Bonackers, Say Hello to Larry Brown
Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame basketball coach, the only one ever to win N.B.A. and N.C.A.A. championships, met with Joe Vas, the East Hampton School District’s athletic director, on Tuesday and reportedly told him he wants to be “a resource” for the boys basketball program here.
Dan White, who has coached Pierson’s varsity in Sag Harbor for the past seven years, and who submitted his resume to Vas after Jesse Shapiro was hired in June, apparently will be Shapiro’s replacement as Bonac’s head coach.
Shapiro, an East Hampton grad who had overseen high-powered youth basketball programs in New York City, tendered his resignation on Sept. 14, saying that he could not find sustainable work here.
“If Larry Brown wants the head coaching job, it’s his — and Dan is all right with that,” Vas said during a conversation yesterday.
According to Vas, who met with Brown, along with White and his assistants, Howard Wood and Marcus Edwards (after this paper’s sports pages had gone to press), the legendary coach said he would like a couple of weeks to think about what his ultimate role would be.
Arguably the most-well-traveled coach there ever was, Brown, 76, who has lived in East Hampton part time for a number of years, is much in demand — for coaching jobs, speaking engagements, and clinics far afield. He oversaw Tuesday’s pickup games at the high school, along with White, Wood, and Edwards — a session from which the press was banned.
“It was like talking to Coach Petrie,” Wood, a former Spanish league pro and University of Tennessee and Bonac star, said the next day. “He has the same concern for the kids and has so much basketball knowledge to impart. . . . I’ve known him for a while now, through Hoops 4 Hope. He’s a wonderful guy — he has such great stories to tell.”
Vas said he felt funny having to tell a legend that if he signed on he would have to meet certain state mandates for coaches, which would include courses in first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, violence prevention, and child abuse prevention.
“He said he’d do what ever it took,” said Vas, who added, “Certainly I’m not going to tell him he has to ride on the bus.”
For his part, White, who coached Pierson to a county championship in 2012 and to two other appearances in county title games, said he was thrilled at the prospect of being associated with Brown. Nor would he mind stepping aside should Brown decide he wanted the head coaching job. “He’s got a far, far better basketball mind than I have,” said White, “so, were he to tell me, ‘Try this, try that,’ I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.”
It was, he said further, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” which was what impelled him in the end to make the switch from Sag Harbor to East Hampton. Many of his players in the Harbor, White said, were happy for him.
“I’ve known Larry for 40 years — since 1975,” Mike Lupica, the sportswriter, commentator, and author, said, “and he’s always talked, even when he was a kid, of ending his career like this, of one day of becoming a high school history teacher who coaches three sports, the old-fashioned teacher-coach. But I’m not sure . . . he’s got to decide. Coaching high school basketball is a full-time commitment.”
“I think it is his intention,” said Vas, “to help in some way. He told me he never coached a high school team before, although he’s given plenty of clinics to high school-age kids.”
“If he wants to be the head coach, it’s, ‘After me!’ ”