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Every day when they came to school in the morning, they came by my office to see if I was sitting in that chair so they knew I would have their back.

They might not say hello Coach.

They may not say anything, but their head would pop in and they wanted to know if I was in their chair and if I wasn't, they wanted to know why I wasn't in the chair.

Dick O'Neill is a member of the New York Basketball hall of Fame.

He amassed more than 340 wins in his 20 plus years as a high school boys basketball head coach at Monticello High School and Burke Catholic High School.

Dick has served as president of the Orange County Coaches association and of the Basketball Coaches association of New York.

He was the organizer and chairman of the BCANY All Star Games.

He was named Coach of the Year nine times by the media and selected as the best coach in Section 9 by his fellow coaches.

Dick has also coached in the Empire State Games.

He served as the co Director of Big Guy and Tall Gal Basketball Camps.

As a player at Kentucky Wesleyan University, O'Neal was a member of three Division 2 National Championships in 1966, 1968 and 1969.

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Be.

Prepared to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Dick O'Neill, former high school boys basketball coach and member of the New York Basketball hall of Fame.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host, Jason Sunkel tonight.

But I am pleased to be joined by Dick O'Neal, a member of the New York State Basketball hall of Fame, longtime legendary high school coach in the state of New York.

Dick, welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

I'm glad to be along with you tonight.

Thank you.

Thrilled to have you on.

Looking forward to diving into all of the interesting things that you've been able to do in your basketball life, both as a player and the impact that you've been able to have on so many players and teams as a coach.

Start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell me a little bit about your first introduction to the game of basketball.

I know that you moved out of Brooklyn when you were young and that kind of changed the trajectory of, of what your life looked like, but just give me an idea of how you got introduced to basketball.

Well, my first love was baseball.

My dad was a motorcycle cop in Brooklyn, and when he retired, we moved upstate to Chester, New York.

But my first love was still baseball.

Then when I got up to Chester, some of the guys were playing basketball and I was just really not a big kid at that time.

I grew a little bit later and the first team I was on, I was the last player on my junior high team, I was the last player.

And I said, this can't happen.

This can't happen.

And from there then I never left the playground.

You know, if there was nobody there, I'd pass off the wall.

I would do different things, just walk by myself and things.

But for most part, there was always a game.

And if there wasn't a game in Chester, when I got old enough, I traveled to local towns and things like that where I knew there could be a game.

And, and after a while, it, it sunk in and, and then when I got to high school, Mike, I had a legendary coach.

He played at Seton Hall.

I don't know how far you go back, but he played with Walter Dukes, who was a seven foot knickerbocker.

He played the last time they won the NIT was that year, and he was a guard on that team.

And in our area, my high school, I only graduated with 28 kids, 15 girls and 14, 29 kids, 15 girls and 14 boys.

And so everybody had to play everything.

So I played soccer Which I didn't even know what soccer was and basketball and baseball, but in order to have teams, that's what we had to do.

So.

But basketball became my first love, that's for sure.

What's your favorite memory of that time playing pickup basketball and just going around to different places?

Do you have a memory that sticks out from.

From pickup basketball?

Really?

What sticks out is all the friends I made in the various towns.

You know, we travel and I play with guys and.

And.

And became friends with them, became friends with them, that I'm still friends with them today.

And then we started playing together.

Then we started playing together, travel up to West Point, playing the Bear Mountain League up in there and.

And go to various tournaments together.

And some of those guys I play golf with to this day.

Yeah, and that's the biggest memory of that.

That was the biggest memory of that because we didn't really have a lot of competition for big men in my area.

And so I really.

A lot of times I wasn't challenged that way.

So to do what I had to do, I had to travel.

So it's funny that you say that in terms of just making lifelong friends, because people oftentimes will ask me about my experiences in basketball.

And similar to you, I grew up going to first sort of local park, right.

And playing pickup games.

And then eventually, just like you as my friends, and I got old enough to be able to drive, then we were driving around to different places to be able to play and find better competition.

And I always tell people that the experiences that I had and I played high school basketball and played college basketball and had great experiences in both of those situations.

But I always feel like some of my best memories and some of the people that are still part of my life, so many of those friends that I have, just like you, are people that I met through playing pickup basketball and not necessarily on my high school team or on my college team or whatever it might be.

And so I have a lot of fond memories of just like you getting in the car and driving and finding a game here, finding a game there, or knowing which night was going to be a good night to be able to play and all those kinds of things.

So it's.

I think our experiences were very similar.

Obviously, the kids that are growing up today experience it in totally different way because that pickup basketball culture that you and I grew up in really doesn't exist in the same way.

It's been replaced by AAU basketball and some of the travel situations that kids get involved in.

And I Always feel bad for kids today that they didn't get to grow up the way you and I did in terms of just going to the park and playing without mom and dad watching you or without a coach watching you or a referee or a scoreboard.

You just played for the love of the game.

And it sounds like that's sort of the experience that you had growing up.

There's no question, you know, moving to Chester in that little town kind of saved my life.

I was actually, at 11 years old, really going in the wrong direction.

I just, I just, I hadn't found myself.

I had no idea, you know, I, if I, I was talking about dropping out of school at 16, the first chance I could get, and things like that, and then going there and then picking up with those kids, and then my high school COD really getting after me.

He saw something in me that he could get after me.

And, you know, I didn't like it, but I just dealt with it.

I just dealt with it.

And some of the things he said that still, you know, still well within me now.

Some of the things he does, the style of basketball is changed.

You know, I don't have that in him anymore.

But he was a.

He didn't want to talk about zone.

It was always a man to man defense.

And, and when I went to college was the same way.

So.

But growing up, he.

I was.

Let me give you, for instance.

I was a big Wilt fan and he was a big Russell fan.

And, and, and, and the way Celtics went around their business.

And he talked to me, I'll get on to.

I had a unique skill.

I don't know if Brad told you that, but you're going on.

If I block the shot, I block the shot.

Bleachers.

He says, that's nice.

He says, but look what, look what Russell does.

He'd block it, keep it, and they were running with it.

And I thought, yeah, I don't, you know, that's the way I want to play.

That's the way I want to play.

And that's how I, that's how my game developed was from that.

And he, he saw it through, but he still was persistent about getting an education.

And, you know, once I was getting through high school, I had, I had no idea.

I didn't want to go to college, you know, but.

And then I was, I didn't go my first year and I played in the City League and that was all fine and, you know, but there was.

It wasn't.

It wasn't hitting me in the heart at all.

And, but, but I would say he had a huge, huge influence on, as a matter of fact, just as a byline, as I was giving my whole same speech.

He died at that moment, and my mother got a text or a phone call from his wife at that time, and I didn't know until afterward.

But that's how ironic that is.

But that's what I'm saying.

Basketball changed my life, just changed my life.

When you think about the influence of your high school coach, was there any moment in time while you were playing for him that you thought, hey, maybe coaching is something that I wanted to do?

Or was that something that came later, either in college or after college?

When did the idea of maybe wanting to get into coaching, when did that hit you?

Well, let me be honest with you.

When I thought about it, I thought if I could do for one kid what he did for me, that maybe that, that was my calling.

That was my calling.

And I, I did.

And, but what, what he did for me, I was trying to do for other kids.

And, and maybe we had a different way of going about it, but, and not only me, my other teammates too.

You know, I, I, I played.

If you go to a small spool, there's going to be highs and lows.

In other words, the class in front of me had two good players, we had three good players.

The class behind me had two good players.

So we were, you know, we had seven players that could play reasonably well.

And, you know, we were very successful.

It wasn't like we were, but the thought of it, the thought of it just being out there and watching.

My junior year, he left my senior year, he thought the schools were going to centralize.

He didn't want any part of that.

So he went to another school upstate a little bit.

But he still, once a week I get a phone call, what's going on?

And things like that.

But as a junior, I was about 6:2, probably maybe 160 at the time, and there was a kid who was a senior who was about 6 5, but he never played.

But he was around and he was 65 and he started him.

So I came off the bench.

But the thing of it was, if he started good, he had a pretty good game.

But if he didn't, then I'd get in there early and then he'd sub around me, you know, he'd sub around me and that kind of thing.

So I played pretty much the game and I had a lot of success doing it.

I kind of enjoyed it.

