[I’ve been reading and writing about Bill Sharman lately. Among the blur of articles that have passed by me is this one on Sharman’s bittersweet tenure as head coach of the San Francisco Warriors during the 1966-67 season. This piece, from San Francisco Examiner’s Harry Jupiter, captures mostly the sweet while Sharman’s Warriors are on the NBA rise and preparing for a date to come in the NBA Finals, where they lost to the record-setting Philadelphia 76ers. The bitter will come after the season when Rick Barry jumps to the ABA, in part because he can’t stand playing for the basketball-obsessed Sharman. While Jupiter’s prose can be a flat in places, his article is still worth reading for its objective look at short-lived Sharman in San Francisco. Too often his one-season miracle that put the Warriors on the Warpath gets overlooked by all the fingerpointing to come. Jupiter’s article ran in the February 18, 1967 issue of The Sporting News.]
****
When you’ve got Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond on your side, people expect you to put a pretty good basketball team on the court. But nobody expected the Warriors to run away with the NBA’s Western Division championship, and that’s exactly what’s happening.
Bill Sharman, in his first season as coach of the Warriors, figured San Francisco would be better than its fourth-place finish of last season. But even Sharman, a clear-eyed optimist, never anticipated the magnitude of the team’s success. The Warriors have been leading the West by as much as 10 games this season, and they’ve come on strong at the box office as well as on the arena floor.
A lot of things are falling into place for San Francisco—including plenty of bad luck for the rest of the division—but Franklin Mieuli, the owner of the Warriors, leaves no doubts about the role Sharman has played. “I think Sharman is the Coach of the Year,” said Mieuli. “In my opinion, the only guy who has done a comparable job is Johnny Kerr, especially if he manages to get the Bulls into the playoffs in Chicago’s first year in the league.”
Mieuli, of course, would rather ignore a couple of great jobs being done in the east. The Celtics, in Bill Russell’s first year as coach, have one of the finest winning percentages in their history, and yet are second to Alex Hannum’s 76ers. For some reason, very possibly akin to envy, most people tend to take Celtic coaches for granted, pointing to the great Boston talent. It’s hardly fair to ignore the work that Russell has done.
Likewise, Hannum’s success with the 76ers has been sensational, even though Philadelphia does have a great club. Nobody, not even the Celtics, ever ripped through two-thirds of an NBA season the way the 76ers have this time around.
But there are solid reasons for Mieuli shouting the praises of his own rookie coach, especially since Sharman has been able to make one of Mieuli’s most-cherished plans work. “Let’s face it,” said Mieuli, “Sharman took a team that finished fourth last year and look where he’s got ‘em.
“There’s no question the 76ers are having a great year, but if they win the Eastern Division and get beat by Boston in the playoffs, then Hannum will have done no better than Dolph Schayes did last year.”
Schayes, you may recall, made headlines two ways at the end of last season. He was named the NBA’s coach of the year—and he was fired. Also, at about the same time, Mieuli fired Hannum and hired Sharman. Mieuli’s firing of Hannum was more of a stunner than Schayes getting the ax. There had been rumors that Schayes’ job was in jeopardy, but there had been no warning at all that Mieuli was thinking of making a change.
Consequently, it was inevitable that Mieuli would spend a great deal of time this year with his eyes crossed, trying to watch his Warriors and the fate of the 76ers simultaneously. Happily, it’s been a great year for the Warriors and the 76ers. Both Sharman and Hannum have done marvelous jobs. Sharman obviously is doing his work with a team that had farther to go.
Bill had a tough road to travel. He inherited a Warrior team that practically deified Hannum. But the players are professionals. Much as they regretted Hannum’s departure, they didn’t hold it against Sharman.
The key to the disagreement between Mieuli and Hannum was Mieuli’s interest in a summer program. It involved moving practically the entire team to San Francisco for a year-round home, finding them jobs and places for them to practice three times a week all summer.
Mieuli feels this type of program is a large part of the reason for the success of the Celtics and the Lakers. Franklin is a promotion-minded owner who has been involved with the broadcasts of the 49ers and Giants. He formed a number of ideas from observing the football and baseball teams in operation.
“I wanted the Warriors to become a part of the San Francisco community, and it meant having everybody around here all the time, including the offseason,” Mieuli said. “Hannum worked his tail off all season, but he was reluctant to move his home here from Southern California and get involved in a year-round program. It was important to Alex to get away from basketball after the season ended. I understand Alex’s feelings, but I wanted him to understand mine as well.”
Coincidence brought Mieuli and Sharman together. Last year, Sharman worked for the Tidewater Oil Company’s promotion department conducting basketball clinics. Sharman was in San Francisco for a clinic. He sat down at a Warriors game with Dick Whitman and Mieuli. Whitman, a former pro baseball player, is a mutual friend. As they talked, Mieuli asked Sharman about Red Auerbach’s techniques with the Celtics’ summer programs.
Sharman, a sharp observer as a well as one of the finest shooters in the history of basketball, knew all about Auerbach’s methods and had a number of ideas of his own.
