If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you may be remember one constant when it came to coaching recommendations:
Jerry Sichting
If an NBA team had a vacancy, and I liked the team, I urged the team to fill it by hiring the former Celtic guard. Best remembered for being sucker-punched by Ralph Sampson in the NBA Finals, Sichting had on OK career overall, but he had one year that was magical.
During the 1985-86 season, Sichting shot 57% from the field, 37% from 3, and .924 from the stripe. If you were alive and a Celtics fan for that season, you remember Sichting, as his contributions were consistent and undeniable. I figured he'd coach the same way he played, fiesty and smart, imploring his team to play ball in a lead-with-your-nose style.
Oddly, no NBA team agreed with me, ignoring my posts to make him their head coach, though McHale had him on the Timberwolves payroll for several years, and once in a while he stood on the sidelines as if he were an assistant coach.
Well my long wait is over.
Sort of.
Jerry was named head basketball coach of the Martinsville Artesians.
Sure it's a high school.
Yes, it's his alma mater.
And, true, the circumstances were a bit eyebrow raising (see comments section).
But I'm happy for Jerry.
Most importantly, you just don't know where it will lead.
4 comments:
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN)
Copyright 2012 The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Ind.
March 1, 2012
Former NBA player returns to roots in time of need
Tom Davis
The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Ind.
March 01--BRAZIL -- It turns out that you can indeed go home again. And in the case of Jerry Sichting, do so rather triumphantly.
The former Purdue basketball standout has returned to his roots at Martinsville High School to coach the boy's basketball team during a time of great duress. He did so because his school needed him. But he also came back home because his heart told him to.
"I've learned more from the kids than they've learned from me," Sichting said. "I've never coached high school, but I like kids that age. Number one, they are going to do whatever you tell them -- or try to."
Earlier this month, longtime Martinsville coach Tim Wolf was arrested when he was caught "in a state of nudity" in his car with a teenage girl at Eagle Creek Park on the west side of Indianapolis. He resigned immediately and the Artesian program, which had been a model of stability, began to spiral out of control.
Despite having won 15 of their 17 games this season, the players, the school leaders, and the community had no idea what would happen to their team.
"We didn't know if we were even going to keep playing," senior guard Jacob LaRue said.
Sichting was familiar with LaRue and his six classmates on the squad because he had spent time earlier this season watching them play. So when a school board member called and asked the former NBA player to come back home and save the season, Sichting agreed to.
"I asked my wife (Joni) 'What do you think,'" Sichting said. "And she said you probably ought to do this. On top of that, I didn't have an excuse that I had a job and I was busy."
Sichting spent 10 years playing for five different NBA teams in the 1980s and won an NBA championship with Boston in 1986. Following his playing career, he spent five years as a broadcaster for the Celtics before serving as an assistant coach and personnel director for the Minnesota Timberwolves through 2005.
In 2005, he left Minnesota and worked under current Indiana University coach Tom Crean at Marquette for three seasons before returning to the NBA last season as an assistant with Golden State. The Warriors let their entire coaching staff go following last year and Sichting spent this winter watching basketball, but only for enjoyment, not for a salary.
"I had actually spent the better part of January here," Sichting explained. "That was another thing that factored in to my coming. I was familiar with what Martinsville had."
What the Artesians had was seven seniors that had worked their way through a spectacular season and Sichting didn't want to see those kids' dreams vanish for something that they had no responsibility for.
"If they would have had one or two seniors, I probably wouldn't have done this," Sichting said. "I would have said 'Those guys will have some more high school basketball experiences.'"
Sichting returned to Martinsville, where he owns the house next to the one that he grew up in and his father still lives in. The 56-year-old isn't sleeping in his childhood bedroom, but he spends a lot of time at his father's house watching basketball "because it's lonely over there by myself."
For the first time since 1975, Sichting participated in a high school sectional on Tuesday and like his other games that he's coached Martinsville in (he's 4-0 since taking over), the Artesians came out on top. They beat Terre Haute South 80-59 and will now play Mooresville in the semifinal on Friday of the Class 4A Northview Sectional.
"This was a good team and a well-coached team before I got here," Sichting said. "I didn't want to change much."
He spent the first couple of days, of which he termed "really strange" acclimating himself to the players, the parents and his assistant, T.J. Wolf, who is Tim's son.
"T.J.'s been great," Sichting said of the awkward situation.
The Artesians do have a different practice structure, but the offensive and defensive systems are pretty much the same as they've been running all year, to a degree.
"He'll draw up a random play that we've never seen before and it works," LaRue said. "It's been great."
Sichting has no pretense that this is a long-term gig. His wife remains at their suburban Minneapolis home and Sichting still aspires to be a head coach in the NBA someday.
"I'm not going to go straight from coaching Martinsville High School to a head coaching job," Sichting laughed. "There's going to be a stepping stone or two. But I've had fun, I really have."
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