Tomorrow is Coach Newell's memorial service in Los Angeles. My good friend Jeff Fellenzer wrote this tribute to Coach Newell...
For Basketball Times January/2009 By JEFF FELLENZER It was the end of another long day at the Pete Newell Big Man Camp in Las Vegas, a nearly empty gym shielding the still-sizzling summer heat. A young assistant high school basketball coach from Southern California, who was working the camp, took a seat next to the legend himself. “He had no idea who I was,” said the coach, Eric Edmunds, reflecting on the memory after news of Pete Newell’s passing on Nov. 17 at age 93. “He sat with only me for about 30 minutes, and we just talked hoops and coaching. It meant a lot because he not only cared about the young players at the camp, but the young coaches too.” For me, that moment defines the essence of what Pete Newell was all about and what he stood for. He was always a teacher first, then a coach. If you had a passion for the game of basketball, and a desire to learn more about the game, no matter who you were or what you did—player, coach, writer, fan, whatever—Pete Newell was your new best friend. He spoke honestly and from the heart. He listened and he truly cared.
“Let’s talk baskets,” I heard Pete say many times to many people. A discussion might include elements of game strategy, or a great player from another era he believed was underappreciated (Hank Luisetti), a rule change that in his mind made no sense (the trapezoid lane), the sorry state of officiating, or the latest news on the college teams he cared most about (Cal, Michigan State or Bob Knight’s Indiana or Texas Tech teams).
If we were at a restaurant, “Let’s talk baskets” meant that the table was likely to be cleared, and all available napkins, salt-and-pepper shakers and water glasses were called into action. Each had a purpose. Then the fun would begin.
It was at such a setting that I had my first meeting with Pete Newell, in the summer of 1995. I had agreed to do a feature story on Newell for a start-up sports magazine. I figured it would be a good way to get to know one of the giants of the game, someone whose career I had followed as a kid growing up in Southern California.
We met for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Palos Verdes, near his home. I walked in and there was Pete, sitting at a table…tanned and relaxed, wearing shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and stylish sneakers, sports car parked outside. And with a margarita in front of him, chips and salsa nearby. When I’m 79, I thought, this is how I want to roll!
Three hours later, I walked out of the restaurant mesmerized. It struck me then just how little I really knew about Pete Newell’s extraordinary life. By retiring from coaching at age 44 in 1960—after leading the finest amateur basketball team ever assembled to a gold medal in the Rome Olympics—Pete’s career had largely flown under the radar screen. Within the sport, of course, he had always been revered for his wisdom, innate grasp and understanding of the game, and willingness to share his knowledge with others.
I began immediately to think about a way to honor a man who had given so much to the game, without ever asking for anything in return. The John R. Wooden Classic had launched the year before in Anaheim, and I thought it represented a good model for an event that would turn the spotlight, for a change, toward Pete Newell. The idea was to hold an annual college basketball doubleheader in the Bay Area, where Pete had built his legacy while winning national championships at San Francisco and Cal.
Pete laughed when I first suggested the idea. He doubted that enough people would be interested. Boy, was he wrong. In fact, the more people I talked to, the more I became convinced it could work. I’ll never forget leaving a message for Bob Knight in his office at Indiana, disappointed to hear from his secretary that he was away for his annual summer visit to Montana, and not scheduled to return until after my deadline.
The next day, much to my surprise, I got a phone message from Coach Knight, calling from Montana and anxious to talk about his dear friend Pete Newell for my story. Near the end of our conversation, I told the coach about my idea of starting an event to honor Pete and asked him point-blank: If I got this thing started, would you bring the Hoosiers to our inaugural event? Yes, he said.
I got similar responses from Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Roy Williams, Mike Montgomery and Ben Braun, among others. The essence of the answer was always the same: If it’s for Pete, I’ll do it.
And so on Dec. 21, 1997, the inaugural Pete Newell Challenge took place at the Oakland Arena (now the Oracle Arena). Our very first game featured Indiana against USF, with Cal and Brigham Young rounding out the field. A year later, the largest crowd ever to see a college basketball game in the state of California—19,657--showed up to watch Cal beat North Carolina, and Stanford defeat Temple.