I got a lot of recognition for it too, that I never thought, you know, I never thought it would be that way.

And, and at the end of the year, he didn't say anything.

He just nodded.

You know, he just like, he won't say, but it was well done, son.

Yeah, so that's what it was.

When you think, when you think about him as a coach, and again, like you said, not necessarily the style of play and from a basketball standpoint, but when you think about what he was all about as a basketball coach, what's one or two things that you feel like you carried with you into your coaching career, Something that still demonstrated his, his influence in the way that you coach?

Well, I coached hard and Brad may have told you that I coached him hard and I held him accountable, which he held me accountable.

And I thought that was really the way I wanted to go.

And let me just jump ahead a little bit.

He was in the Korean War and he came out and he was a Marine.

And so I don't have to tell you how, you know, he was a drill sergeant type coach.

And when I went to college, I thought I got away from it, but my first coach was a Korean War vet who was the same damn way.

So I jumped from the fryer pan into the fire.

So getting back just the way he, the way he, the way more the way he handled me, he handled me because he knew if anybody was going to move on or anybody had a chance to play at the next level, it was me and maybe a guard and the other guard did play at the next level.

And, and I just, that was just one of the little things that I knew I had to put into my program.

You know, I just, I wanted to be myself, but I wanted to be what I was taught, you know, and, and I was a hard line on that.

You know, I just, I was flexible offensively and well, offensively I was flexible.

Defensively I wasn't too flexible.

But, but just, you know, if, if you're 10 minutes, if you're 10 minutes early for practice, you're like, you know, those kind of things and you had to wear your uniform a certain way.

And, and my high school g.

The top of the foul circle and the half guard circle intersected and back court was three quarter court was the other foul line.

I played on a, I played in a gym like that once when I was in, when I was in junior high, there was one of the junior highs in our conference that had a gym just like that.

Just, just like you described.

It was crazy.

And my wife was from Our biggest rival, which was six miles away.

And that gym, you had to keep your foot on the wall to get the ball inbound.

And the referees had to work from the sidelines because they couldn't get on the baseline.

And most of the schools were small.

There were only two schools when I was in high school that had glass backboards.

How's that?

Two schools that had pass backboards.

I believe it.

A lot of them had moon tens and things like that.

It was just a different time.

I don't think kids appreciate what they have today.

It's just a whole different, you know, even sneakers, you know, we had either wore cats, maybe you get away with cats, but everybody was in Converse.

You know, it was, it was a simple thing and either you wore high low.

One of my best friends who played in the Town over, he wore, he was a big Celtic guy, so he wore black low cuts right until the day he died, which was last summer.

But yeah, but I remember, I remember having the Converse Chuck Taylor's on.

And then when I was maybe I was probably In, I think sixth or seventh grade.

So that would have been maybe like 1982.

Somewhere in there I got my first pair of leather Dr.

J, converse all Stars and retired the Chuck Taylors.

But when you, when you look back on that and think about playing real games and in the Chuck Taylors like guys like yourself and you know, think about NBA guys, you talked about Wilt and Russell and all those guys from that era playing in that kind of shoes.

And yeah, you're 100% right.

That when we look at the things that we have today in terms of shoe technology or as you said, gym access, kids have so much more access.

Again, they don't play outside kids.

If you tell them, hey, I used to play serious basketball outside.

Kids now look at you and they turn their head, they're like, what do you mean play serious basketball outside?

Nobody does that anymore.

But obviously you and I spent a lot of time doing that.

It's amazing how the eras have changed.

It.

And you know, Mike, and I'm going to say this, I don't think for the good, you know, I'm just, that's that stubborn and that old fashioned and things.

I didn't get my first parallel until I was playing in the city leagues three years after I graduated college.

So that would have been 1972.

I had the pool.

Okay, there you go.

The Clydes.

I had the Puma Clyde's at the time.

Okay, yeah, there you go, there you go.

All right.

So going back to you as a high school player, when did you start thinking that an opportunity to play in college might be available to you?

Was that something that you had thought about from when you were younger?

Was that something that somebody else brought to your attention, said, hey, you might be good enough, dick to have an opportunity to play in college?

What was the mindset like for you when you.

Was that something that you had always thought about or dreamed about?

You know, I did, but Mike, I thought it was out of reach for me because I was such a poor student, because obviously I didn't really, you know, I was thinking, I'm going to quit school, I'm not going to college, that kind of thing.

And it really didn't.

It really didn't.

Wasn't a lot of thought.

You know, I thought about it, I loved it, but I didn't, you know, I didn't think it was in my future.

And another thing, my high school, I dated.

My wife was my high school sweetheart.

And I, when I got graduated 10 months later, I was married with a baby and I went to college as a freshman that way.

So then that year I worked out that, that I was out of school.

I started working in Arrow Shirt.

Had a.

A plant, a brand new plant in our area and I was working there.

And I'm, you know, it was about after two or three months, I said, I'm not doing this the rest of my life.

You know, I gotta, you know, I got to pursue something here.

So.

Right.

And that's how that happened and how I got to Wesleyan is.

My dad was a very good letter writer and he was.

I think I was living through him.

You know, I was doing.

His dream was through me, you know, and he.

We sat down one night and he opened one of them Barron's books.

You remember those Barron books that listed all the colleges and the tests you could take and that kind of thing?

Yep, absolutely.

And he said, he opened it and he said, close your eyes, put your finger on three schools and we'll write a letter.

And he says, I'll write the letter.

So that's what I did.

First school, Brigham Young.

And you know, obviously, you know, I wasn't.

That, that wasn't in my.

That was it.

They sent back a thing that I promised not to drink, smoke or swear to four years.

You know, I was like, you know, my folks didn't even tell me that the second one was Colorado State.

And they sent me back, they were gonna.

But that was all about mining and minerals and, you know, math and science weren't on the top of my list.

And then the third one was Kentucky Wesleyan.

And he wrote back and he sent.

He said, I'll.

Without ever seeing me.

He said, I'll give you books and half your tuition, and then if you work out, I'll give you a scholar.

So we went down there for a visit and when we get to that, I'll explain all that went on at Kentucky Wesleyan.

But he saw me work out.

I didn't bring work out.

He saw me work out on the floor in my socks by myself, just, you know, doing things.

And, and he said, you know, come on, come on, you can walk on.

And I did so and that changed my life for the.

Forever.

Forever.

So what were you thinking then, as you get in there academically?

What was the thought process?

Well, you know what, I was smart enough.

I just never applied myself.

So, you know, I went in and I went to.

First of all, I went by myself.

Diane was home.

The baby was going to be born in October, so she was home.

Then when I came home for Christmas, she came back with me and we lived in, on an off campus housing and we'll get to that at some point.

But I applied myself and halfway through the first semester they reevaluated and they made me eligible.

So that was the thing.

And from then on, and I'll bet there's another story that I'll go along with, but that's what happened.

And, and I applied myself right through.

Not that I killed myself.

You know, basketball was the first thing on my mind and.

Right.

But I did the work.

I did the work.

What was the adjustment like for you on the basketball court?

The first, the first day we got there, the freshman came in one day and then the upperclassmen came in the other day.

Well, one of the upperclassmen came in.

Are you familiar with Merrill High School in Louisville, Kentucky?

Louisville, yes, absolutely.

Yep.

Three of those guys were from there.

And they came in and we went over to the gym, which I'll get to, was a World War II Quonset, by the way, and we played.

And before my father could get back home from driving me down there, I called my mother and said, mom, I can't play here.

I mean, I was just really out of my element in the beginning because first of all, I had never played with five players that, you know that, that good.

And they were all very good.

One had averaged 37 points a game in high school in Kentucky.

Two of them played on the number one high school team in the state and, and things like that.

So they were playing against big time competition every day, Every day.

So I was a little bit behind.

But they accepted me right away, Mike.

And that was the whole key to the whole thing.

They accepted me because they knew they could see maybe I wasn't up to it, but I wanted to win very badly and they could see that in me.

And at the time, I was the only out of state player on the team.

Everybody else was Kentucky and I was from New York.

And as you asked me more questions, I'll elaborate.

But yeah, I was overwhelmed.

And then when he got home, he called back.

He says, you can, you, you'll do well.

You just stay there.

He says, I believe in you, son.

And my mother was really the one.