It was just about that time that the Chicago Bulls bought their way into the NBA. Dick Klein, the president of the Bulls, called Mieuli one day to ask his advice. “As you know, we’re looking for a coach,” Klein said. “What do you think of Bill Sharman?”
Mieuli gave Klein a glowing endorsement of Sharman. “If I didn’t have the greatest coach in the world,” Mieuli said, “then Sharman would be my man.”
As Mieuli completed the conversation, happy with the endorsement he had spread, an idea began forming. In trying to sell Sharman to Klein, Mieuli had all but sold Sharman to himself. The next time Sharman was in town, Mieuli visited Bill’s hotel room. He wanted to know if Sharman would be interested in coaching the Warriors.
Sharman was stunned. He couldn’t believe Mieuli was serious about replacing Hannum. Sharman and Hannum had been friends since college days at USC. “Look,” Sharman told Mieuli, “you’re not offering me a job because you still have a coach. I’m not looking to undercut anybody. If the job opens, let me know.”
The final week of last season, Mieuli made up his mind. But now, he was getting nervous. In addition to the Bulls’ interest in Sharman, USC was considering Bill to coach the Trojans. “I would really have been in a bind if I fired Hannum and then found Sharman wasn’t available,” Mieuli said.
But Mieuli went through with the plan. He fired Hannum, then called Sharman. Bill was interested in the job, but he wanted a three-year contract with an escalating salary. Mieuli didn’t quibble. He agreed on the spot.
Meanwhile, Mieuli had been talking the Warriors into moving to San Francisco for the summer. “It started with Rick Barry,” Mieuli said. “Rick liked it here. Then Fred Hetzel came out. Nate Thurmond liked it here from the beginning. Paul Neumann and Tom Meschery were from the area and were already living here the year round.
“By the time I was done, the only player who couldn’t see his way clear to moving out here was Al Attles. I helped them get jobs, kept talking the idea up, and it all fell into place. They used to call it ‘Franklin’s Folly,’ but it’s paid off, thanks to Sharman.”
Each player who agreed to take part in the three-a-week practices, plus clinics, got $100 a week from Mieuli. Since the practices and clinics were in the evenings, they still were free to take daytime jobs, if they chose.
Sharman swung into the summer program with the enthusiasm that Mieuli had hoped to get from Hannum. In addition to having been a great shooter himself, Sharman proved to be a superb teacher.
Bill was an 88-percent free-throw shooter in his 11 years with the Celtics and hit 42 percent of his shots from the floor. The 88 percent from the foul line is the NBA record for a career. “Last year, we were the worst in the league from the foul line,” said Mieuli. “This year, we’re one of the best.
Sharman had a headful of ideas on how to keep the practices fun for the players. He kept setting up competitions on different kinds of shots, and Mieuli provided prizes for the winners—green stamps.
Rick Barry, whose 25.7 points per game as a rookie was the fourth-ranked average in the NBA last year, boosted his average to better than 36 a game this season. “Sharman helped me a lot with my shooting,” Barry said, though Rick was quite a shooter before he ever met Sharman.
Mieuli and Sharman also enlisted the help of Payton Jordan, the track coach at Stanford. Jordan worked with the Warriors to develop their quickness, a commodity that is as important in basketball as sheer speed. Jordan gave the players exercises that taught them to peak their muscles and accelerate quickly. It’s paid off in the way the Warriors get their fastbreak rolling.
Mieuli also spent more than $1,200 for a video recorder. The Warriors film all their games and practices and then study the tapes. It helps them see the mistakes that they make better than any coach could point them out. “We were the first to use the video recorder,” Mieuli said proudly. “We started with it last summer. L.A., Boston, and Chicago are using it now—and there may be other teams, too.”
Sharman, of course, isn’t a novice at coaching. He coached the Los Angeles Jets in the American Basketball League and coached Los Angeles State College for two years. L.A. State had a 4-22 record the year before Sharman took over. They were 12-12 his first year at the helm, then had an 18-7 record under Bill. So, this is his fifth season as a coach.
Bill has a special philosophy: “You can’t keep the same system when you keep changing personnel.” He added: “You have to adapt your style of basketball to the players on your team. We’re certainly not a muscle team like St. Louis, New York, or Philadelphia. Our strength is speed, quickness, and finesse. We don’t have the physical power of some of the teams in the league.
“I was aware of the way players felt about Hannum,” Sharman said, “but it hasn’t worked against me. The superstars—Thurmond and Barry—aren’t temperamental. Nobody has let down. If anything, they’ve tried harder. Jimmy King and Tom Meschery really do a spirited job for us in helping fire up the Warriors.”
As Hannum did, Sharman spends three times as much of his practice time on defense as he does on offense. “These players are all great on offense,” Bill observed. “Clyde Lee had never seen a pro game before he reported to us. He couldn’t believe the work we do on defense.
“Fred Hetzel got killed last year on defense, but he’s really improved. In college basketball, everybody collapses on the big guy underneath the basket. But the pros can shoot so well from outside that you’ve got to cover ‘em. It used to be simply a matter of a pick or a double pick to set up a shot, but now, with a 24-second clock, it’s a different game. You’ve got to be moving all the time.”
From Way Downtown 