Jimcs50
02-12-2007, 09:53 AM
Innovative coach with comic's timing
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Shelby Metcalf would have found a punch line in the fact his death would fall on the same day as Anna Nicole Smith's.
I'm not quite sure what the former Texas A&M basketball coach would have said — when did you ever know? — but there would have been something.
Metcalf would have leaned back in his chair and put on that pensive grimace he always made. He maybe would have reached up with one hand, pulled on his ear and thought about it. He would have scratched his nose, then looked at you with those puppy dog eyes and dropped a parched-dry line that would have had you buckling over.
Maybe it would have been something about inflatable toys. Maybe it would have been something about a couple of airheads. Who knows?
But you would have walked away laughing and shaking your head, retelling the story a thousand times.
But like those who will gather in Bryan today to say farewell to Metcalf, all of whom have a favorite story, never would you deliver it with quite the same deadpan style or timing of the gentleman coach with a disarming wit.
I was privileged to know Shelby Metcalf for 25 years. He was one of my all-time personal favorites in the business, because even when I was just a kid, taking over the beat as a 19-year-old student, he treated me the same as the legendary veterans of sports journalism who stopped by an Aggies practice or game.
If I needed an interview, he blocked time in his schedule for me just as he did for the biggest names in the business at the time — a Blackie Sherrod, a Jack Gallagher, a Frank Deford or Dan Jenkins. That says enough about the man.
But there was always something more to Metcalf — something genuine and wry.
My favorite Metcalf story: Sitting in his office in 1985, I mentioned that I would miss the final regular-season game because of my wedding but informed him that I would be back by the following Thursday to cover the Southwest Conference tournament.
He rubbed his face, scratched his neck and said: "John, I hope you're not cutting your honeymoon short for basketball. Because if you are, there's either something I don't know about basketball or something you don't know about honeymoons."
There were hundreds of other stories, and they never seemed to stop coming. I checked in on Metcalf a couple of times over the past year, and the wit was always there.
Metcalf was everything you've heard about since his death last week brought back the memories. Funny. A hell of a coach. A fisherman, a faithful father and as intelligent a man as you'll ever know.
Elevated A&M basketball
But there's a question that has slipped through the cracks in remembering Metcalf: Why?
Why was he so successful? Why was it that in the 12 years before Metcalf's arrival in 1963 and the 15 years after his departure (until Billy Gillispie came along) did the Aggies not have the players or system in place to make an NCAA Tournament appearance?
Why was Metcalf able to win 438 games, claim conference championships in three decades, take his team to nine postseason tournaments and land players who might not always have been the most talented but always were among the toughest?
He was unafraid to go places other coaches did not, literally and figuratively. This should be remembered as much as any one-liner Metcalf uttered.
He was colorblind and innovative, understanding during his tenure that, in Texas, basketball always took a back seat to football. Metcalf thus looked everywhere for players who possessed the ability to "play hard," as his mantra went.
He went to Chicago in 1971 to recruit and ultimately sign Mario Brown, the first black basketball player at A&M. That same year, Metcalf headed to the barrios of Los Angeles to sign Joe Arciniega, a Hispanic shooter who became something of a cult hero for the Hispanic population of Bryan, who created "Arciniega's Army."
"It was culture shock going from my surroundings to College Station," Arciniega told me last year. "But (Metcalf) made it comfortable. We'd get great crowds. Everybody would come. The Corps, the band and a lot of (Hispanics) from Bryan. They just took a liking to me."
Not long after that, Metcalf's best team, the 1979-80 group that beat Bradley and North Carolina on the way to an overtime loss to eventual national champion Louisville in the Sweet 16, was the epitome of what he tried to build with street-tough kids, suburbanites and rural folk alike.
There was point guard David Goff, the tough, thinking man's point guard; David Britton from the Bronx; and Dallas ISD graduates Rynn Wright and Vernon Wells. A bench player was current San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford, a basketball junkie from an affluent family.
Ethnicity, culture and economic status never mattered. Metcalf recruited rural gyms, inner-city junior colleges, even the blacktop courts of New York.
Recruiting breakthrough
In 1985, a coaching friend told Metcalf about a raw point guard known as "D-Mac The Playground King" who was a legend at famed Rucker Park in New York. Metcalf caught a plane to the Big Apple and drove to Harlem, where he recruited the flashy Darryl McDonald, a kid as tough as they came. Just weeks before Metcalf's visit, McDonald's brother was shot and killed in a robbery attempt.
"He sure was the playground king," Metcalf said last year. "People would come out and watch him. He was really a big thing. And he could flat play."
Metcalf shot a few hoops with McDonald on a Harlem blacktop, then walked with him to his high-rise apartment.
"I remember Darryl kept telling me, 'Don't look at anyone in the face,' " Metcalf said. "He told me to just walk with your head down. It was kind of a tough place."
McDonald went on to become the heart and soul of Metcalf's final NCAA Tournament team in 1987, one that stunningly won the SWC tournament as a No. 8 seed.
The thing most remembered about that 1987 run was Metcalf's quote from a news conference after the second round. He was asked how he would celebrate beating TCU and then Texas Tech.
"I'm gonna go out and buy some more underwear," Metcalf said. "I hadn't planned on being in Dallas this long."
His wit and homespun wisdom were unforgettable. But don't forget his imaginative knack for giving any kid, from anywhere, a chance.