She says, don't come home.

Don't come home.

I got no place for you here.

Don't come home.

And that's how it started.

That's how it started.

Gotcha.

Okay, so in my research, and I don't know where this story exactly fits in, but it sounds like it happened at some point during your freshman year where you guys took a trip that you maybe were not supposed to go on to Africa, and then you ended up having the opportunity to go on that trip.

And I read the story, and I enjoyed the story just reading it, but I can imagine that I'm going to enjoy the story even more hearing you tell it.

So go ahead and kind of tell it, Tell us that story and put it into context of where that fits into your college experience.

Okay, well, first of all, I wasn't supposed to go.

There was only 10 guys.

And like I told you my freshman year, I, I'll get to that.

My warmup was mostly zippered up to my neck my freshman year.

So just, we'll go, we'll go with that.

But, but the guy who played in front of me was an All American.

He, he transferred from.

He, he was the only transfer we ever had in my four years in college there.

And he transferred to the University of Louisville because he was playing behind West Hunt.

And he saw where that was going.

Not that he wasn't a great player.

He was a two time all American.

He was the most valuable player in the national tournament his junior year.

He played seven or eight years in the pros, in the aba.

In the ABA at the time, but he was, you know, he was 6, 7, 2, 40, and he was athletic as hell and he took no precedence and, but his wife had just had a baby.

So coach calls me, he says, look, he says, you have an opportunity here to play Seven weeks of basketball over and, you know, and.

And go to Africa.

And go to Africa.

And I'm thinking, test in New York.

I'm going to Africa for seven weeks.

What's going on, you know, what's going on in my life?

And all of them, I mean, we were all the same way.

But now I got to go home and convince my wife, you know, after I had left the first semester at the beginning, and now she's home, and I said, and I'm going for seven weeks.

So we're leaving actually like July 7th.

So.

And we had to go back a week early for two days.

And.

And we got back two days before.

I had to come back two days before Labor Day.

And.

And the.

Ended up.

They had gotten their shots like two every two weeks.

Two shots here, two shots.

They all.

I got 13 shots in two days.

And I literally could not.

I mean, I could not lift my arms to brush my teeth.

That's how.

That's how sore they were.

That's how sore they were.

So that's.

That's part of the story.

And.

And they love to tell it too.

They love to tell it.

So.

But that, that was a part of it, you know, there was.

How long, how long did it take you to loosen those arms up after that happened?

It took a while, honestly.

God, it took a while because when I tell you I couldn't lift them, I couldn't get them.

Finally I got them to here, but they were so sore and.

And some of them, they won't absorb right away.

So that there was a little.

Little lump there.

You know what?

I'm not.

That it was infected, but it would.

They just.

I guess they could only absorb X amount of things at one time.

And doctor, he was a team doctor also, he thought it was quite funny, you know, so.

A funny deal.

But, Mike, I would say it took really maybe two and a half, three weeks.

For the saunas to go away.

Yeah, for the saunas to go away and that.

And I was trying to play.

I was trying to do things, and it was literally impossible.

You know, I was able to pass here and do that kind of thing.

But that's.

That's how it worked.

That's how it worked.

Yeah.

All right.

I know that there was an airline issue that was a part of the trip which ended up rerouting you in a different location than what you originally.

What the original itinerary was.

So walk us through that.

Well, it still is the largest airline strike in the history of United, maybe in the world.

The history of the world at that time.

And so I had to go back to Owensboro.

I wouldn't say a week.

Let me say it was five days.

We were leaving on the seventh.

So I walked back a couple days before July 4th and July 4th in Owensboro, Kentucky.

There's no picnic particularly we're playing in a.

When I'm telling you, a World War II concert.

That was our home gym.

A World War II concert.

But our arena was a seventh down seat arena in downtown that was beautiful.

It was called the Sports Center.

I'll get to that.

But the out of bounds with the walls when, when my dad got out of the service and.

And we.

And I was first born.

We lived in a Quonset in Canarsie, New York.

So I was from.

Not that I remember that, but that brought back memories.

It was thing.

And out of balance was literally the wall.

And if you shot from the corner, you had to be pretty careful because it was going to hit the roof.

And I'm telling you we had some wars in there.

And Mike, I thank God for that quantit every day because that's where I really learned.

That's where I really learned it.

It just I became.

And we'll go on from there.

But getting back, I had to get a train at Grand Central.

My father left me off at Grand Central.

I had to take a train to Cincinnati and then I take a train to Louisville and then I took a bus to Owensboro.

And I'm figuring we're going to fly from Owensboro into Louisville and then we're going to go to New York and from JFK and go, well, no good.

I get back on a bus.

We go to Louisville on a bus.

We go to Cincinnati in a bus and we get on a train in Cincinnati and go to jfk.

We go to jfk, but we still don't know where we're flying, you know, and the State Department's doing all this was a State Department sponsored tour.

This was not local.

I mean it was a social development tour.

It was 1966.

It was the beginning of the.

The Peace Corps, you know, the Peace Corps girls and guys were around.

And so finally they got us on a plane for Air France because they were outside the country, they weren't on strike.

So we flew Air France into Heathrow in London and spent only a night there, Spent only a night there.

And the night we had a lot of.

We got Heathrow early in the morning.

So we had all day there and the night and we didn't have no practice or anything.

So we were all over the city and then went back to the hotel, got up the next morning.

Then we got on Heathrow and flew into Orly in Paris.

And we had the same situation.

We got in there early in the morning.

We had all day, but we were really happy to get the hell out of Paris.

And you know, the London was great, but Paris was, you know, even, you know, they talk about Americans now.

It was worse then.

It was just like.

And on the sideline.

Don't ever walk up the Eiffel Tower.

You know, a couple of us did that and I got to the top and I said this was.

It was beautiful, but I'll be on the elevator from now on.

But got a little.

Got a little leg workout in there.

That was a rough walk.

But I was real glad to get out of Paris.

Then we fought in, flew into Fort Le.

Me and Chad.

And then if you want to go on with it, I don't know where you want me to take you on this thing.

It was a seven week deal.

You want me to stay with the Africa thin.

Stay with it.

Yeah, I want to hear the whole thing.

Okay.

We get to Africa and we in Fort Lemy in Chad and.

And Chad's one of the few countries that hasn't changed its name over.

You know, they change names.

Like we go to Shoprite or someplace.

You know, that's how they do it there.

Yeah.

And we got on a bus probably, and it was only us on a bus.

So let me say it was probably, let's say a 20 seater, but.

And it was still daylight.

And we were on some roads, Mike, that were like we're looking over.

I mean, we're looking out the bus window and it's straight down.

And the road and the boat, the holes.

It was like the Burma Road or the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

I can't imagine.

Anyway, it was maybe a.

Maybe a 30 mile ride, but it was like riding into hell.

But we got to the hotel and the hotel was beautiful.

I have to tell you this.

The hotel was beautiful.

But the first night and.

And put it in historic for us.

It was the first night that a white room with a black.

And it happened to be me rooming with my favorite player to begin with.

But anyway, that was the first time that ever happened at Kentucky Westin.

And thinking back, I'm real damn proud of it.

I'm real proud.

And he's close to me this day.

He lives in Louisville and we communicate two or three times.

I'll get to that.

But there was some kind of storm that night.

We were in the room.

There was some kind of storm that night.

And the sounds that were coming from around and we were close to water.

I mean, we were close to the ocean actually.

And.

But the sounds in the back, it was like.

I can't imagine it sounded like.

I guess it was maybe frogs or birds or something.

But it was like scary.

It was like scary.

And the next morning we get up to go out and one of the guys had hung his gym shorts out over the railing and he'd get up to get him in the morning.

Look.

And a guy and one of the Africans was walking down the beach with his basketball shorts on.

So that kind of starts it.

But the hotels we stayed in at that time in 1966 were as nice as Vegas or Atlantic City or anywhere.

But the food was horrendous.

We survived mostly on ham and cheese sandwiches, which was that time chambeau and fromage with a little mouton.

That's how we kind of survived.

And we couldn't drink the water.

So the water can.

The.

The canned water or the bottled water forget came from France.

And it was more expensive than the beer.

So we did some business.

We did some beer.

As a matter of fact, the, the water and those things were cheaper than like a bottle of Beef Eaters.

