This is awesome article on WV's hoop coach--enjoy ... gregg
March 23, 2005
West Virginia and Its Coach Were Built for the Long Haul
By PETE THAMEL
MORGANTOWN, W.Va., March 21 - When he was the basketball coach at Newfane High School in upstate New York in 1977, John Beilein was chatting up a young lady on their first date.
Driving to a movie theater in Buffalo, Beilein was not shy in talking about his career ambitions. "Someday," he announced, "I want to coach in the big time against Bobby Knight."
Eventually Beilein's date, Kathleen, became his wife, and they have been married for 26 years. She could not help recalling that first date last Saturday while cheering as her husband's West Virginia team upset No. 2-seeded Wake Forest in double overtime. A victory over Knight's Texas Tech team on Thursday in the Albuquerque Regional would put the seventh-seeded Mountaineers in the Round of 8 of the N.C.A.A. tournament for the first time since 1959. That team had a guard named Jerry West and it was a 23-team tournament.
On that first date, Beilein (pronounced BEE-line) and Kathleen saw "The Other Side of Midnight," and while Beilein's job in reviving a moribund West Virginia program may seem romantic, there is much more to it.
Beilein's journey has not been a blip of fleeting success. He began his career in high school, moved on to junior college, N.A.I.A., N.C.A.A. Division II and three levels of Division I basketball. After his glacial climb to the Big East Conference, Beilein is short on shtick and long on substance. His offense is considered by many to be the most sophisticated in college basketball, and he has never forgotten those who have helped him.
"There's no one that John doesn't appreciate," Kathleen Beilein said in a telephone interview. "He's always been like that, and it's one of the things I've always admired about him."
The roots of Beilein's meandering march to the big time began on a farm in Olcott, N.Y. He and his eight brothers and sisters grew up there, and the monthly milk bill from Davis Dairy was bigger than the family's mortgage payment on its five-bedroom house.
Beilein's first lessons in innovation came from watching his mother, Josephine, mix whole milk with skim to save money. "She invented 2 percent milk and didn't even know it," Beilein's brother, Joe, said jokingly in a telephone interview from his home in St. Louis.
Beilein's parents have died, but their lessons still resonate with him. He learned his competitiveness from his Irish mother, who in her later years refused to stay at the Carrier Dome to watch a preseason tournament game. "The Globetrotters couldn't beat Jim Boeheim in Syracuse," she snapped at the biased officiating.
Beilein learned his work ethic from his father, Arthur, who worked his way up at the Continental Can Company. His father started in an entry-level position and eventually became a plant superintendent and personnel manager.
Beilein harvested the family's apple and cherry trees on their nine-acre farm by day, and at night he refused to leave the backyard court until he made 15 straight free throws.
Beilein's parents stressed hard work and treating people right. While coaching at Le Moyne College in Syracuse for nine years, Beilein would drive the family station wagon over to East Syracuse to pick up the assistant equipment manager, Teddy Kiddle, before every home game and take him home afterward.
In January, the West Virginia team charter bus pulled up to the 53-year-old Kiddle's house in a blizzard so Kiddle could sit on the Mountaineers' bench at the Carrier Dome.
Kiddle does not drive, and Beilein's eyes welled up when asked why he went out of his way, even now, to pick him up.
"My parents taught me that when you can do something that means so much to someone, to have a part in their life, that's what you're here for," Beilein said. "To make other people feel good."
While he is a bit more reflective these days, Beilein was much more fiery early in his career. During his first college head-coaching job, at Erie Community College, he returned home from an upset loss to find Kathleen and a bunch of his high school friends playing host to a surprise birthday party. In no mood to celebrate, Beilein tossed the cake against the wall.
Beilein cannot remember exactly how old he was on that birthday - in his late 20's - but he instantly remembers the opponent, Jefferson Community College.
"Losses affected me a lot more in those days," he said. "I knew if you didn't win at those places, you weren't all of a sudden going to get a Division I job."
As he slowly moved from job to job, Beilein learned on the fly. He concocted an offense with two point guards during the 1985-86 season at Le Moyne after his team struggled to run its offense against more athletic opponents.
Beilein's uncle, Tom Niland, was the Le Moyne athletic director and a former coach. After a loss, he suggested running an offense with two point guards, and that day Beilein happened across a University of Washington game on television. Andy Russo's Huskies essentially played with two point guards, so Beilein wrote Russo and received a muddled sheet of paper explaining the fundamentals. From there, Beilein would pick Russo's brain over the telephone for hours.
Just as his mother happened upon 2 percent milk, Beilein made an invention out of necessity.
"We needed a way to relieve pressure," Beilein said. "We had to find a way to run offense without people blowing it up."
Beilein is always tinkering with his offense and 1-3-1 defense, writing notes on white legal pads. And he's always inventing new practice techniques - he would have his players at Richmond shoot while wearing life preservers to teach them to keep their elbows out.
Beilein's offense is based on spreading out opponents. Overplays by the defense result in backdoor cuts. Defenders who play off opponents will be screened and be vulnerable to outside shooters.
Two of Beilein's former assistants, Phil Seymore, now at Providence, and Mike Jones, now at Georgia, say they still do not understand the offense.
In April 2002, when Beilein inherited a West Virginia program that was in disarray, he faced perhaps his most daunting challenge. Dan Dakich, a Knight prot?g?e, had taken the job and lasted less than a week before heading back to coach Bowling Green because of the prospect of N.C.A.A. violations being found. An investigation came up empty, but only four scholarship players returned the next season.
Patrick Beilein, a junior who has been at West Virginia for all three of his father's seasons, remembers playing pickup ball with Mountaineers players for the first time in the spring before his freshman year.
He recalls about eight fights breaking out and players hollering "Pass me the ball" or "You can't guard me."
That's a far cry from the way the Mountaineers play now, with a team assist-to-turnover ratio of 2? to 1, as Beilein integrated players who would thrive in his system. West Virginia went 14-15 in Beilein's first season and reached the National Invitation Tournament with 17 victories last year. Now, at 23-10, it has a shot at the Final Four.
"It's amazing to see where we've come over the years," Patrick Beilein said.
