SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/235501_paynter08.html

Coach-kid connection: The net effect can last a lifetime

Monday, August 8, 2005

By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

When Rainier Beach High School's title-winning basketball coach, Mike Bethea, yelled at his 6-foot-5 shooting star, Jamal Crawford, it was never to make him feel small. And forget the kid's height -- he could have.

Oh, they got into it. Coach Bethea nailed J.C.'s butt to the bench often enough that the guard, now playing for the New York Knicks, still remembers not liking the feel. "But he never beat you down," Crawford recalled. "Within minutes, he always explained why he did what he did. And not just to the stars."




"I can be a bit of a yeller," Bethea admitted. "But I don't let it go too far. And, if it is out of my own frustration, I admit it before the quarter's out. Otherwise, next time, they come in with their heads down and they may not hear you again."

It was clear, too, that "Coach" cared as much about how kids did in school as whether they would cinch a state championship or execute a killer jump shot. "He'd sit in my class and make sure I was there, working," Crawford told me. "He'd tell me when I was right and when I wasn't. It was more father-son than player-coach."

Bethea asks his players to ask themselves, "Are you sitting with the knuckleheads? Do you pay attention and participate? He's constructing a work ethic that applies to everything -- chores, homework, and life -- not just their moves on the floor.

Even before Coach Bethea's eyes were on him, Crawford "practically lived at" the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club, learning not only how to handle a ball, but himself.

So, when Crawford heads back home to Seattle this month to join other NBA stars for a Boys and Girls Club benefit, it will be because those early coach-to-kid ties still hold.

Through the summer league play just ended, from my parental perch at a dozen Seattle-area gyms, I watched the way those cords can hoist a kid high or lash him low. I've seen coaches who are canny and sparing about the weight of the power they wield. And those whose tongue-lashing personal attacks threaten to leave lasting scars.

I've watched a coach from a scrappy, cash-strapped school model a beautiful moment of respect for his impressionable players by complimenting an opposing player on a last-second shot that spelled his own loss. And a ****y coach from a powerhouse school who rubbed humiliation into the wounds of an outclassed opponent. And a coach from an affluent Eastside school who sat back smiling, arms folded, while his players' elbows drew blood in the key.

When beloved coaches retire or die, few adults are more sorely missed by kids. When they abuse their stature, few betrayals are more sorely felt. And, when a child connects with a selfless coach committed to building lives, few influences are more lasting.

I wanted to ask players and coaches about the bond that connects them, so I went to some of the best.

"You're no better just because you're in a particular sport," said Crawford whose high school coach calls him "a very humble person who always made everyone around him a better player."

"As quick as you're on top you can come down. It's adversity, not winning, that builds character," Crawford said.

Bethea's thoughts, exactly.

"So many kids are out there beating their own drum. And when disappointment hits, it hits hard," he said. If sport is all a kid has in life, it's a setup for emptiness later on.

Talent doesn't take you far without a work ethic and a head that's screwed on right. Eventually, Bethea says, even the most gifted player reaches a point where everyone around him is just as good. And that's when the work ethic is all that gets him through. If a coach doesn't teach his kids that, he's done them a disservice.

Some coaches cater only to their superstars, giving them rides and inviting them to the table. But "we were like a pack of rats, more brothers than teammates, Crawford said.

"I tell them they're all family and nine times out of 10, they get it," Bethea explained. If any one of them drives off leaving a teammate standing, he asks, "How'd you feel if you were the one there, waiting in the rain?" and it doesn't happen again.

For coaches such as Bethea, this isn't a job, it's a life choice. Even at home, the light is always on for a player who needs a talk or a meal.

A lot of Coach Bethea's kids have come from single-parent households and are frankly facing a lot of things he never had to. Crawford's dad lived in California while he was growing up in Seattle.

"There are times when moms call me late at night saying, 'I can't find so-and-so. So I get up out of my bed at midnight and run them down," Bethea said. "And that's when they see the angry dad side of me."

Sadly, the angry side is the only one some coaches show in posturing to be "tough."

Jim Marsh of Friends of Hoop has seen the loving, caring side of coaching. But he's also seen the destructive, dysfunctional side often enough to turn his stomach.

He says parents simply shouldn't let that happen just because the guy wielding the hammer happens to be a coach. But he admits it's hard to step in.

Even down at the fifth- and sixth-grade level, Marsh says he is "sometimes flabbergasted" at the way kids are treated, screamed at and insulted.

Sometimes he yells orders when kids aren't trying. But he's more apt to fill a player's sails with the wind of positive comments, not personal attacks. "These kids will scale heights even they can't imagine," he said. "And, especially when they're younger, they don't even flippin' care which way their foot is pointing. Just give them a ball, tell them they're the best thing in the world, and let them go."

He's seen kids come to Friends of Hoop with spirits all but broken, and then watched them bloom again over the span of one summer, heads up, shoulders back, tails no longer between their long, knobby legs.

Basketball is exploding in this region with a proliferation of leagues and feeder systems. And that means more and more volunteer coaches are needed all the time.

It's not a way to get rich, or even get paid much of the time. But Marsh says the reward comes when a kid looks at you with "big eyes" and then goes out and does what you've taught him. Snohomish High School star and entering UW freshman Jon Brockman was like that at 12, Marsh recalled. "And, at 17, his eyes are still just as huge" and his attitude just as open.

UW star and newly minted coach Curtis Allen had the big eyes, too, not long ago. Now he's stepping into the big shoes, having coached a little more than one year. "And it's very satisfying to watch when your kids start to get it. When you work with them on principles and, suddenly, they start playing as a team. When they know that, every time they're stepping on the court, they're doing it for each other."

Allen is assistant coach at U Prep, athletics director and physical education teacher at The Evergreen School, and, this summer, he's director of basketball camps at Ballard Boys and Girls Club while helping to run Husky hoop camps as well.

"It's crazy when you dump it on the other side (by jumping from player to coach) and you understand the reason for all the things your coaches taught you," he said.

If a kid is being lazy, you may have to raise your voice to get his attention. But nothing is really taught by being abusive, Allen said. "If you only yell you lose them."

Every time Allen walks into a gym, he wants to be the most positive influence he can be. "I don't even consider it a job," he said. "I just go every day excited to lead them in the right direction, on and off the court."

It's a lot to ask, and exactly what kids deserve.

PLAYING ALONG
Seattle Sonics All-Star forward Rashard Lewis and New York Knicks guard Jamal Crawford, a former Rainier Beach star, will be co-hosts of Celebrity Softball Weekend on Aug. 19 and 20 with all proceeds benefiting Boys and Girls Clubs of King County.

Tax-deductible, $125 tickets for Friday night's 7:30 p.m. VIP party and auction at Sport Restaurant and Bar, 140 Fourth Ave. N., are available through Delia Obie of the Boys and Girls Club at 206-461-3890, Ext. 2242. And $20 and $10 tax-deductible tickets for the noon to 6 p.m. softball game at the University of Washington baseball field are available by contacting area Boys and Girls Clubs or, on game day, at the field.

Expected to join Lewis and Crawford at the events are NBA stars Ray Allen, Stephon Marbury, Fred Jones, Desmond Mason and Gary Payton.