Over 10 years, schools such as Duke, Kansas, Michigan, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Georgia, Texas Tech and Princeton participated in the Pete Newell Challenge, plus a quartet of Hall of Fame coaches: Knight, Krzyzewski, Williams and John Chaney. At least three others may get there someday: Montgomery, Tom Izzo and Mark Few.
In 2000, we broke the California college attendance record again as 19,804 saw No. 3 Stanford beat No. 1 Duke, 84-83, on Casey Jacobsen’s jump shot with 3.6 seconds to play. The most excited person in the building that night appeared to be Stanford alum Tiger Woods, who leaped high out of his front-row seat when Jacobsen hit his shot. The image became the defining moment of our event.
To this day the attendance record still stands, and I’ll always be proud to have Pete Newell’s name attached to a special night that celebrated the best of college basketball in an area that had meant so much to Pete.
That same night, we also honored the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, and Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson with our career achievement award. It was a star-studded affair, as the Big O was joined by his former Olympic teammates Jerry West, Jerry Lucas, Adrian Smith and Darrall Imhoff, the former Cal walk-on who played for Newell and became the No. 3 pick in the 1960 NBA Draft. At a banquet the night before the games, Krzyzewski described Newell as “the most humble great man I’ve ever met.”
John Wooden has told me on more than one occasion that Pete Newell was the best coach he ever faced. Their rivalry, with Wooden at UCLA and Newell at Cal, was intense, but so was the mutual respect. Each asked about the other often.
Newell, like Wooden, was that rarest of breed…a man of greatness and goodness.
The best part of a friendship with Pete Newell was the very special people that you always felt privileged to meet…starting with his former players who stayed so fiercely loyal to him, who made him so incredibly proud. There were people of all ages and backgrounds. It was like you were part of an exclusive fraternity, when in fact it was anything but exclusive. I’ve heard Pete praised by basketball royalty—Bill Walton, Shaquille O’Neal, West, Robertson, Knight—but just as enthusiastically welcomed by the hotel staff at his beloved Queen Kapiolani in Honolulu, parking attendants at the Del Mar Race Track, and the doormen at the Claremont Resort & Spa in Berkeley.
I remember being in the Bay Area one fall day when Pete invited me to join him for a visit with an old friend. So we drove to the San Francisco 49ers’ offices in Santa Clara, met a couple of Pete’s former Cal players, and dropped in on one of football’s greatest icons, Bill Walsh.
Walsh’s secretary held his calls, brought in lunch, and our group sat around a table, talking for two-plus hours on subjects ranging from what makes an athlete great to the challenges of evaluating college players and projecting success at the next level. Turns out the two future Hall of Famers, Newell and Walsh, had met when Newell was the athletic director at Cal in the early 1960s, and Walsh was a young defensive backs coach. A day like that could happen anytime you hung out with Pete Newell.
I’m not sure many people realize what an incredible gift Newell had for recognizing talent. And not just on a basketball court. In the late 1940s, while scouting a junior college tournament at Compton College in Southern California for USF, Pete was impressed by a hustling young student who was working for the host school. The kid was passing out statistics at a time when few schools bothered, and kept bringing hot cups of coffee to the group of coaches huddled in the stands.
A year or so later, when the publicity director at USF quit in protest over the firing of the school’s football coach, the athletic director asked Newell about possible replacements. Newell remembered the hard-working student from Compton College, and suggested they give him a call. The kid interviewed, got the job…and Pete Rozelle’s career in sports was officially launched. Rozelle and Newell remained lifelong friends.
When Cal needed a new football coach after Pete Elliott left for Illinois following the 1959 season, Newell recommended a young Wyoming coach named Bob Devaney, who had impressed Newell while an assistant under Duffy Daugherty when Newell was the head basketball coach at Michigan State (1950-54).
