're a naive teenager and don't know any better.
I remember the manager of the Greenwood store his name was Howard. During my final interview at Shoe Carnival even he tried to talk me out of going to school for radio/tv. "It's a tough business to get into. Are you sure there's not anything else you would be interested in doing?" Of course I was confident enough in how successful I would be and not end up like him. Or like the other guy I met that summer at EmRoe's. Adam had actually went to Butler. He was different than Howard as he really didn't tell me not to do it but it gave me a vision of what could possibly happen. At the time he told me that he had gotten a better opportunity there at EmRoe than trying to make it as a career in radio/tv.
Even during my visit to Butler in November of my senior year in high school my mom was outside Lilly Hall. Her and another prospective student's father were talking. My mom told him I was going to Butler to be a sportscaster. The man told my mom - "He'll be lucky if he's selling Dominos Pizza on a street corner." Well at least I never did that.
During one of coach Harmening's camps toward the end of it the Converse basketball shoe representative for the state - Jack Noone - would come and give a talk. He'd ask a question and then tell you to either get a poster or T-shirt. He also gave the same speech at Taylor a couple of times as well. I can't tell you how many Converse basketball posters were on my wall growing up. I think I had them all. Dr. J, Clark Kellogg, George Gervin, Bird, Magic, Kyle Macy and many more. Finally I think my ninth grade year at the CG camp I finally was told to get a T-shirt. I wore that thing out as I wore it under my practice jersey almost every other day at practice and then when I was sick during the season I would wear it under my home white jersey.
Anyway, it wasn't winning the T-shirt or posters it was a comment Noone made once that always stuck with me. It was his thought about the types of people in the world:
- Those who make things happen
- Those who watch things happen
- Those who wonder what happened
After hearing that comment I thought I always strived to make things happen. I did all I could to not be outworked at anything I did. I was bound and determined to be a person who made things happen.
I am not exactly sure when IT happened. When I mean "IT" I mean how I fell into the third group of these people Noone spoke about. Was it after I accomplished what I wanted as a radio/tv major at Butler doing the 1993 IHSAA state championship game between Ben Davis and Jeffersonville? Whatever happened after that game on March 27, 1993 but I no longer wanted to do anything with radio or tv or my major for that matter. I was heading into my senior year. All I wanted to do was finish up and get my degree. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life as a career.
I got this crazy idea I could make in the world of Sports Information. I began working in the Butler sports info and marketing department for Jim McGrath and Chris Denari. I was in charge of the men's and women's soccer teams. I also worked at all the home football and basketball games. During my senior year I even got an internship working for the Indiana Pacers. What an eye-opening experience of what transpires behind what you see on the basketball floor. Still thinking I could make it in sports pr I did yet another internship and this time it sent me to Cal State Northridge where I was in charge of the baseball team. About the only highlight of that was getting a free trip to Hawaii as the Matadors had a three-game series against the Rainbow Warriors.
After returning home it was time to find a job. What was I going to do? I had no idea. I worked several retail jobs, freelanced for the Franklin Daily Journal, worked for Butler from time-to-time. Then I began substitute teaching. The thought came into my mind of going back and getting my teaching certificate. It wasn't too late was it? I could do that and finally become a teacher and a coach! Harmening along with Ruth Henninger - who was my Algebra 2 teacher at CG - both thought it would be a good idea. I flirted with the idea but it never materialized as I ended up getting a reporting position with Topics Newspapers. I would work there for three years.