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Shelby Metcalf would have found a punch line in the fact his death would fall on the same day as Anna Nicole Smith's.
I'm not quite sure what the former Texas A&M basketball coach would have said — when did you ever know? — but there would have been something.
Metcalf would have leaned back in his chair and put on that pensive grimace he always made. He maybe would have reached up with one hand, pulled on his ear and thought about it. He would have scratched his nose, then looked at you with those puppy dog eyes and dropped a parched-dry line that would have had you buckling over.
Maybe it would have been something about inflatable toys. Maybe it would have been something about a couple of airheads. Who knows?
But you would have walked away laughing and shaking your head, retelling the story a thousand times.
But like those who will gather in Bryan today to say farewell to Metcalf, all of whom have a favorite story, never would you deliver it with quite the same deadpan style or timing of the gentleman coach with a disarming wit.
I was privileged to know Shelby Metcalf for 25 years. He was one of my all-time personal favorites in the business, because even when I was just a kid, taking over the beat as a 19-year-old student, he treated me the same as the legendary veterans of sports journalism who stopped by an Aggies practice or game.
If I needed an interview, he blocked time in his schedule for me just as he did for the biggest names in the business at the time — a Blackie Sherrod, a Jack Gallagher, a Frank Deford or Dan Jenkins. That says enough about the man.
But there was always something more to Metcalf — something genuine and wry.
My favorite Metcalf story: Sitting in his office in 1985, I mentioned that I would miss the final regular-season game because of my wedding but informed him that I would be back by the following Thursday to cover the Southwest Conference tournament.
He rubbed his face, scratched his neck and said: "John, I hope you're not cutting your honeymoon short for basketball. Because if you are, there's either something I don't know about basketball or something you don't know about honeymoons."
There were hundreds of other stories, and they never seemed to stop coming. I checked in on Metcalf a couple of times over the past year, and the wit was always there.
Metcalf was everything you've heard about since his death last week brought back the memories. Funny. A hell of a coach. A fisherman, a faithful father and as intelligent a man as you'll ever know.
Elevated A&M basketball
But there's a question that has slipped through the cracks in remembering Metcalf: Why?
Why was he so successful? Why was it that in the 12 years before Metcalf's arrival in 1963 and the 15 years after his departure (until Billy Gillispie came along) did the Aggies not have the players or system in place to make an NCAA Tournament appearance?
Why was Metcalf able to win 438 games, claim conference championships in three decades, take his team to nine postseason tournaments and land players who might not always have been the most talented but always were among the toughest?
He was unafraid to go places other coaches did not, literally and figuratively. This should be remembered as much as any one-liner Metcalf uttered.
He was colorblind and innovative, understanding during his tenure that, in Texas, basketball always took a back seat to football. Metcalf thus looked everywhere for players who possessed the ability to "play hard," as his mantra went.
He went to Chicago in 1971 to recruit and ultimately sign Mario Brown, the first black basketball player at A&M. That same year, Metcalf headed to the barrios of Los Angeles to sign Joe Arciniega, a Hispanic shooter who became something of a cult hero for the Hispanic population of Bryan, who created "Arciniega's Army."
"It was culture shock going from my surroundings to College Station," Arciniega told me last year. "But (Metcalf) made it comfortable. We'd get great crowds. Everybody would come. The Corps, the band and a lot of (Hispanics) from Bryan. They just took a liking to me."
Not long after that, Metcalf's best team, the 1979-80 group that beat Bradley and North Carolina on the way to an overtime loss to eventual national champion Louisville in the Sweet 16, was the epitome of what he tried to build with street-tough kids, suburbanites and rural folk alike.
There was point guard David Goff, the tough, thinking man's point guard; David Britton from the Bronx; and Dallas ISD graduates Rynn Wright and Vernon Wells. A bench player was current San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford, a basketball junkie from an affluent family.
Ethnicity, culture and economic status never mattered. Metcalf recruited rural gyms, inner-city junior colleges, even the blacktop courts of New York.
Recruiting breakthrough
In 1985, a coaching friend told Metcalf about a raw point guard known as "D-Mac The Playground King" who was a legend at famed Rucker Park in New York. Metcalf caught a plane to the Big Apple and drove to Harlem, where he recruited the flashy Darryl McDonald, a kid as tough as they came. Just weeks before Metcalf's visit, McDonald's brother was shot and killed in a robbery attempt.
"He sure was the playground king," Metcalf said last year. "People would come out and watch him. He was really a big thing. And he could flat play."
Metcalf shot a few hoops with McDonald on a Harlem blacktop, then walked with him to his high-rise apartment.
"I remember Darryl kept telling me, 'Don't look at anyone in the face,' " Metcalf said. "He told me to just walk with your head down. It was kind of a tough place."
McDonald went on to become the heart and soul of Metcalf's final NCAA Tournament team in 1987, one that stunningly won the SWC tournament as a No. 8 seed.
The thing most remembered about that 1987 run was Metcalf's quote from a news conference after the second round. He was asked how he would celebrate beating TCU and then Texas Tech.
"I'm gonna go out and buy some more underwear," Metcalf said. "I hadn't planned on being in Dallas this long."
His wit and homespun wisdom were unforgettable. But don't forget his imaginative knack for giving any kid, from anywhere, a chance.