|
Q:
Coach, I heard you just went out to "Hutch" to see the
Junior College National Tournament?
A:
Yes, it was exciting. As you know, I took my 1979-80 and my
'80-'81 teams out there, so it’s been 18-19 years since I’d
been out there. It was like a time warp. Everything was the same
except for people that I knew from the past had either gray hair
or no hair. It was an exciting time and to add flavor to it, Joe O’Brien
and Southeastern did pretty well. I watched them play Kankakee and
they won by two in a thrilling game. I watched them win the
championship by 15 or 16 in a not-so-exciting game, but if you
win, that’s the kind of game that you want. So, the trip brought
back a lot of memories.
Q:
What years did you coach here at Lincoln College?
A:
I coached here from 1971 to 1987.
Q:
What do you miss about coaching?
A:
Well, one of the things I miss about coaching is winning. I felt
when I was getting ready to retire that the only thing that I
would really like to do was to find a situation where I would only
have to coach home games and win every one of them. That situation
never presented itself, so I felt it was time to get out.
Q:
You had a lot of success while you were here. What were some of
the highlights?
A:
The very first team I had here which had the local flavor of
including Bill Hoagland and Bobby McElhaney. It was a small team,
as my biggest kid was 6'4". That team banded together and won
19 games that first year. We were kinda off and running after
that. There have been a lot of players that stick out, such as
Bobby Darling, the coach at Peoria Richwoods whose team just
finished fourth in the state tournament. I got to see him and talk
to him after they beat Quincy in the Super-Sectional. Bobby was
certainly one of the top five point guards that I ever had here.
It was a classic situation where he came in here at 5'7",
which might have been stretching it even. He started out on our
freshmen team and he just would not be denied. In the middle of
the year, he was starting on the varsity team and continued
starting the rest of that year and all of the next year. We had an
excellent team when he was here. So, it was nice to see a former
player out coaching and winning. They got fourth in the tourney
and he’s probably pretty excited. I haven’t talked with him
since then.
[Former Lincoln College Head Basketball Coach Allen
Pickering displays Hall of Fame award.]
Another
highlight was the early '80s group that went to the National
Tournament. When we entered the '79-'80 season we had only one
returning player, so we were all brand new. They jelled and played
well together and advanced to nationals and got ninth in the
country. We returned the following year as an unranked team and
upset two undefeated teams. Again we were a very small team by
junior college standards, but we were still able to get second
place that year. Then we had a slew of pretty good players that
attended here. Kevin Gamble who went on to play at Iowa and then
in the NBA for the Celtics and the Heat.
Another
great shooter that I had was a local kid, Tony Tuttle from
Greenview. Tony
Tuttle was the same way, as his shooting came from long range.
The
last team that I coached was a great team that won 24-25 games and
came within three points of going to the nationals again. They
were a nice group that were very team-oriented. Phil Styles went
on to be the captain at Northwestern. Chris Behrends was another
particularly good player from that era who also went on to be a
captain. Frank Welch was another great player. In my coaching
wisdom, he started on the freshmen team with Darling and holds the
school record for most points in a game with 53. I remember that
game well. We won it by eight points and we needed every one of
Frankie’s points. During a late timeout huddle I was irritated
at him because he had passed up two open shots. His reply was that
he did not want to appear as a ball hog. He finished 22 out of 30
that night, which is pretty good. That’s always the mark of a
record, is when you set it in a game that counts that’s really
important. There were a lot of thrilling moments.
Q:
Talk about the changes in college basketball and the changes here
at Lincoln College.
A:
In about 1986 or 1987 they brought in the 3-point shot. I coached
one year with that rule in effect. I also coached one year with
the shot clock, which is really a totally different kind of ball
game. It takes a little bit of the control out of the coach’s
hands, as you have to move the ball and get a shot off within 35
seconds. That changed the pace of the game. In the late '80s
Division II had come in on our level and it has nothing to do with
the size of your school, but in what you offer. For example, we
can offer a tuition scholarship at LC that could range to $9000,
but at ICC it might be only $900, so there’s still a big
disparity. We don’t offer full tuition scholarships unless of
course, it’s with the Illinois state grant or the Pell grant,
and things like that. So, the division is now a little different.