During this time too I got married to a wonderful woman. Why she has put up with most of crap (for lack of a better term over these 16 years is beyond me). We had wanted to begin a family. Living on a court clerk and a wannabe Grantland Rice/Ernie Pyle reporters salaries wasn't going to make it. I ended up leaving Topics and going to work for AT&T as a customer service representative. That lasted about two months and I was fired. Great so what do I do. I was on my way to watch a high school football game one night when I heard the radio station carrying the game that they were changing formats and would be a news/talk station. I ended up talking with them and got a job at night working there and then during the day working at Borders. I did that for year. Wendy became pregnant with Andrew and he was born in July 2001. Two months later I left Borders full time and went to the radio station full time working the board at night and hosting a Friday night high school scoreboard show and a Saturday afternoon sports program while selling advertising during the day. I did that until 2004 and left there and went to Pitney Bowes and was somewhat successful selling mail machines and other office equipment products. Then got the itch to try selling radio advertising again with an Indianapolis station. That lasted three months and then went back to selling office equipment - copiers to be precise. Then for a headhunting company amd got fired from there and spent a month unemployed. Finally took a job with a crackerjack operation being the rep for promoting Rubbermaid wire shelving at Lowes stores as a third-party vendor. Did that gig for two years and made extra money during other projects for the company and also going back to my roots and covering high school football on Friday nights for the Daily Journal. Went from the vendor to trying to sell publishing services to wannabe authors and then my Dad unexpectedly died. I went into a state of depression for awhile and finally got hired on at FedEx where I have been for just over a year.
In between all of this three more sons, my mom died unexpectedly in 2007 - on the same day the Colts won the Super Bowl - I helped coach an AAU team, assistant coached with one of my favorite coaches in Gary Robinson at CG Central for 7th grade and got into officiating of basketball. Then not to mention came May, 2009 my dream job unexpectedly opened up - the executive director for the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. It's a job I had coveted ever since I first met and began writing to Herb Schowmeyer. I called in all my favors and got an interview. Then I got to be one of the finalist. The next morning after the second interview I got the call from the president of the Hall of Fame Phil Eskew informing me they decided to give the position to someone else. I was as devastated on that day as I was on the one when Harmening called me out of class and told me I was cut from the team. It also irked me a little that he made the comment that the committee didn't think I could raise a family of six on the salary the position paid. He had no idea that I had been raising that family on a salary anywhere from $23,000 to $30,000 over the last nine years. Wendy and I had managed. How could he know what I would do with $50,000?
I know it was God's plan and all but sometimes I think it was basketball karma getting back at me for not using my God-given talent to be a basketball coach instead of whatever it was I had become in my life while wondering what was happening. Of course Wendy and the boys wouldn't have been happy in New Castle. Matter of fact after Harmening had called me and told me I was one of the final two we drove to New Castle to actually house hunt. On the way home on I-70 just before Greenfield, Luke kicked my seat and I looked back at him and he said - "I don't want you to get this job with the basketball." "Why not," I asked. "Because I don't want to live in No Castle," he replied.
Coaching at Center Grove had its ups and downs. Really didn't deal with a lot of parent issues. Had three really good teams actually. The first one finished second in the state - after beating a rival in the semifinals - and then we took the team to Wisconsin and won the Great Lakes Shootout. That team seemed to click during that week of the tournament. At the time Wendy and I only had Andrew and Ryan. They made the trip with me. Unless it was basketball there wasn't really a lot for her to do with the boys. She found ways to keep them occupied. I think they made it to the championship game to see us win.
Coaching with Gary Robinson and Don Miller, I learned a lot as well. It was the first year that the CG middle schools had split. CG North definitely had the more talented team. They should have beat us by 10+ both times. Heck the first time we played them we had the lead until late in the game when we got beat. In the county semifinal Gary showed me how to play some mind games and to not have our team ready to play but to also have the opposing team doubt themselves. We won going away in that one and then beat Franklin in the final for championship.