Gin was like four bucks or something.

I mean, there was no taxes.

There was nothing on it, but.

Right.

You know, not that we were doing that, but.

But we couldn't really drink the beer.

So what we're doing was drinking Heineken's because it came from Germany.

And so that's what we had.

And, and, and that's pretty much.

But the food was terrible, but the hotels were very, very nice.

Very, very nice.

Yeah.

How many games did you guys play over there?

Okay, well, what the.

How it works was we do clinics in, I think we were 25 different countries, you know, and mostly on the Ivory coast, where the horn comes in and it comes up to where Dakar, Senegal is.

But.

And then we were in land.

Chad, Fort Le Me and Chad were in.

In land.

And how it worked was we do.

We'd get up like at 5 o'clock in the morning, and as soon as the sun come up, we do clinics.

And I mean, there were kids everywhere.

There were kids everywhere and they were of.

And things like that.

But in Africa, the whole continent closes down at 10 o'clock because it's so hot and doesn't reopen till 4 o'clock and that.

And then people are Resting or whatever they're doing.

So we had that time limit and then we'd have something to eat.

Then our games didn't start till dark, dark, so maybe 9, 9:30 over there.

And.

And we'd play.

We'd play their national teams and under some dirt.

Dirt floors where the old baseball line, you know, with the baseball line played on some of those.

The chalk.

Put the.

Put the chalk down.

Basketball, I mean, rims tilted a little bit from kids hanging on.

And I mean, it was a.

It was a great experience.

But somebody.

Some of the basketball conditions we played in were just very difficult, Very difficult.

But they were good to us.

They were good to us.

And, you know, internationally, you trade things.

We.

They gave us.

The State Department gave us things to trade, and so they'd give us something and we got something, you know, and that kind of thing.

But there were.

Some of them were very.

They were tough on the blacks.

We went over there with five blacks, five black guys, you know, and then five white guys, and the blacks were tough on them.

There was nothing.

You know, I thought it was going to be the other way around.

And I guess they were very envious of what they had, you know, what these guys had, which really wasn't a lot at the point, and I'll tell you about that, too.

But we played at night and I really learned how to play.

I really learned how to play.

Going back to it when.

When I first went to college and when I came home Christmas to get my wife, I played.

I went.

The guys were playing in some jam or some tournament, and when I went to play with them, about halfway through, they started looking at me like, who the hell is this?

You know, that's how much I had gotten better in that amount of time, because I had to.

So I, you know, I.

I kind of.

I felt pretty good about myself at the time because I had gotten that far.

And what happened was I was playing behind this transfer, this.

The guy that I went to Africa for, and I jump on his back every day in practice until he got tired of me, and he'd throw me off and I'd get up and I'd jump on his back again.

And, you know, I learned how to defend myself and do things like that.

So I'm telling you, I got better quickly.

But some of the things I had, because I wasn't a really great scorer, I was a really good passer, you know, I could see the floor I picked up on.

They could play defense as hard as they want.

I could pick up their play Players and, you know, I made no excuse.

If something happened, I always took the blame for it.

So they appreciated that and things.

But that's how quickly I got better.

So.

And.

And then I started to notice it myself and I played with a lot more freedom.

I started playing with a lot more freedom and things, particularly in practice.

And I was getting better every day.

Every day I was getting better and I could feel it.

Not that I could see it, but I could feel it inside of me.

I knew in my heart that I was becoming a.

That I can play here, that I can play here, and that's kind of leading up to it.

But Africa, listen, we left that in Nigeria.

It was called Niger at the time.

And there was Joseph Momumbo.

They had an overthrow and the State Department got us on a military plane without our stuff.

Those seats we will.

They get on the plane, lay on the floor as they were taking over the airport that we just got out of there in time for that.

That was harrowing.

That was harrowing.

Yeah.

Sometimes when they got it under control, they all got us back to our stuff, but they brought all our stuff, like in a pile.

And we're, you know, we're trying to figure out whose stuff was what.

And so it.

There were.

There were situations like that and we got in some ticky situations where we'd beat on the team and we really.

Everybody played, you know, we didn't hold the ball, but it was always six, five or six passes before there was a shot late in the game, that kind of thing.

So we weren't trying to embarrass anybody.

And it really made us a little better because we were working on, you know, working on some things and knew what a good.

Learn, what a good shot was, what a bad shot was, that kind of thing.

And.

And a couple of places me left.

They were rocking the rock in the bus and things.

And one of the assistants that came with us was the former athletic director and basketball coach there.

His name was Robert Bullet Wilson, and he was a character, but he was so scared sometimes and he.

And he hung with me in another Kentucky.

We'd go to lunch and all that kind of things together and all that other stuff.

And he tell us some stories, Mike, that just.

He was Kentucky through and through and he was a hell of a coach.

He was really a good coach, but he got a little older and he.

He was special.

He was a special guy in my life.

So.

Yeah.

And then we.

We about halfway through, we had had it at about the three and a half point Mark Transistor.

So we had a meeting in the hotel in a room.

And who wants to go?

Everybody wants to go home.

Okay, well, we went down, talked to the coach.

Obviously that was.

I'll tell you, that was a huge mistake.

We're not going anywhere.

Get in your damn rooms.

Get your stuff on.

We're going to practice right now.

I said, man, and we had some practice.

It was about 114 degrees.

I mean, it was like just.

Do you still want to go home?

No, no, no, we'll stay, we'll stay.

But we.

And then it got a little better because we knew that was out of our mind.

We're not going home until we're supposed to go home.

And.

Right, right.

But a couple of.

One of the guards got sick and Mike, his head or his butt was in the toilet every 10 minutes for a long time.

He was so sick they couldn't send him home.

That's how.

That's how sick he was.

Wow.

And he got.

And not from drinking the water we poured on us and just the absorption from it.

He got sick from it.

He got sick from it.

And I've never seen anybody that sick in my life before or since.

And.

And it affected him the whole next year.

And he was a sophomore at the time and he was a good player.

He was a guard.

He was from one the local high school in Owensboro.

And he.

And he wasn't right till his senior year.

You know, it took him that long to recover from it.

That's how much he lost, I think.

And he was a sick guy.

I think he lost £40 in six weeks.

So.

But we moved from inland up along the coast and we finally finished up in Dakar in Senegal, which was the French sole place in Africa.

It was a French country and it was kind of like the major city and capital in Africa.

And after the game, we had a good game.

They had one of the better teams.

You know, we beat on them that we didn't lose.

Let me put it there.

We didn't lose the game.

Okay.

I think we were 28 and 25 and.

Or something.

I don't even remember that.

But as we were leaving, we were leaving the floor and one of the guy who was garden came up to me going like that.

I said, he says, get on your shirt.

So I said, yeah, you go.

I'm not taking it home.

It's not going to have your shorts.

I said, yeah, well, let's go in the locker room.

You can have my shirt.

How about your socks?

I said, listen, you can have the shots, the sneakers, you can even have my warm up.

How's that?

So I came home with no clothes other than the traveling outs we had on.

We had blazers, shirts, ties, shoes.

I don't think I had socks by that point, but I had wingtip shoes.

And that's how I got home.

But I had two suitcases filled with souvenirs.

That's what I had.

And, but absolutely not one stitch of clothing other than what we had on.

And there was a 15 hour flight from Dakar to back to JFK.

And about halfway through it, the, the pilot thought he was funny, said, look out the window and down.

So I was in the middle seat.

So I looked over and down and there was a hurricane swirling below us.

I mean, swirl.

And it looked like we were almost in it.

We weren't, but we were at 30,000ft and this was probably, who the hell knows where it was.

But we had to stop in Santa Maria in the Azores.

And I never heard of Santa Maria or the Azores at that point.

And we.

And so when you land, you have to go in and show your passports and that kind of things and wait till they refuel the plane and things.

So we go in and I go to the restaurant or the counter there and I said I was putting on my best French and they looked at me funny.

And one of the guys that spoke both languages says, we speak Portuguese here.

There you go.

I couldn't learn Portuguese in an hour.

But we finally landed in, in jfk.

And that's where I left them, because they're flying, you know, I'm the only one there.

So they're flying now.

I mean, I knew they flew.

I didn't even know where they flew to.

But they got home all right.

