Chron: Hoopsters exposed to Calvinism

Hoopsters exposed to Calvinism

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

THE door swings open, and the teacher has arrived. Not just any teacher, but one who seems to come with his own 100-watts-per-channel sound system and a control switch stuck in the fast-forward position.

Calvin Murphy enters a room like a tornado, immediately lifting everyone and everything into his swirling wind.

"Can somebody show me the 10 shooting spots on the floor?" he barks out to a room filled with hungry, eager faces, and just that quickly a dozen hands go up, and it's somebody's turn to go to the chalkboard and fill in the diagram.

"How do we attack a zone defense?" he shouts out.

"With quick passes," comes the response.

"If we're playing a zone and they beat us early with a pass inside, what's the next move of the guards?" he wants to know.

"Collapse to the middle and set up a triangle around the ball," shouts out a voice in the back row.

This is more than simply another basketball camp. It is Calvin Murphy's Basketball USA -- The School. With the emphasis on school.

"I don't just want to coach these kids," Murphy said. "I want to teach them. Sure, I want them to learn the basic skills they'll need to shoot or handle the ball, the footwork to play defense. We're teaching them all of that.

"But I also want them to come to understand the game. Learn why they're supposed to do certain things. Learn to figure out situations when they're on the floor and be able to handle them. The game is more than being the biggest guy or the fastest guy or the one who jumps the highest."

Nobody knows that better than Murphy, the 5-9 underdog who beat all of the odds in high school, college and the NBA, eventually making it into the Hall of Fame.

"This is not a secret," he said. "It's fundamentals. It's the way I was taught to play the game from the time I was 8 years old, and it's something I've been wanting to do for years."

Murphy and his partner, Brandon Pierce, have leased a gym just off U.S. 290 and Mangum Road and are planning to run six-week sessions year-round. They'll take students from ages 4 through 18 and are currently finishing up the first session with a batch of 22 kids. They already have more than three dozen signed up for the next one.

Pierce, 29, is a native of Lake Charles, La., who graduated from Southern University and played pro ball for four years in Holland. He returned to the United States in 2001 to start a career in sports management, and that's when he met Murphy.

"He's an incredible resource sitting right here in the Houston community," Pierce said. "It's not very often that you get somebody with Hall of Fame credentials who likes being out and interacting with people, who loves to work with kids and who can communicate not just the basics but a lot of the advanced concepts about the game.

"I remember when I started out playing the game as a kid that at first you got by on your athletic ability. Then you got into organized ball, and you saw that there were some kids who just seemed to really know what they were doing, where to be at all times on the floor. They were thinking the game and not just running around looking for shots. What you found out later is that they were usually the coaches' kids. They had a definite advantage. We thought we could expand on that concept."

While there is plenty of court time devoted to skills development and drills, it is the classroom setting that makes it different. The players are required to carry binders to class, take notes and answer questions. They'll be given a final exam and grade at the end of the session.

"I'm not trying to make myself out to be any kind of genius," Murphy said. "But I want to do this to try to get the game back onto the right track. You turn on the TV and watch any level of basketball these days, and all you see are dunks and 3-pointers. It's not good enough.

"Have you see the And 1 Tour on TV? That's ruining the game for a generation of kids by convincing them that's basketball. It's not basketball. It's pure entertainment. It's not bad for what it is. But it's not going to help the U.S. reclaim its spot at the top of the basketball world. It's not going to help advance the game."

The irony is that the first time Murphy ever taught in a "school" situation like this came in Europe more than a decade ago at NBA-sponsored clinics with Bill Walton, Jack Ramsay and Hubie Brown.

"We had classes," Murphy said. "There were dozens of coaches at those things. We showed them how to coach the game, teach the game. They went home and did just that, and now they beat us over the head with it in the Olympics and the World Championships.

"It's one thing to say we're going to show our kids in college what we need to do, to say we'll play a team concept with NBA players in the Olympics. But the only way to do it long-term is to start with the kids. They've got to grow up learning the game."

As in any classroom, there are tall players and short players, round ones and skinny ones, boys and girls. There are the teacher's pets, constantly shouting out the correct answers and clamoring for attention. Then there are the shy ones who need to be coaxed and cajoled.

This is a different Murphy from the one wearing the neon suits and shrieking on Rockets telecasts. Yet it's the same infectious, boundless enthusiasm that for years has been behind Calvin Murphy's Youth Academy and his Marching Thunder drill team.

Passing drills are repeatedly stopped when performed incorrectly. Murphy doesn't just want to know how mistakes happened. He wants to know why and what should have been the correct move.

He is Professor Murphy standing in front of the blackboard, drawing diagrams, asking questions, joking, poking fun, engaging his pupils in the process.

Later, out on the court, he's like a proud father as he watches some of the youngest ones correctly run a 3-on-2 drill or sees one student instruct another who's out of position. Bookwork and teamwork.

"It was complete chaos in here five weeks ago," said the teacher, grinning.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/2007177