Cal officials brought in Devaney for a perfunctory interview as a favor to Newell, having already decided on Marv Levy for the job. Levy, who later had great success in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills, lasted four seasons at Cal, finishing with a record of 8-29-3. Devaney took over at Nebraska in 1962 and built a dynasty, winning two national championships and 101 games in 11 seasons. Prior to Devaney’s arrival, Nebraska had compiled exactly two winning seasons in the previous 20.
Ever wonder who thought of the name “Golden State” Warriors? It was Newell, who suggested the moniker to his close friend, Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli, after Mieuli decided to move the franchise across the bay from San Francisco to Oakland in 1971. The Warriors were interested in playing occasional games in San Diego, which was without pro basketball after the Rockets moved to Houston. Mieuli didn’t like the name “Oakland Warriors,” so he took Newell’s suggestion and Golden State was born.
As general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers (1972-76), Newell consummated a trade that would change the face of the franchise forever. Knowing that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had decided not to return to Milwaukee after the 1974-75 season, Newell realized he had a window of opportunity to make a trade and bring him back to Southern California, where he had been a three-time college All-America at UCLA.
Equally determined to win the Abdul-Jabbar sweepstakes were the New York Knicks, who hoped to return Kareem to his hometown, where he had first gained national fame as a schoolboy legend at Power Memorial Academy. What ultimately made the difference for the Lakers was Newell’s relationship with Wayne Embry, the Milwaukee general manager. Embry trusted his friend, so when Newell put a package of players together that included Junior Bridgeman, Brian Winters, Elmore Smith and top draft pick Dave Meyers of UCLA, Embry agreed to the deal and the Lakers had their man.
Abdul-Jabbar’s imprint on the Laker franchise remains to this day, in his current role tutoring talented young center Andrew Bynum. The Lakers didn’t hesitate to send Bynum to the Big Man Camp to work with Newell and his exceptional staff for two consecutive summers after drafting Bynum straight out of high school.
Watching Pete work his magic at the camp was always a treat. No games were ever played during those twice-daily, weeklong sessions, which I have always referred to as Newell’s “laboratory of learning.” NBA players practiced in the morning, college kids in the afternoon. It was all about footwork and fundamentals, about developing your moves, understanding the nuances of post play. Basketball, Pete would famously say, is a game of counters; when the defense takes something away, you have to be able to counter it. He would explain how and why each move worked.
If a player wasn’t at camp to work hard, he wouldn’t make it through the week. Newell only tolerated serious students of the game. He met with his coaches throughout the day, worked tirelessly with players who wanted extra help, and often gave clinics and chalk talks to high school and youth coaches in the evening. After all, he came from an era where clinics would sometimes last a week at a time, and you might be asked to speak all day. In other words, Pete was in his wheelhouse.
“The chance to spend a week with Pete Newell is like a student of literature getting to spend a week with Hemingway or Frost,” Dallas Mavericks coach and longtime Big Man Camp instructor Rick Carlisle told ESPN the Magazine’s Ric Bucher a few years back. “The man is the greatest treasure we have in our sport. He is the godfather of modern basketball.”
In 32 years of the camp, Newell never took a dime for his services. Not one dime. What started out as a few summer sessions at Rogers Park in Inglewood to help an undersized Laker post player, Kermit Washington, improve his game so he could stay in the league, turned into a full-fledged business in Hawaii and then Las Vegas. But it was always a labor of love for the founder himself. Pete thought it was a good message to send to the NBA players especially, that the game was about more than money.
Truth is, for Pete Newell, it was always about giving back to the game, making the game better, lending a helping hand to any player or coach, man or woman, who asked. He was a hero and role model to coaches around the world, especially in Japan and China, where he made frequent visits to teach and was treated like an ambassador. Whatever he did, he never asked what was in it for him. Never had to. He already knew.
A friend of mine who knew him put it this way: “Pete was one of those people who didn’t just touch lives, he changed them.” For those of us who were blessed enough to be his friends, our lives have been forever enriched. He brought us together. And that will be his greatest legacy.
Jeff Fellenzer, a former Los Angeles Times writer/editor, is the creator of the Pete Newell Challenge and president of Innovative Sports Management. He also teaches "Sports, Business and Media" at the University of Southern California. He can be reached at jfellz@aol.com.
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