But I got off the plane, literally, Mike got down and kissed the ground.

As soon as I got kissed, right on the tarmac and I went in and all I could think of was, I'm going to have the biggest hamburger they got in there with a vanilla shake.

And all of a sudden it dawned on me.

All I have is African money.

All I have is African money.

And thankfully at that time, Coach kept money back from us because we had a lot of money there.

I don't know what we were getting a per diem a day, I still don't know.

But he was giving us enough.

I, we had a lot of money.

I was sending money home, you know, and we had a lot of money and.

And when we got home, you know, when I got back, it dawned on me I had no money, but I had those.

What the hell do you call the bank?

Things like a traveler's check.

There you go.

Travelers checks.

And they weren't.

And.

And at that time, I don't think the.

The bank or whatever wasn't open, so there was nobody to cash him.

I told the guy, I said, look, I'm just doing this.

That.

The other thing.

He said, look, buddy, it's all yours.

I said, look, if you'll wait, my dad will be here to pick me up.

I'll go, I'll go, and I'll bring it right back to you.

I'll even give you a big tip.

He said, get the hell out of here.

So that's how that worked.

That's how that worked.

And then I got back, and two days later, we were back in Horesboro, wife and baby.

And then it's on to my sophomore year.

All right, so I want to ask you one more question about the trip.

Do you know how or why your team got the opportunity to do that?

Yeah, because we won the national championship my freshman year.

We beat Southern Illinois with Walt Frazier in the finals in Evansville.

And the year before, Michigan went on a trip someplace.

They had.

Oh, what the hell, what's his name?

Bill Bunton.

And who was the big.

Cassie Russell.

They had Cassie.

And then they had won the national championship.

And they said.

And they kind of disgraced themselves wherever they sent them, and they were going to try it one more time.

And UCLA declined the trip because that was.

Kareem was only.

Kareem was.

I'm in the same time frame as Kareem.

We're freshmen together, so.

Gotcha.

And he was only on the freshman team, but at Wesleyan, because there was less than a thousand men, freshmen were eligible, and that was a selling point.

That's why some of the black kids that came our way wanted to play right away.

And it worked out for them and us.

And.

But so for the most part, Mike, I'm going to just take.

We're the most decorated class.

My class is the most decorated class in NCAA history because everybody else may have three in their years, but we have three on the third.

In a third place, which I don't like to talk about much, but.

And that was our best team, the third place team.

That was by far our best team.

And.

But that's.

That's what.

That's what happened.

That's what happened.

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Is this for you to find out more, what do you think beyond the talent of the players on your teams?

What intangibles, what other qualities do you think led to the success that you guys were able to have in those national championship seasons?

What was it about your team beyond just the talent that made you a championship team?

Well, let me tell you this.

Our practices were really wars because the guys, my freshman class, we came in with six and Mike, we all graduated with six.

On time.

On time.

We all walked across the stage together.

And for that I'm extremely proud of that in itself.

But we wanted to, you know, I sat the bench my freshman year.

I don't want to sit, but I'm playing behind in All American.

He's still back.

He's a senior now and I'm playing behind him.

And now he's playing me summit forward.

He's playing me summit forward.

And when he gets arrested.

So I'm getting maybe 10, 12 minutes a game as a sophomore and he got hurt.

I had.

And then I played two, I started two games and had two very good games and.

But we would practice for two hours and it was hell.

I'm sure you've heard a lot of people tell you, but it was hell because we wanted to play and they wanted, the starters wanted to play.

And then we'd go over in that quad, we'd go back to the cafeteria and eat, go back to that concert and just beat the hell out of each other again.

And it was really for the love of basketball.

And in 1966 in Owensboro Kentucky, there were three stations.

They went off at 11:30 at night.

The Star Spangled Banner went.

Your television went black.

We were the only game in town.

In other words, we were 800 students in a school, and we sell out 7,000 every night we played there.

Every single night we played there, we'd sell out 7,000 people.

So the community was really involved.

They were inspiring.

They were.

They were living and dying with us.

And, you know, we took.

And for most part, we took that pretty serious.

You know, we took that pretty serious.

And living In Kentucky in 1966, it was no picnic for the.

For the black guys.

I'm telling you, it was no black.

It was.

No.

And early on, early on, like my freshman year, we went someplace and.

And we weren't as a team, but we.

We were, I think, in Jackson, Mississippi.

I think we were playing Delta State or somebody, but.

And we went to a restaurant in the afternoon, and I said, well, we can't serve you.

Well, I.

I was starting to lose my mind.

You know, I'm coming from New York.

I never.

I never had to deal with anything like that.

The black guys, we go anywhere we want, you know, just do anything we want.

And my mother and father were like, you know, all men are created equal, and we're going to live our lives that way.

You know, we're going to live.

And I did, and not to this day, that stays with me.

But I started, and they grabbed a hold of me, and then they said, when we go back in the room, we're going to have a meeting, so.

And just you and us.

So they said, dick, there's going to be a lot of that that you're not aware of.

And I'm still hot.

I mean, I am still hot.

And they said, we've dealt with it all our lives, and now you're going to have to deal with it a little bit, too.

We appreciate it that you're sincere about it and that kind of thing, but we just can't afford to do that type of thing.

And, Mike, I literally was like.

I was, like, loosening it.

Honest.

I was just like, how can that be?

And the more I was down there, spending four years in the south in the 60s, I just.

I saw it and experienced it, and I didn't like it.

And I didn't like it, and they knew I didn't like it.

And.

And there was a couple other times that I started to lose it and that they grabbed me and dragged me the hell out away from someplace, but.

But they always have my back.

So I didn't worry about it, but that's, that's pretty much there's a situation as it was.

And like I said, I was the first white guy to have a black room with a black.

And don't forget, Kentucky still had not a black player.

Lsu, most of the schools in the SEC didn't have black players, including Kentucky.

Kentucky recruited their first player after the year I left that September, Thomas Payne.

Do you remember the name?

He was a seven footer and he, he went there, but he, he, he was all messy.

He got in all kind of trip, you know, he was in all kind of trouble and he lasted maybe a year or so, if that.

Then he was in the pros and that.

And that didn't work out at all.

He was just a bad actor.

You know, they just picked the wrong guy and they wanted to.

One of my guys to go.

He was with male and he wanted to go.

And, and, and he would have been a great ambassador for them, but he didn't want to go through it, you know, he just didn't want to go through it, you know, all by himself.

You know, he didn't want to go through it all by himself.

And I don't blame him for that.

And he went on to be a globetrotter for 17 years.

So on the, on the main team and.

But it was a different time.

Where'd you go to college?

Mike went to Kent State.

So I graduated from Kent State in 1992.

So I graduated from high school in 1988.

Okay.

And, and I played four years of basketball, Kent.

And then when I got done, kind of looked around and I had a business degree and my parents were both.

My dad was a professor at Cleveland State.

My mom had been an elementary school teacher.

And so when I graduated and I went out and I started interviewing for jobs, Dick.

And I ended up.

I remember I had an interview with, with Nestle, the, the food, the Swedish food company.

And they offered me, they offered me some job with some sales.

I forget exactly what it was.

And they're like, well, this was in maybe, I don't know, whatever.

I graduated in May and they offered me this job.

I went on the interview in like June.

They're like, you'll start on July 1st.

And I looked and I went, they said, you can have a day or two to think about it.

So I went home and like, they want me to put on a suit in July and go to work.

Like I, I've never seen anybody go to work in July.

And so I, I, at That point I reevaluated what I wanted to do.

And I decided at that moment that I was going to go back to school and get a teaching degree and then end up going into.

Going into coaching, which is exactly what I ended up doing after I graduated.

So I went back to school and got a teaching certificate and then was able to get a teaching job and start coaching.

And so it wasn't when I was 18 years old, like most kids, I had no idea when I went to school what I wanted to do.

And I was.

I was a very good student.

But just like you, my focus was.

My focus was basketball.

I mean, I chose to go to Kent State because of the opportunity to play Division 1 basketball.

And that's kind of what my focus was.

And the idea of ever getting a job to me was.

Was foreign.

I mean, I just grew up playing basketball.

I didn't have.

I had a paper out maybe when I was nine, but I never worked at a fast food restaurant or yogurt shop or anything like that.

I just.