Division I, which would be teams like Kankakee, Olney and a lot of
southern schools would offer a full ride. The teams that go to
Hutchinson, Kan., are teams that offer full rides or have that
possibility. Danville hosts the national tournament for Division
II, which we (LC) are now a part of.
Q:
How has that change affected LC in terms of the schedule,
recruiting, etc.?
A:
Our schedule has remained about the same that it has always been.
We still play a lot of Division I schools and we play them
competitively. We played Burlington (the National Champs) and lost
by 15 points. We could play up to the Division I level, but we’ve
chosen not to. That was one reason Coach O’Brien left. He wanted
a Division I program when we went to a D-II program. This year’s
team was outstanding and last year’s team had Marcus Griffin,
now playing at Illinois. We’re still able to get competitive
players, but we might not have as many as we used to have. One of
the reasons for that is that our academic programs are so strong.
Our strength over the last 30 years and even before has been our
academics. You cannot come to Lincoln College and take anything
but transferrables. You can’t pad your schedule here. You still
have to take English, science, and math and we're still attractive
to that student like Griffin who may not have had the grades he
would have liked, but was able to come here and get his academic
act in order and is now attending the University of Illinois.
When
the Division I coaches come calling they still look at the
transcripts. I remember when Phil Styles was going to visit
Wyoming, Texas and Northwestern. When he came back from those
recruiting visits he told me that none of the academic counselors
at any of those universities had ever seen a transcript with so
many solid classes on it. All of those schools offered him a full
ride and he decided that Northwestern might be the best place for
him to go afterwards. He’s now in advertising in Chicago.
|
Q:
Besides Bobby Darling, do you have other former players out
coaching somewhere?
A:
One is Greg Gomez. Greg played for me in the '70's and is now
coaching out in California. I don’t know the name of the school
but the twin 6'11" players at Stanford came from his school.
Kevin McCaster, who played for me two years and over at LCC for
two years, is an assistant coach at Orange Coast College in
California. Willie McCray, a former Railer that played for me in
the early '80s, is an assistant coach to former Springfield High
Coach Clark Barnes over in Decatur. Jim Cuny is coaching up at one
of the Glenbards. Bill Hoagland coached with me. There are others,
I’m just getting too old to remember where they’re all at.
Q:
Let’s turn our attention to the coaches who have followed you.
Who are they and what have they meant to the LC program?
A:
I think we’ve been fortunate to have good coaches, such as Steve
Yount. He and his teams were undefeated in three years at home. He
had a terrific won-loss record and then went from here up to
Augustana where he took a team to the NCAA D-III championship
game. He had a good run up there, but has now retired from
coaching. Joe O’Brien came in and his first year was a little
bit difficult because we didn’t have many players, but he built
the program up and was very competitive in a Division I setting.
We had a little dry spell for a couple of years and now B. J. has
come in and has had two really outstanding teams and he’s an
excellent coach. Next year he returns four starters including
Peoria Manual product, Marlon Brooks. Marlon is one of the best
point guards we’ve ever had here. I would compare him to the
great guard I had in '80-'81 by the name of Julius Ponsette. So, I
think we have a great future.
Q:
Any other reflections from the nationals at "Hutch" or
the state of the junior college game?
A:
I saw all the games on Friday and Saturday, so basically, the
final eight teams. Vincennes, Ind., obviously, has always been a
powerhouse. They had the player of the year--a kid by the name of
McGee who is going to Oklahoma. He scored more points in the
tournament than had been scored in 36 years. He really put on a
show. He’s a 6'7" player who played more inside than out,
but was just an outstanding shooter. Kankakee has returned to
their old form of the '80s and '90s. During those decades they won
more games than 90 percent of the teams in the country. They won
30 games or more four or five times, so that program was always on
top. In fact they got second in the nation twice. They are now
coached by Dave Holstein who was an assistant under Denny Lehnes.
