Today the floor belongs to former Princeton men's basketball great Howard Levy, a 1985 graduate who was an All-Ivy center and who is still the program's career record holder for field goal percentage. Howard is now the head coach of at Mercer County College, as well as one of the most loyal and well-liked Princetonians you will ever meet.
It’s humbling to be a junior
college coach.
The best laid plans and
coaching strategies mostly don’t work and then it’s all about adjustments. This
season, I thought I had it figured out with some great ideas on what to do and
more importantly, how to teach it quickly.
Well, a few months into the season, I realized that the ideas were more
suited to last year’s team, a mostly mature, veteran, very good team that moved
the ball as well as any team I have ever coached, rivaling the 1998 Princeton
team in that regard. So it’s time to
adjust, and my coaching upbringing has been to blame myself, that there is no
problem that better coaching can’t solve.
I had been feeling sorry for myself as my Mercer Vikings team headed
into the holiday break with a 4-8 record, with one game to go against Frederick
(MD) Community College on our annual trip to the Washington, DC, area.
We have visited Washington every
year that I have been the head coach at Mercer, so this is our 12th
trip. I had the idea to give our team an
annual cultural experience to go along with a game, and John Simone, our long
serving Athletic Director, agreed. I
spent seven years in DC from 1987-1994, three as a law student/assistant coach
at George Washington University, and the remainder working as a lawyer, so I
have a lot of good friends and contacts there, both in and out of basketball.
In my first year, then-Georgetown head coach John Thompson III allowed us to practice at McDonough Arena, and the trip
has taken shape from there. After that
first practice, John spoke to my team, and after a few minutes, he grew very
comfortable and started talking as if he was speaking to his own team.
From there, we’ve either played a
game at the Verizon Center (or whatever it is called these days)—usually at 8
or 9am before a Georgetown game—or we have held a practice at the Wizards’
practice facility. Our guys have gotten
to see and meet Georgetown and NBA players and coaches, and I’ve gotten to
deepen my friendships with Wizards execs, including current GM Tommy Sheppard
and former President and GM Ernie Grunfeld.
I have always
followed Ernie - one of the few Jewish NBA players of my generation, and his career closely, and our paths have crossed several times over
the years, the first time being at Brendan Byrne Arena in 1985 during my all-too-brief tenure with the New Jersey Nets. I lasted through the exhibition season, and my first game was against
the Knicks (it was Patrick Ewing’s first game too).
Before the game, players from both teams were shooting around and
talking. I felt a little awkward as I had
no one to talk to; Ernie saw this, came down and introduced himself. We shot
around a bit and started a relationship that has continued over the years.
Of course it has been great to
see John and his dad. John would
normally speak to our team after our game and his words and manner served to
reinforce the fact that our Mercer teams are part of a bigger basketball family. I know the players were surprised and happy
to realize that prominent people in our sport follow them.
John’s dad is one of my all-time
favorites, and I treasure the time we have spent together talking about life
and basketball. Besides his wealth of
knowledge and experience, his personality and way of carrying himself remind me
so much of my (also 6’10”) father, Syd, who passed away too young a dozen years
ago. My last encounter with Coach
Thompson was two or three years ago during John’s last season at Georgetown, when he
saw me leading my team out of the locker room, and bellowed, “Hey MF-er,
they haven’t fired your ass yet?”
Our results on this trip have
been mixed—we’ve lost more than we have won but have won our share. Our usual opponent—Frederick—is a perennially
good team, and we have played some really exciting hard-fought games. I’ll get to this year’s game in a little bit.
In addition to the basketball, we
do some sightseeing in DC. We’ve
visited monuments, usually the Lincoln and Martin Luther King Memorials. We have visited the Holocaust Museum; that
visit was preceded by a session at the Mercer County Holocaust/Genocide
Resource Center.
We’ve been to the
Washington Nationals Baseball Academy, which provides baseball and academic instruction
to underprivileged youths in DC. Two
years ago, we visited the Supreme Court and every other year we try to visit
the U.S. Capitol.
Our former Congressman
Rush Holt has hosted us, as has Congresswoman Terry Sewell (Princeton 1986) of
Alabama. Terry took us onto the floor of
the House of Representatives, where I ran into retiring Senator Tom Harkin, and
he was happy to hear that I coached his son-in-law Steve Goodrich (Princeton
1998).
This year we were fortunate
enough to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Prior to leaving, my good friend and former
Princeton football coach Steve DiGregorio (“Digger”)—currently a history
teacher in his hometown of Nutley, NJ—spoke to the team about what to expect at
the museum. Steve and his son Derek
accompanied us on the trip. The museum
is incredible, but I was most impressed with the engagement and seriousness of
our players, most of whom are African-American from low income backgrounds,
with what I perceive as little knowledge of their history. I was happy and grateful to see them taking
their time and asking questions during our 2+ hours there.