My job, My job was to play ball.

So, you know, I understand.

Yeah.

Different era.

Different era.

All right, so tell me about.

Let's get to.

Let's get a little bit into your.

Into your coaching career.

Not that we want to shortchange real quick.

Don't forget, when I played, there was no one, two or three.

There was college division and there was university division.

And most of the teams that we play are now Division 1 team, in other words.

Right.

Absolutely.

My freshman year, we beat Southern Illinois.

My second year, we got beat by Winston Salem with Earl Monroe, and our best player was in the hospital.

He had a carryover from the African trip.

And I didn't play particularly well.

We didn't play.

We got beat by seven.

And then the next night we played Illinois State, which in the.

They played a consolation game back then and we played Illinois State and we still set a record.

We beat him 112, 75.

And he played all the guys that were coming back the next year.

And I had a hell of a game.

And then that got me going into the thing.

But we, we played our.

We.

We do Youngstown State, Akron one year, Central Central State of Ohio.

Then the other year, then we did Akron, Youngstown State, Duquesne.

And then the next year it was Akron, Akron St.

Francis and Pennsylvania and Mount St.

Mary's in Emmitsburg.

Okay.

And.

And those are the type of schools we were playing.

We played Louisville at Louisville, we played Moorhead at home.

We played Eastern Kentucky.

Evansville was our Biggest rival and Jerry Sloan had just graduated the year before and they had won a national championship.

And that was because we ran across the river.

We were 30 miles and we played for some kind of a cannon that I never saw.

That I never saw the cannon, but we played for some kind of cannon.

And then Southern Illinois twice, home and home every year.

And even after Frazier left they had Dickie Garrett and McGriffin and Chuck Benson and them.

And we only lost three games at home my entire four year career.

Three.

All three to sudden Illinois.

And then my senior year we beat him at home and.

But it was mostly.

We played mostly what our.

When the San Diego school, the California schools at that time only like California Southern, Cal, ucla, San Francisco and Santa Clara were really the only university schools in California.

The other ones like UC Riverside, uc, you know, both the San Diego schools, they both came on a trip and played Evansville Southern and us and I went home 0 and 6, you know, so, so there wasn't like.

And like I said, we had 7,000 in there.

Just raising hell.

I mean, raising hell.

So but that's, you know, and it's all like.

I watched the Division 2 championship on last Saturday or last Sunday, whenever it was.

And I was like who Nova Universi.

This Dominguez they're playing and, and we're in a con.

We were never in a conference and now they're in a conference and they're playing schools I never heard of.

I.

So I'm like.

And.

But I'm telling you it made us better.

It really made us better.

We had, we played liu, we played lasalle in the Palestra, which I loved.

We played Iowa State in Chicago Stadium, which by the way I couldn't wait to get to Palestra because my folks and my father in law had never seen me play.

So they came down and watched.

But other than the history, it's a dump.

Other than the history of it.

Same way with Chicago Stadium.

That's why they had to build the other thing.

It was like, it was terrible.

But those are the schools we were playing.

Those are the schools we were playing.

And so it's a completely different situation now.

But like I said, we're the most decorated school in NCAA history and I'm real proud of that.

So absolutely.

I mean it's fantastic.

The opportunity that you got to have and just sounds like the teammates that you were able to play with and just the experiences going to all these great places and getting an opportunity to play.

There's.

There's no way that you could ever.

I think anybody who plays a team sport, there's just no way to replace those experiences, those memories, the teammates, your coaching staff.

It's such.

It's such an intense experience that it just sticks with you in so many.

In so many ways and influences you for the rest of your life.

I mean, I still carry all the lessons from being part of teams and having great teammates, and all those things are still things that influence me today.

And I'm sure that when I get to be 85 years old, that I'm going to be still sitting and thinking about the things and how basketball and my teammates and coaches impacted me over the course of my life.

There's just.

There's so much pot.

There's so much power in that.

There really is.

It sustains me, Mike.

It sustains me.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, tell me about the transition to coaching.

How do you get to your first coaching job?

And then let's.

Let's talk a little bit about your coaching experience.

My first coaching job at Burke High School in Goshen.

It's a Catholic school.

School.

It was a Catholic school that was one town away from where I grew up.

One town away from where I grew up.

And I started my coaching career.

That was the JV coach and the varsity coach actually got me the job.

And he was a lifelong friend, and that's where it started.

But I was also the head baseball coach, the athletic director, the head soccer coach, and teaching six classes a day without no secretary, and I'm still the athletic director, and I'm only 24 years old, so that's where we are.

And.

And as soon as basketball started, you know, and I'm watching my JV team and we're not getting better, and I'm.

And I'm.

And I'm confounded why.

And I thought, you know, and how stupid it is.

I thought because I was a good player, automatically they were going to be, well, divorce.

He goes on.

He said, dick.

I said, joe, what the hell's going on?

He said, try coaching them.

And I went, oh, you know, what the hell?

Okay?

And that changed it all.

Then I became a coach.

Then I became a coach.

Up until that time, I was not a coach.

And I stayed there 13 years.

I was his assistant for a long time.

I was his assistant for eight years.

And when.

Even when he gave it up, I didn't want him to.

His son.

His son.

I've known his boy since birth.

And when he graduated, the boy he wanted, his father wanted to follow him.

And he went to uma.

Well, maybe, you know, maybe you've heard of him.

His name is Bill Bano.

He was.

Yes, absolutely.

He started.

He was.

He went to.

Are we good?

Yeah, we're good.

I can hear you.

Okay, you got me again.

He went to UMass and then he got caught in a coaching change and he transferred to Sacred Heart and became an All American there.

Became a hell of a player there.

And he began his coaching career right there.

And he originally went to Liberty in Charleston, South Carolina.

Then his next stop was he was the director of operations for.

At Seton hall for pj and he brought in Morton, all them guards and that kind of thing.

And that's when they got beaten the national championship game.

Then his next move was to Kansas with Larry Brown and Manning and they won the national championship there.

But also John Calipari was also part of that.

He was an assistant there.

So when John offered that got the UMass job, Bill went with him.

And then Bill stayed with him for five or six years.

UMass got in the Final Four when it was in New York and they got.

And they got beat and Bill was.

And I was looking for him and he was hiding out.

What happened was he interviewed for the UNLV job and he got it and he followed up.

He followed Massimino in there and he went in there and he was.

He was there for five years.

He went to the tournament four to five years and he had a helmet thing.

But they recruited Lamar Odom and I don't have to tell you the Lamar Odom story.

The NCAA wanted him to retake the sats.

He wouldn't.

He didn't leave town.

He stayed with a dentist and they got investigated and Bill, they kind of came back at Bill, even though he wasn't part of the program anymore.

So Bill then went in the NBA and was an assistant at Portland, Minnesota, Toronto, Indiana, and finished up.

He was with Dwayne Caseley mostly.

And what was the Indiana coach?

The good Indiana coach right after Bird, Black guy was a good player.

He was also the coach at Portland.

But anyway, Nate McMillan.

And then he took.

He was offered the LMU job out in Loyola Marymount and he got, did all the recruiting.

They were going to be pretty good.

And he had a breakdown.

He had just.

He didn't want to be head coach anymore.

He didn't even know if he wanted to stay in basketball.

So he went with Dwayne Casey, wherever.

You know, he followed Dwayne around.

And it just so happened that he had a 13 year pro career now.

What he does is where football has combines.

Well, he does the combines for the NBA, but he does it in Trieste, Italy, twice a year.

He brings in all the European players and they go into one place so the general managers aren't chasing them all over Europe.

And he's on a personal services contract with Adidas, and he does clinics and shows up and things.

And Mike, he's the best clinician you've ever heard in your life.

That's how good he is.

That's how good he is.

And he's never married.

He's a single guy.

He's doing quite well for himself, but that's how that happened.

And then I got the varsity job, and we won right away.

My third year.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

My third year, we were undefeated.

Played for the state championship and got the hell beat out of us by a team from Buffalo.

And then we were.

Won the sectional titles the next two years.

And then I moved on to Monticello.

My oldest daughter went to college, and one on one, stopped making two, if you know what I'm saying.

And so I moved to Monticello.

And one of the things that I knew is they had great talent for a long time, but they never put it together.

They hadn't won anything in 28 years.

