Al Kyte's Life Take-Aways

     

I began to think he could do that all day, hit one line drive after another.  That was my reaction to watching Curt Flood taking batting practice.  No matter where that pitch was in the strike zone, he was able to get the sweet spot of the bat on it.  It was beautiful.  Curt was just one of the many highly-skilled athletes my dad coached.  Well-liked, Curt was an exceptional role model for young players.  He had a great junior year on my dad’s team and was projected to  receive a $30,000 bonus to play professional baseball, big money then.  Unfortunately Curt did not grow during his senior year, so was offered only the $4,000 minimum instead.  Although considered too short, his skills were so impressive and consistent that he advanced through the minor leagues quickly to become an all-star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Coaching gifted athletes can have its own set of challenges, such as educating a player’s family member as to what a coach expects of that player.  John Brodie comes to mind.  I played football against John in grade school and had never seen a kid our age throw the football so far.  He and I both excelled in basketball, and in high school he decided to try baseball as well.  Hitting curve balls usually takes time to learn, but John was doing it almost immediately.  He was gaining valuable experience on our junior varsity until his dad pulled him from the team in mid-season to keep his grades up for Stanford.

That summer John and I played on the same baseball team, and he was our leading hitter.  At one point his dad approached mine and said, “I’ll bet you are glad John will be playing for your team this year.”  My dad’s reply surprised us. “John won’t be playing for me.  I can’t build a team around a player who might quit in the middle of the season.”  Quick to understand, John’s dad offered, “What if I guarantee that he will be there all season?”  That is the commitment my dad had to hear.  John went on to play a key role in helping my dad’s team get to the championship game.  Later John became best known as an all-pro quarterback with the 49ers.

My dad taught me that the best coaches care about the athletes on other teams as well as their own.  George Powles was another widely-respected baseball coach in Oakland but at McClymonds High was assigned to coach basketball as well, a game in which he had little experience.  One day he called my dad for advice about a tall 10th grader whose coordination was so bad that balls he was rebounding were slipping through his hands prompting laughter from his teammates.  George asked my dad if he thought he should cut that boy from the team to protect him from further humiliation.  My dad advised against that because he knew that the coordination of a tall, quick-growing boy often comes slowly.  He had almost made that mistake years before with a boy named Don Lofgren who eventually made the All-City team before going on to U.S.F..  At that time, the N.I.T. tournament was the most prestigious event in college basketball.  Only the top 12 teams the country were invited. That U.S.F. team coached by Pete Newell was the only team invited from the west.  Seeded 12th and last in that tournament, U.S.F. won it all—shocking the eastern pundits.  Don Lofgren was the center on that team.

Two years after my dad’s advice, I played against that boy whose coordination had been improving.  And after two additional years at the college level, that coordination, once so bad, had  become exquisite, so good that he seemed to be blocking every shot taken.  His skill even forced a rule change that disallowed blocking shots on their downward flight.  That boy was Bill Russell who became one of the most dominant centers in the history of basketball.

My dad varied his approach to help each player reach his potential.  However, he expected them all, no matter how gifted, to abide by rules that placed team above self.  He lost championships benching “star” players unwilling to do that.  It was always about more than the game.