Tuesday, December 16, 1997

The other Valvano trying to make a name in basketball

By MARK WILSON / Sports Writer

Bob and Jim Valvano absorbed much of their early basketball knowledge from a father who was a high school coach on Long Island, N.Y., for 32 years.

Jim went on to win an NCAA national championship with North Carolina State in 1983, and later became a popular basketball commentator with ESPN before he was lost to cancer. He loved both the game and being in the spotlight of high-level Division I basketball, and gushed with emotion. And people in the basketball world seemed to love him with the same passion he brought to the game.

Bob, 40, who was born 11 years after Jim, is in his fourth season as the head basketball coach for Bellarmine College, a private NCAA Division II Catholic school team from Louisville, Ky., that was in Abilene Sunday playing McMurry University to kick off a three-game swing through Texas.

His accomplishments haven't put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but that's not to say he isn't worthy of praise for reasons other than wins and losses.

Bob, who became the youngest Division I coach in the country when he was hired at age 26 to coach at St. Francis, has won two conference championships during his career. He has turned four of five losing programs that he inherited into winners, and three of the schools set records for wins in a single season.

In his first three seasons at Bellarmine, Valvano's Knights have managed to be competitive in a tough league - the Great Lakes Valley Conference. And his Knights had only lost one non-conference game over the past two seasons.

But his greatest accomplishment has been in seeing that his players maintain their grades - and graduate. His current 12-player squad has a composite grade point average of 3.1. And in his 15-year career as a head coach, only one of his players has failed to graduate.

"I'm very proud of that," Valvano said after his Knights fell to 5-2 with a 94-91 loss to coach Ron Holmes' NCAA Division III Indians. "We've spent a great deal of time emphasizing that. Results are important, but the process is equally important. I think it was for a lot of the old-time coaches, as well."

Another Valvano brother - the oldest of the three, who is now a business executive - was a high school basketball coach for six years.

Bob said he never felt the same overwhelming desire Jim had to win it all.

Or, "playing the main room," as Bob put it.

"It never bothered me a great deal if I was in the lounge," Bob said. "He was the best brother and friend you could possibly have, but we were very different people.

"I have his passion for people and the game. Those things are similar. I've got a lot of interests, like he did. I think his goal was to win a national championship.

"I'm ambitious, and I want to succeed. But I've got to be honest, I don't think I got into it just for that. I feel proud of the way I've done it."

Bob said that a person should go into basketball coaching for the right reasons.

"You don't go into basketball because it's there," Bob said. "You do it for the right reasons. The reasons my father did - love for the game and love for people."

While most people dread Monday and their favorite thing to say is T.G.I.F., his father's attitude toward coaching was just the opposite - thank God it's Monday.

"On Monday, he'd jump out of bed and race out," Bob said. "That was a great endorsement for that life."

Unfortunately, along the way Bob began to lose some of his own enthusiasm for being a coach.

During an 11-year span, Bob and his wife moved nine times. They now have two young sons, ages eight and two. Continuing such a nomadic lifestyle is not appealing.

"She's done that for me for 20 years. I don't think that's fair," said Bob, who also spent five years as a college assistant and one year coaching in a professional league in Europe.

The emphasis on winning at all costs and other issues have taken their toll as the ways of the old-time coaches - like those of Valvano's father - have been pushed further into the background.

"Even in the small-college level, it's changing," Valvano said. "It's still a beautiful game. It seems to be results-driven, and that bothers me a little bit."

Those factors led to his announcement late last summer that he would be leaving coaching after the 1997-98 season.

"I'm not soured on coaching," Valvano said. "But it is changing. I'm going to step back and re-examine what's going on."

Bob will pursue other interests, but admits that he's taking a leap.

"Most of my life has been like (following steps) A, B and C. This is the first time I've jumped freefall," Bob said. "It's scary, but it will be interesting."

Bob, who was a communications major at Virginia Wesleyan, hosts a weekly program on WHAS, an all-talk radio station in Louisville. He has also done television work in Louisville, and has talked with ESPN about job possibilities for the future.

"I don't think I'll do something that will divorce me from the game," he said.

Regardless of what lies ahead, Bob Valvano can be proud of own special legacy - out of the spotlight - as a coach that cared about how his players were doing beyond basketball.

"I think dad would be proud, and I think Jim would be proud," Bob said. "I could rest with that."