Shelby
State out of Memphis, Tenn., always has good basketball. They beat
Kankakee 119-111 in double overtime. Southern Idaho has also
always been a power. Although this year they had 16 teams—had
Hutch who were not there the year before. Iowa has had a
stranglehold on the trophy. Indian Hills won it three years in a
row and now Southeastern took it this year. They had 6,000 or
7,000 people at the championship game and the tourney is as strong
as ever. It’s been held in Hutchinson since 1948.
They
did make some changes to the gym by putting in theater-style seats
and it is just a beautiful place to play. Junior college
basketball is pretty healthy with lots of great athletes. But one
thing I’m seeing is that we’re getting a lot of one-year
players. They may be in over their heads at a big university and
come back and play one year at the juco level. When I coached you
came for two years. You didn’t get as many transfer-backs as
they seem to be getting now.
Q:
How does that work, take Marcus Griffin for example?
A:
First of all, when you go to a junior college you have to
graduate. Had Marcus come here to LC and played only one year, but
attended school for two years and received his degree, he still
would’ve had three years of eligibility remaining. The NCAA
gives the student-athlete 10 semesters to complete eight.
Generally, it’s worse for a kid to red shirt at any level
because it usually doesn’t help the kid as much as the program
wants it to. So, now you have to graduate and come out with your
AA degree to go on.
Q:
I know you attend a lot of junior high and high school games. I’d
like to get your impressions.
A:
Perhaps the worst single thing that has ever happened to seventh
grade basketball is the 3-point shot. It is disappointing to me
today when I don’t see kids that can dribble the ball to the
basket under control or that can’t make the fundamentally sound
passes. It’s all about shooting the 3-pointers. The fundamentals
of shooting are not as good today as they have been in the past. I
attribute that entirely to the emphasis on the 3-point shot. At
least there on the grade school level it’s one of the worst
things that I’ve seen.
As
I’ve watched games at Lincoln High School over the years, Tyrise
Bryson from Decatur, who now plays for Illinois State, was one of
the very few players that I’ve seen that could consistently hit
shots coming off of screens. Lincoln’s Josh Komnick was another
kid who could regularly come off the screen and hit a decent
percentage of those shots. I was sad that Josh did not go on in
his basketball career because I felt he had a big future in the
game. He was one of the best basketball players that had the total
package since I’ve been around here.
Obviously,
Gregg Alexander is a terrific player. He is also one of the best
3-point shooters that I’ve ever seen from that range. But Gregg
is not only a great shooter, he is a terrific all-around player.
He probably has the best arm-span, wing-span and eye-hand
coordination on defense that you’ll find anywhere. Here’s
another thing out of Gregg Alexander that you don’t see in a lot
of players—he is the best at moving from offense to defense or
from defense to offense. His ability to transition either way
quickly is amazing. Not many kids can take a shot and be on
defense right away like he can. Although I will say, going back to
Duncan Reid through Loren Wallace and up to Coach Alexander today,
Lincoln teams have always displayed the ability to be good at
making those kinds of transitions. That is really one of the most
positive things that I see in the game today.
The
biggest complaint that I have about the 3-point shot is this—a
basketball player needs to be able to determine what his range is.
With that arc out on the floor, I’m not sure many players are
equipped to make that determination. The problem with most players
is that they think that their range is five feet farther out than
what it really is. And the 3-point line is out of range for most
high school players—for every grade school player and for most
high school players. Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t
hoist up a set shot from the arc. Some of them will go in. But to
do that in the natural flow of the game, I think, is a difficult
thing. I’m not all that excited about bringing in the shot
clock, especially from a coaching standpoint. It takes away from
the control game that I like to play.
Q:
Well, thank you Coach Pick, for taking a trip down nostalgia lane
and for giving us your insights on the game. On behalf of the
Logan County community let me take this opportunity to thank you
for your contributions to the local basketball scene. You have
brought honor and prestige to us through the years and you’re
still a prominent voice when it comes to the state of the local
basketball scene. Thank you for your time.
[Jeff
Mayfield]
|
