It's Time to Shrine for Sharman Again
http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-sharman10sep10,1,
6182555.story?coll=la-headlines-sports-nba-lakers
It's Time to Shrine for Sharman Again
Already in the Hall of Fame as a player, today he joins Wooden and Wilkens as
the third to be inducted as a coach as well.
By Larry Stewart, Times Staff Writer
Bill Sharman never knew why he was so competitive, he just knew that he was.
"When I first went to school and began playing marbles, I couldn't stand to
lose," he said. "I just had to win all the marbles. My mother complained
that I had marbles in drawers all over the house."
That competitiveness led to an athletic career that landed him in the
Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1976.
And that competitiveness led to a coaching career that puts him in elite
company.
Sharman, 78, the only coach to win championships in three professional
leagues, including one with the Lakers in 1972, will become only the third
person to make the Hall of Fame as a player and a coach when he is inducted
today at Springfield, Mass.
The others are John Wooden, who went in as a player in 1960 and as a coach
in 1973, and Lenny Wilkens, classes of 1989 and '98.
Bob Cousy, Sharman's backcourt mate with the Boston Celtics, calls Sharman one
of the fiercest competitors he has ever seen.
For those who know Sharman, it is hard to imagine him as fierce. He is the
ultimate gentleman, polite and humble. He not only signs autographs, he thanks
fans for asking.
"I think we all go through a little Jekyll and Hyde," Cousy said. "I'm not
as nice a guy as Bill — he's a real sweetheart. But on the court you couldn't
find a more intense, focused, ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-a-hat kind of
guy."
Sharman, who grew up in Lomita, attended Narbonne High as a freshman, then
moved to Porterville with his parents during his sophomore year.
At Porterville High, he starred in football, basketball, baseball, tennis
and track and field.
"Bill Sharman may have been the best all-around athlete to ever come out of
the state of California," longtime ABC announcer Keith Jackson said.
After a stint in the Navy, Sharman attended USC, where he was an All-
American and Pacific Coast Conference player of the year in both his junior
and senior seasons. He was the first basketball player to be inducted into the
USC Hall of Fame. And he was good enough in baseball to be drafted by the
Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950. He played professional baseball for five years.
But basketball became Sharman's primary sport. He was drafted by the NBA's
Washington Capitols and spent one season with that team. Then came a 10-year
run with the Celtics, during which he made eight All-Star teams, won four
championships, was named most valuable player of the 1955 NBA All-Star game,
and set free throw records, some of which still stand.
During the NBA's 50th anniversary season, 1996-97, Sharman was named one of
the league's 50 greatest players.
In 1961, he retired as a player and began his coaching career. He started
out with an American Basketball League team in Los Angeles, the Jets. But they
soon folded, and a young owner of the ABL team in Cleveland, the Pipers, hired
Sharman.
Sharman led the Pipers to the 1962 ABL championship, which helped the young
owner, George Steinbrenner, decide that being involved in sports was what he
wanted to do with the rest of his life.
After Sharman was voted into the Hall of Fame as a coach in April,
Steinbrenner sent along a note.
"I often wondered, as you progressed along the great heights that you have
in basketball, whether you ever remember the old Pipers and our days
together," Steinbrenner wrote. "You always were a winner and you're still a
winner. You were and always will be considered a great friend."
After one season in the ABL, Sharman coached at what was then L.A. State for
two years. Then, after a brief stint in broadcasting, he coached the San
Francisco Warriors for two seasons. He became coach of the Los Angeles Stars
of the American Basketball Assn. in 1968. The Stars, after moving to Utah, won
the ABA championship in 1971.
After that season, attorney Ed Hookstratten, who had been a baseball
teammate of Sharman's at USC, worked out a deal with owner Jack Kent Cooke
that brought Sharman to the Lakers.
In Sharman's first season with the Lakers, they not only won the NBA
championship, their first in L.A., but set an NBA record that still stands,
winning 33 consecutive games.
Sharman developed a bad case of laryngitis late in that season and his voice
progressively got worse until he eventually had to quit coaching in 1976. He
became the Lakers' general manager and was the engineer of the 1980 Showtime
teams featuring Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Still, the voice problems lingered, making it difficult to do his job. Owner
Jerry Buss promoted Sharman to team president in 1982, and he retired from
that position in 1988.
The voice is better now, and Sharman has remained with the Lakers as a special
consultant.
In all, as a player, coach, general manager and consultant, he has earned 15
championship rings. No other former player has nearly that many. Former Celtic
teammate Bill Russell has 11.
At today's Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, Sharman will be introduced by
Wooden, Cousy and Jerry West in taped segments.
The class of 2004 also includes Clyde Drexler, Jerry Colangelo, Lynette
Woodard, former international star Drazen Dalipagic of Yugoslavia and the late
Maurice Stokes.
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Bill Sharman's Coaching Record
Reg. season Playoffs
1961-62 Los Angeles Jets (ABL) 24-15
1961-62 Cleveland Pipers (ABL)* 24-18 6-4
1966-67 San Francisco Warriors (NBA) 44-37 9-6
1967-68 San Francisco Warriors 43-39 4-6
1968-69 Los Angeles Stars (ABA) 33-45
1969-70 Los Angeles Stars 43-41 10-7
1970-71 Utah Stars* 57-27 12-6
1971-72 Lakers (NBA) * 69-13 12-3
1972-73 Lakers 60-22 9-8
1973-74 Lakers 47-35 1-4
1974-75 Lakers 30-52
1975-76 Lakers 40-42
Totals 514-386 63-44
*— League championship teams.
Note: Sharman's first championship with the Cleveland Pipers of the American
Basketball League came after he started the season with the Los Angeles
Jets. The Jets folded during the season and the league folded in the middle of
the following season.
College: Sharman coached two seasons at L.A. State (1962-63 and 1963-64) and
had a combined record of 27-20.
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