And, I mean, they had some really, really good players.

And I never figured out why until I got up there.

In my first year, I wound up with six players, but we played for the sectional championship.

We got beat, but I had more coaches on the bench than I had players.

The second year, I had seven players, and the same thing happened.

We played for the section championship, got beat again.

But the next.

The next 26 years, it was a pretty good ride.

You know, they figured out what the hell was going on and what was not going on and what I was going to do when I happened to.

And after a while, when I got there and it seemed, it became apparent that they actually needed me.

And what I didn't know was that I needed them also.

And that became my first team.

They had only had six guys, but I'll never forget them.

They still.

They set.

They.

Their competitiveness and they're willing to do things and their love for the game.

And it took a while.

It took a while to get through, but they became really good players and they're all really good men.

And that set the thing with the black community and the rest of the community, because they hadn't had a winner there in 28 years.

And it became a good marriage.

It became a Good marriage.

And as you know, if you've coached, if you don't have good players, you're not going to have a very good record.

And I don't care who coaches them, they're going to be very good.

And at the state championship, Mike, I got even the loss.

My thought was, after I went in the locker room, I talked to my players, and I was sitting there talking with my assistants, and I thought every coach, if he's a lifer or puts in a long time and a lot of time, ought to be able to experience this once, you know, win or lose, be in a game like that.

And I thought of all the guys that I thought were good coaches, that never had good players, that just.

You could see the competitive spirit in their faces, but they just never had the kind of kids that were able to do that.

And those are the guys I fell for, and those are the guys I admire, and those are the guys I admire to this day.

So.

But that.

That was my feeling immediately after getting my ass kicked, you know, so.

But.

But leading up to it, you have no idea about busing and hotels and who's going to wash the uniforms.

Where are we going to stay?

Coach O'Neill didn't get his tickets.

Look, you know, where are we going to eat?

This kind of other thing, not my family.

I go, you know, where are we staying?

I said, it became a nightmare, but one of us, it was really bad.

And then we're going to Monticello.

After we settled in, it took four years and we won a sectional championship.

And Mike, I'll never forget the look on them guys faces.

I'll never ever.

The first time they'd ever won anything significant in their entire lives.

And the look on their faces and how they reacted to it and how they dealt with it.

The next day in school, they were walking around down hallways five feet in the air.

Their feet were five feet in the air.

And.

And the community was.

And then front on, we.

And we had our gym.

There was only bleachers on one side, and they went straight up.

And I mean, you had to get there early for a game.

And it was.

It was wild.

And like I told you, it was, you know, and I.

I held them accountable, you know, held them accountable.

I didn't change how I coach.

I told them I wasn't.

I thought, we're going to do it my way with some modifications.

And I made rules.

I said, look, you make the rules, you make some of the rules, but if they're broken, I'm going to Enforce them.

You can make those rules, but be damn sure that I'll enforce them.

And that's how we operated.

And the faculty appreciated it because somebody come with me.

Well, he hasn't hand in a paper in a couple of days.

Well, when his ass was sitting on the bench, he didn't play the next game.

He got a message, you know, and the faculty was always appreciative of that.

The guidance people worked with, you know, one person had all my players and she, to this day, she kept track of what was going on, how they were going and are they going to be college, are they taking their tests, are they doing the nc, the clearinghouse at the time, you know, and all of those things.

And they took a little off my mind.

But.

But the coach didn't change.

The coach didn't change that, I can tell you.

Well, it strikes me as I listen to you talk, hearing you say all the things that, and this is a common theme that when I talk to people in interviews who are coaching and it doesn't matter whether you're coaching at the high school level or you're coaching at the college level.

There's so many things that a head coach has to do outside of basketball, outside of being on the practice floor or coaching a game.

There's so many of those itinerary things and other things that you have to take care of that are administrative, that are away from the practice floor.

And I think sometimes young coaches, before they get into it.

I know I can speak to myself.

Back when I was 22 or 23 years old, I was completely naive as to some of those things that coaches have to do off the floor in order to run a successful program.

It's not just about, hey, do I know my X's and O's on the floor?

There's a lot more to building a successful, whether it's a high school program or a college program than just walking between the lines and coaching basketball.

There's a lot of things that you have to do in order to be able to have the kind of success that somebody like yourself has had.

So I want to ask you about that success and share with us one or two personal habits that you had that you maybe continue to have as a human being, as a coach that you feel like contributed to your success.

Well, let me, as simple as I can put it, every day when they came to school in the morning, they came by my office to see if I was sitting in that chair.

So they knew I would have their back.

So what?

They might not Say, hello, Coach.

They may not say anything, but their head would pop in.

And they wanted to know if I was in their chair and if I wasn't, they wanted to know why I wasn't in the chair.

You know, so they keep track of me.

But, you know, I worked along with the faculty, but.

And I worked along.

There were some things I learned, Mike, that brought tears to my eyes.

You know, on snow days, we'd practice.

We'd practice because they'd rather practice than eat my guys.

And they were all local.

And I told them, I said, if we practice and you can't get there, I'll come and catch you.

Well, one year, one day, one kid came, it wasn't there, and he was a tough kid.

And he called me when he got home, and I was ripped.

I was given.

And then he said, coach, listen, here's what happened.

It was a snow day.

My mom didn't have to go to work, and she took the only two pair of pants I had to the Laundromat.

And Mike, I wanted to roll off the chair onto the floor and just die.

And just die.

I had no answer for that.

I just had no answer for that.

And I still don't have an answer for it today.

I still don't have an answer.

Just.

They live different.

They live lives that I.

That didn't live.

You know, they were just some.

It's just some things that were so different.

But in one instance, two or two of the guys had 17 or 18 sneakers.

I couldn't.

We couldn't.

I couldn't find them.

And I could see they were broken hearted.

But I knew a friend, had a friend in the marketing department with the Nets, and I called him.

I said, look, you can do a little advertising here.

I said, I know van horn wears 17s or 18s and I know Jason Williams does.

So he set it up and it was a big thing.

We went down to a net game.

They gave him two pair of sneakers each, so in case one ran out and things like that.

And they did it as a publicity thing, and it was a real nice thing, but the looks on their faces stay with me today.

You know, things that I took.

I can't tell you how many I took to their college visits.

You know, sometimes their parents didn't have anything or had no way of getting them there.

And how many letters I wrote, how many phone calls I did, but that was pure joy in doing that.

I mean, it was just.

That wasn't.

That wasn't a.

That was a labor of love.

And that was, you know, I do.

If I started again, I would do the same damn thing.

So.

But it turned out to be a love affair, you know.

And today when I go up there in the community coach, then they run out that even the kids I didn't coach that run on over.

And it's been a.

Mike, it's been a lifelong love affair.

And I just.

Like I told you, they needed me.

But as I found out, I needed them.

I needed them also.

And my family did too.

My family was there.

My daughter's.

My youngest daughter played at Orange County Junior College in Middletown, New York.

And the only two times they went to the national tournament, she took them and then from there she went on to.

She got a full ride to Wagner.

They even paid for the Captain Gallon, believe it or not.

Thankfully, she played two years there and her lifelong friends, her two best friends are within a couple of miles of her now.

And my oldest daughter went oneonta to state school.

She played four sports and her senior year she was the NCAA regional player of the year or athlete of the year.

I won't say player for being a well rounded playing.

She played three sports and things like that.

And she thought she died and went to heaven when she went to only a.

So you know, and that she.

She gave up coaching a couple of the basketball a couple of years ago and she started the girls golf team.

She coaches them now.

My oldest daughter, My youngest daughter, they.

My daughters teach together in the same school.

They share an office, so I stay away from them.

Very cool.

It's not one of those things.

And my youngest daughter coaches the Unified bowling team and the basketball team.

And I'm not if you're familiar with Union.

It's challenge.

It's challenge.

Kids.

Yeah.

My kids.

She has some way.

So both my son and both my son and my daughter have participated in.

In Unified Sports here at.

Here at our school.

So.

Ye.

It's a.

It's tremendous.

It's been a great experience for.

For my kids to be able to.

To participate in that program, be a part of it.

So it's been a great experience for me too, Mike.

Again, you know, I don't miss.

We don't miss my wife and I don't miss.

And it's like, that's awesome.

