Basketball Lost a Great Coach, Teacher and Legend in Pete Newell
Thursday, November 20th, 2008Pete Newell was a true Renaissance Man, pioneer, innovator and any other positive description of a person of lasting influence. He passed away at the age of 93 on Monday and when he did, the basketball world lost the finest teacher of fundamentals since James Naismith nailed the peach baskets to the balcony.
Pete won the NIT Championship with the University of San Francisco when that tournament was the better of the two. He took over Michigan State the year they entered the Big Ten and turned a 4-18 team into a competitive group. Then he moved to Cal where he won the NCAA Title and took the Golden Bears to the Final Four twice. Maybe something that will astound the hoops fan even more is that the last eight (8) times his Cal teams played John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins, the record was Newell eight, Wooden zip. The truly knowledgeable fan would say that this was prior to John Wooden’s power teams with his great players. The point is Newell’s entire coaching career was without great players.
So how did he do it? One word tells it all: FUNDAMENTALS. Every coach who ever put on a pair of sneakers talks about the importance of fundamentals, but Pete believed it, taught it, never let up or went away from it and because of his insistence and persistence, his team mastered them. In fact, none other than Jerry Tarkanian, who is more infatuated with talent than possibly anyone, past or present, who ever coached the game, said, “No coach can win without talent. Except Pete Newell.”  Tark counted Pete as one of his greatest mentors, a thought echoed by the likes of Bob Knight, Jerry West and countless others.
And here was a guy whose head coaching career spanned only fourteen years. His chain smoking habit, inability to sleep (imagine if his teams had lost), the stress his lifestyle brought on him were all factors in his doctor ordering him to get out of coaching if he wanted to stay on the top side of the grass. He remained in the game - in the NBA front office of Houston, Los Angeles and San Diego NBA teams, but what most people (under 50) know him for is his equally legendary “Big Man Camp.”Â
This started when power forward Kermit Washington asked Pete for some help in the off season and his marked improvement, as well as a few others who went with him, spawned a flock of Newell groupies. In no time, this was a huge business, with Pete working on, first and foremost, footwork. Stories are told of the biggest of stars attending the camp, but what thrilled me when I attended (it was held on the campus of Loyola Marymount University near LAX and was free to anyone who wanted to watch) was the complete, undivided attention guys like Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal paid to him.
Although it was a big business (he eventually moved it to Hawaii), Pete never took any money. He felt no amount of money could ever compare to the fact that he was making a major difference in helping players reach their potential. Others imitated his camp, but no one ever even claimed to be as good. There was no way anybody would ever believe it, so why discredit yourself?
He was one of only three coaches to have won an NIT Championship, an NCAA Crown and an Olympic gold medal (Dean Smith and Bob Knight are the others). Many feel his Olympic team was the finest collection of basketball players ever (Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas) and every game was an absolute blowout. It’s been said that if any other coach took the best twelve players from the rest of the world, Pete’s team would have beaten them by twenty. Other coaches have said, “That’s what Pete’s teams would have been like if he ever recruited talented kids.” What a frightening thought.
Most of all he was a leader and the leadership line that could have best described Pete was:Â
“Leadership does not mean getting people to do their job. Leadership means getting people to do their best.” Â