Then it was off to practice at the
Wizards new facility in SE Washington. I
will just say that the practice bore little resemblance to the players’
Instagram posts of them “working” at an NBA facility.
My general feeling about this team is that we
have enough talent to be successful but only with a consistent level of work,
attention to detail and mature behavior that has not been present thus
far. Unfortunately lack of effort and
talking and bickering have been the hallmarks of this team, and solving these
human problems has been our central challenge as coaches. We have found this to be more difficult than
teaching offense, defense or any basketball skill.
After a difficult practice, we
headed to our final, and to me, the most important event of the day—DINNER—not
because of the food but because of the company. This annual dinner is organized by me and two close friends: Rich Dipippo, a DC insurance agent who was
the academic advisor and mentor to many GW student athletes during my time
there; and Jimmy Lynn (“The Judge”), who I met as a Princeton freshman in 1981
when he visited his best friend and Princeton football legend Kevin Guthrie.
The Judge is “Mr. DC” and has built a
tremendous career in sports marketing and diversity, first at AOL, and
currently as a founder of Kiswe—the world’s
most advanced cloud-based interactive mobile video streaming platform
and as a professor of Sports Marketing at Georgetown. He has used his success to mentor scores of
kids and young adults in the DC area, from Georgetown student athletes (usually
those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from outside the U.S.) to
youngsters at the Nationals Baseball Academy where he serves as a board member.
The food is generally a sidelight
to the evening, but this year it is worth mentioning. The Judge was able to set up the dinner at
Momofuko, one of DC’s top restaurants owned by famed restaurateur David
Chang. Even here, I was happy to see our
guys embracing the atmosphere and eagerly trying new and different types of
foods. One of the guys said it was the
first time he had eaten salad.
In addition to Rich and The
Judge, I try to invite friends and former players to share their life
experiences that I hope will be relevant to our players. In a nice coincidence current Princeton
Women’s DOBO Helen Tau has joined us in the past when she had a similar role at
Georgetown. Over the years we have heard
from former Princeton star and babysitter extraordinaire, current American
University assistant coach Scott Greenman, some of my former GW players, and a
former Mercer player who now has an MBA and is working in real estate, Paco
Boussougou.
Paco’s words were
particularly impactful as he played on my first two teams, and we constantly
butted heads. I even temporarily threw
him off the team at one point. In Paco’s
second year, we went into the holiday break with a 2-9 record only to rattle
off 11 straight wins in January and February to win our Region championship
and earned a berth in the NJCAA Tournament.
This year Digger invited and
introduced Billy Jordan, a great running back and Princeton and now a
successful real estate executive. Billy
had to wait his turn to play at Princeton as he backed up Keith Elias for two
years. He shared how the lessons he
learned about being a good teammate and continuing to work while not playing
have helped him in life. These are
difficult lessons to teach in today’s instant gratification world.
The Judge wrapped up the evening
tying together the life lessons, particularly how simply showing up for work
every single day is the foundation for success. All the speakers offered to be in contact with the guys to help them as
they progress through college and life. I know that at least one of the guys has already followed up, which is
encouraging to me.
I am grateful to my friends for
the interest that they have taken in my guys, and I know that the things they have heard will impact them,
though I am not sure they will have the desired effect by TOMORROW in time to
improve our team enough to win.
I am also grateful for this
entire experience as coaching is an often frustrating job, and when done in
obscurity at a place like Mercer, it’s easy to forget what is really
important—the development of these guys. Hearing my friends and seeing the engagement of the guys is a needed
reminder why I do this.
Oh yeah—the game. Well, we had our moments, overcoming a bad
start to take a lead while playing some beautiful basketball against a more
talented opponent and then issues that have plagued us—bickering, lack of
hustle—showed up and we lost by 15.
I
was particularly distressed to see one of our guys who didn’t play as much as
HE expected sulking and not rooting on his teammates. Of all the things that were discussed at the
dinner, that is the one that can be changed immediately—just fake it!
In any event, my assistant coach
(and former Mercer player) Stan Tuchez and I spoke to them about the need to self-evaluate,
absorb the lessons that they have learned and come back in January ready to get
better. At the very least, we gave them
some things to think about, and I hope they will now see their coach a little
differently—possibly as a human being that cares about them.
2 comments:
Well, TB, Howard certainly had something worthwhile to say. I have always enjoyed being in Howie's company over the years. Saw his Mercer team in Scranton a few years ago beat Lackawanna something like 122-115. No kidding... Lackawanna cancelled their season this year for some off court issues. Howie said not going to Scranton is one of the year's highlights.
Howard, I had thought I already knew everything about you.... now I know even more! Great job coaching kids who are learning much more from you than merely Xs and Os. It's awesome that Judge and your other connections are helping out along the way. BTW, my mini-documentary of the historic clash between Mercer and Essex in January 2015 is one of my most watched productions on YouTube. Thanks for giving me access to your team for that.
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