We laugh and we join and we cry with them.

We do the whole deal.

We do the whole deal.

So.

But that's what.

All right, I want to ask.

I want to ask you.

I want to ask you one.

I'm gonna ask you one final Question.

Because I think it's going to be one that hopefully brings back a really good memory for you.

And the question is, what is the most memorable or impactful player reconnection that you've had with somebody who graduated that played for you?

So in other words, maybe a phone call, maybe a visit, maybe an invite to a wedding.

What's one thing that, when you think back, that stands out of a connection that you had with a player after they no longer played for you that held a tremendous amount of meaning for you?

Well, it was a player who was a freshman, was a starter on one of my very best teams, but he was trouble and I had to drop him after his freshman year.

But religiously, he's now a truck driver, a cross country truck driver.

And every other week, or maybe, let me, let's, let's say 10 or 15 times a year, I'll get a phone call from him, like, apologizing to me about it.

I said, kenny, you must have learned a lesson.

You must have learned something in that year that you think about.

And he says, coach, he says, I'm so disappointed in myself.

I said, kenny, sometimes the ball bounce is different.

And you know, and we still talk about the good as opposed to the bad because now he's on the straight and narrow and he's doing very well for himself.

And he was in a situation where he was at a junior college and they arrested him right on the floor.

And I was there and it was, it broke my heart, but the fact that he still connects with me.

And then I got Brad.

I know you've had, I listened to your thing with Brad and.

But I had a lot of Brad.

I didn't have a lot of Brads, but I had a few Brads.

And his mother was a cheerleader at my first school, at my first school.

And so I had that connection with them.

And it's.

His older brother also played for me.

But he wasn't a player.

Brad was.

He was a good player, but he wasn't a player.

Brad was.

And, but Brad was a challenge.

I'm sure he told you that.

Brad was a challenger.

He was a challenger.

But Brad was the kind of player, Mike, that he wanted.

If the game was on the line, he wanted the ball and would take the consequence whether if it went in, he was good with it.

And if it didn't, we're on to the next game.

You know, we'll, we'll work it out in practice the next day.

But he wanted that ball.

And everybody else on the team knew he wanted the ball, so he wound up with the ball, you know, and when he went to college, it was the same way.

It was the same way.

And what broke his heart and my heart, the last.

The next to the last year.

No, it was the last year he was at Keystone.

He won the.

He would play.

He was playing for the championship against Wilson in Pennsylvania.

And my wife and I were at a place in Carolina, and we left a couple of days early.

It was 84 in Carolina, and they were playing in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

So we drove up to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

My wife and I would join them for dinner the night before, and we went and played to watch the game.

And he was playing a championship game in a gym that sat 100 people, Wilson College.

And I could see it was so uninspiring to his players.

You know, the family people will let you.

If you didn't get there, you didn't get in.

And when I say it sat 100 people, it's at 100 people.

And it was.

And I think that was extraordinary.

And I felt so bad for him that, that I.

We cried a little bit about that.

And I said, brad, I said, you'll always.

You'll remember this day till the last time you blow that whistle.

And, you know, and that he got away and now he's moving on.

Coach.

He's going to have a job someday.

Like, he's going to have a good job someday.

I promise you that.

Absolutely.

There's no doubt about that.

I came away so impressed.

And just for those of you who are listening, if you haven't had a chance to listen to our episode with Brad Cooper, who's now the head coach at Hartwick College, please go back and do that.

That's how Dick and I got connected.

And I guess to kind of wrap up what.

What you've been talking about throughout the podcast, it kind of hits on a theme, Dick, that I talk about all the time in my life, and that's that.

But I always feel so fortunate to be able to use the game of basketball, which I love, to be able to have an impact on people, whether it's through coaching or in this case, through the podcast, to be able to use basketball, which has been.

I can never repay the game of basketball, what it's given me.

And so whatever small way that I can give back and give a guy like you, who's a basketball lifer, an opportunity to talk and share your stories and continue to grow the game and just have an impact on people, and you think about the stories that you just told there about Brad and about Kenny and driving the truck and turning his life around as a result of, again, not solely due to your influence only, but you having a part in that kid's success.

Right?

And that's really what it's all about.

And I think being able to do that through the game of basketball, to me is always just, it's just very, very powerful.

And I'm always, whenever I hear, you know, hear a coach talk or I get an opportunity to interview somebody, I'm always struck by just the power that the game of basketball has to impact people in such a positive way.

And like I said, there's no way I can ever give back.

And I'm just really thankful for guys like you that have been a part of the game and, and obviously had.

Had such an influence on so many people through that.

Well, I still pay it forward, Mike.

Some of the young coaches who know, you know, asked me to come in and maybe work with their big men or just talk to their kids and things.

And sometimes I'm not sure if the kids are listening, you know.

You know, they have, they have so much on social media and things that, you know, they can get inspirational talks from a lot of people.

But I try to relate to them at their level.

You know, at their level.

Mike, if I had to teach in a junior high or in elementary school, that would have been a no.

No.

I would have been, you know, I'll take a ditch, I'll drive a bus, I'll do something, but I'm not teaching down on that.

If I can't talk to him like adults and, you know, with some adult language on occasion, you know, then, because I, I, I coach with emotion in practice, and I coach with emotion on the floor.

And I told these kids, if you can't do this with some kind of emotion, you better leave this gym right now until you can come back and, and really want to play with your heart and give you.

And I, you know, I would challenge two kids at practice.

I said, brad, I'm watching you today.

You're, you're, you're, you're said, this is your test day.

And then I pick a second string.

I said, johnny, this is your test day.

Depending on what you do today, it'll depend on what time, what, what kind of minutes you get in the game on things.

And so I would challenge them that way.

And don't you think.

And then at the end of practice, I would say, to pick out a kid, I said, you practice as hard as you can today?

He says, I tried.

I said, what do you mean he tried?

I said, did you practice as hard as you could today?

He says, no.

I said, why not?

I said, you only give me two hours.

I said, you only had.

What else could you have done?

Why couldn't you give me or your teammates your best two hours and I challenge them that way?

I said, it's going to be that way on your job.

You know, whatever you're going to do with your life, then you can't take.

You know, if you got an eight hour day job, they expect eight hours of work out of you.

Not five and a half, not six, that kind of thing.

But I challenged them individually and I challenged them as a group.

But the bottom line is they knew that they were going to be accountable, that there was not going to be an easy way.

If you wanted to play basketball in Monticello was not going to be easy.

It was going to be fun, it was going to be thrilling, and then you're going to be successful and it'll be the best time of your absolute life.

But it's not going to be easy.

And that's, that's how I lived it.

That's how I lived it.

And my family is still mad at me for retiring.

Still.

My wife, my wife, my grandson, I'll tell you, my grandson tuned me out.

When he was 14 and he was a 64 quarterback, he went to American International, he started and then.

It's a long story, but his dad owns a 2,000 acre apple orchard, so I knew he was going to be an apple baron.

But my granddaughter just graduated at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, Division 1, and she was on volleyball scholarship there.

And she's a nurse.

She's doing well.

She just got a new job, accepted a new job in Philadelphia at the Children's Hospital there.

And things are just going really well.

And she tuned me out at some point.

I forget at what point.

And she played three sports too, and she was very good at it, but she was a volleyballer and he played three sports and, but, you know, that's, you know, and, and I think he left college because he would hear all my stories about my guys and talk and he knew some of the guys and he hear me and the same way with his mother.

Her three closest girlfriends all played together and they're still around.

And my daughter Laurie, the oldest one, all her girls, her best friends are still all her teammates, her college teammates.

And so they're, they would hear all the stories and he was getting none of that at aic.

It was a community school in Springfield and it was a good school, but it was a commuter school and you know, it was like high school.

Everybody went home at 3 o'clock and so he was getting none of that and I think he missed out on that a little bit.

But, but anyway, they're doing great.

That's awesome.

And that's what it's all about, right?

I mean, family.

It's about, as you said, working hard, being accountable.

That works on the basketball court and it certainly works in life.

And so, Dick, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on and share an hour and a half of your wit and wisdom with us.

I'm so thankful to Brad Cooper for connecting the two of us and just putting us together so that we could have this hour and a half and and chat and learn more about you and your story.

So again, I can't thank you enough, Dick.

And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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