Chris Wood and I had a mix of the North and Central teams for our spring team in '04. We struggled throughout. We could never get everyone on the same page. Heck, Chris and I could never get on the same page as we had been previously with the team we took to Wisconsin. Case in point in our first round game of the state tournament we were only down four points at half. Chris thought we might want to begin the offense higher on the wings. I thought we are only down four. We are a possession away from really making this thing interesting. "Let's stay how we are now. If they blow the game open we can adjust accordingly that way." Chris decided to change the offense. Our opponent came out with a trap we weren't ready for and then full court press and before we knew it the deficit went from four to 20 and then eventually 40! Craziest half I had ever seen. I had never seen a game get out of hand as that one did. I was in shock that night as I called Harmening on the way home and told him what happened. We finished that summer in a tournament in St. Louis. We added two players - which totally threw our chemistry or whatever it was we had away. Our point guard got hurt in the first game. The other teams we played in that tournament went zone defense against us and you would have thought our players had never seen a zone defense by the way they played. They were two teams we should have easily beaten and we lost both games. I was frustrated beyond belief especially when during one of the games I yelled a play out to one of the players we added for this tournament and she actually looked at me and laughed. REALLY? If had been the head coach at the time I would have called timeout and benched her the rest of the game. I don't mess with that crap and lack of respect.
I haven't coached since that tournament.
I was away from basketball for almost two years. I had begun working for a company called Oce in May of 2006 after a failed attempt to once again sell radio advertising. I got it in my head that I could get back into the game by being a basketball official. My ultimate goal was to become a college official at either the NAIA or NCAA Division III level. Thanks to Casey Gaynor I was brought down to the reality I best be happy with being a high school basketball official at the varsity level.
I had a crazy first year of officiating - I took any and all games I could to get experienced. I even got to do a varsity game. There would be more through the five years I blew the whistle as I traveled all over the state officiating games. After my Dad died unexpectedly as I have wrote about on numerous occasions I decided the 2010-2011 season would be my last. I needed to be home more for my boys. They were getting older and activities were getting ready to begin for all of them and I didn't want to miss anything because of basketball. I could still watch the games on TV or even take them sometimes as we did during the 2010-2011 when we had Butler season tickets. In five years officiating I officiated two of the top girls sectionals in the state (including the No. 1 team in the nation in Ben Davis in 2009) and also got to officiate in New Castle for the sectional and to almost sold out 9,000 gym in Chrysler Fieldhouse. I also got to officiate Pat Rady's 700th win. I remember seeing the Cloverdale-Eminence game coming up on my schedule and hoping the Clovers would continue to lose until the game with the Eels so I could be part of history that night with Rady's win. Plus I made a lot of friends from that avocation for a lifetime. I still keep in contact with most of them.
As much as I enjoyed the officiating and going to various places to referee games it still never topped how excited I got coaching basketball.
In 2010 and again in 2011 my Butler Bulldogs made back-to-back trips to national championship game. The first trip in 2010 was the perfect storm. The Dawgs were ranked in the Top 25 for most of the season. Butler ran the table in the Horizon League. Beat UTEP in the first round, Murray State in the second and then came the big game against No. 1 seed Syracuse. Butler jumped out to a huge lead, the Orange made a comeback but then Butler again pulled away and won to get to the Elite Eight. Two days later against Kansas State the Dawgs would pull away late and advance to the Final Four here in Indianapolis. I was fortunate enough to get tickets - granted up the nosebleeds but I was in the house of Lucas Oil Stadium. One of my bestfriends from college, Rob Evola, came from St. Louis to go to the games with me. He actually spent the night after Butler's win over Michigan State at my Dad's. He visited his family in marshall, Illinois for Easter and then returned for the championship game on MONDAY NIGHT against Duke.
I would be remiss in not telling this story though form the Michigan State-Butler National Semifinal game. At the under 8:00 media timeout someone sitting in front of us was texting someone. He texted "Butler fan behind me has coached the entire game and it's driving me nuts." Evola chuckled - "Yep, that's about right."
I couldn't complain with any of the play calling by Brad Stevens in the championship game against Duke. BUT, the final possession with the ball underneath the basket. I still wonder two things A. would Gordon have still been able to get the shot over Brian Zoubek had he went straight up and not faded away. B. yes Butler had the ball in the money-man's hands BUT could he had stopped and composed himself. Shelvin make a cut or even thread a pass to Matt Howard as Zoubek came off him to guard Gordon? Not to mention alright you got Gordon with the ball and playing point...Shelvin was on the wing. Veasley with the screen weakside block and Shelvin cuts through to the left corner baseline and he's open in the corner for a jumper. There's no one in that area and a solid screen from Willie and the Dawgs have it!
The fact Butler had a second chance because Coach K decided to have Zoubek intentionally miss the second free throw was amazing and that Gordon's shot was right there...well I probably would have had a heart attack and could have died in peace that night.
Coach Stevens again did a marvelous job coaching the 2010-2011 team BACK to the national final against Connecticut. High expectations were set forth on that team. Some so high the team seemed to crack under them at times I thought. But after a loss at Youngstown State he got the team to regroup and they ran out the string in the Horizon and won the league tournament. Then heart-pounding wins against Old Dominion and Pitt (one of the craziest endings to a game I will have ever seen in my lifetime) and then basically a remake of the Syracuse game in the regional semifinal this time against Wisconsin. The regional final against Florida extinguished a lot of "ghosts" against the Gators through the years - 2000 overtime loss; 2007 - had the eventual two-time national champs on the ropes for the better part of the game but ran out of steam in the end in St. Louis. This time Florida all but had the game won. The Gators - who are coached by one of my favs in Billy Donovan - had the game won. Suddenly they stopped going inside and their guards were trying to do everything. Butler got back in the game. Tied it and went overtime where Butler won and advanced to the Final Four.
Butler's national semifinal opponent this time was the 2011's tournament version of cinderella in Virginia Commonwealth. The Rams had played into the tournament winning an opening-round game then beating Georgetown, Purdue, Florida State then No. 1 seed Kansas. Unlike Butler, which had played so impressively throughout 2009-2010, VCU struggled off and on during the season. The Rams got hot at the right time and were a very dangerous team. Again though Stevens played his cards right and got the game to slow down and forced the VCU guards late into the shot clock. Butler won the game in the second half going away.
The championship game against UCONN things looked good for a half. Despite poor shooting from both teams. The Dawgs led at halftime and it looked winnable. In the second half Butler could not hit any shots and UCONN jumped out to a lead and won. The Bulldogs shot 18 percent from the field. A devastating loss and not the way you want to see your team play in the national championship game. I wasn't as bummed though as I was after the 2010 game - mainly because of the shooting performance in the second half, but also because I think the 2010-2011 overachieved from its potential standpoint. You realized during the season how important Willie Veasley and Gordon Hayward were to that team from the previous season. As the team struggled through the first half of the Horizon League schedule I began to wonder if they would even make the tournament. Fortunately they did and you gotta credit Brad Stevens for that and now as a Butler fan and in the Atlantic-10 Conference you gotta hope Brad will call Hinkle his home for a very long time.
I became a Butler fan once I decided I was going to attend the Indianapolis campus. I can say I have been a fan ever since Barry Collier became the coach and began "The Butler Way." It was my school and just as I had been with Center Grove I planned to be just as loyal. As for IU, Knight wasn't getting the players he needed to be as successful as he had been with the teams through the 70s, 80s and the first part of the 90s. Too many were leaving now on a regular basis. You could see he was losing the top recruits and we all know how bullheaded he is and it he refused to change. When Luke Recker left I knew the Knight era was about finished in Bloomington. The decision to fire Knight was inevitable. But what happened to the IU program under the Davis and then the mess Sampson created just really put a dark cloud on them and Butler took full advantage with its tourament success during this time. Now of course IU is back but as I have since 1989-90, I don't plan to waiver. I am a Bulldog ever do or die.
What does this have to do with anything through this blog - if nothing more it's to show you my continued love and frustration with basketball.
More to come including a very interesting breakfast conversation...
