Jack Leaman: A coach's coach
By Greg Goodwin
The basketball court was home to Jack Leaman.
In 1977, Leaman told Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan that he knew he wanted to be a coach even before he got to college. And starting in 1966, Leaman took the reins of the UMass Redmen and never looked back. For the next 38 years, he was a mainstay of campus’s athletic program, serving at times as head coach of both the men’s and women’s basketball teams and the men’s golf team and as a color analyst for radio broadcasts.
From his glory days in the Cage to the shift to the more modern Mullins Center, Leaman was indelibly part of the basketball program, right up until his untimely death two years ago while traveling with the men’s team.
Jack Leaman devoted much of his life to UMass basketball, so it was a fitting tribute when the Athletic Department officially dedicated the basketball court at the Mullins Center in his name on Feb. 25.
Decades before the Mullins Center existed and Curry Hicks hosted its games, Leaman put the basketball program on the map. In a time when dunking was illegal and the maroon- and-white were still known as the Redmen, he stood on the sidelines of the Cage, demanding wind-sprints and stressing the fundamentals. He worked his players hard, and in turn they worked hard for him.
It was in 1966, after five years as an assistant coach, that Leaman was named head coach. Over the next 13 years, his simple yet complete coaching style amassed a record of 217-126, all-time best for a coach at UMass. He coached notable players like Al Skinner and Rick Pitino, both of whom took after Leaman and became coaches themselves.
But he never coached someone quite as special as the still-growing sophomore with the Afro who joined the team in 1969. Julius Erving was the player with the most raw talent Leaman had ever seen. Over the next two years, he polished the young phenom into a team captain and a relentless scoring machine. In just two years on the court under Leaman’s tutelage, Erving set school scoring and rebound records. In the 1970-71 season, Erving’s junior year and the last before he would join the American Basketball Association, Leaman’s squad rewrote the school record book by going 23-4, demolishing every team in the Yankee Conference and earning a spot in the National Invitational Tournament.
Those were the good old days to Jack, a time when basketball was a pure team game played without ego, where getting the “W” was always number one, and personal stats were a footnote. The evolution of the men’s game into the glitzy alley-oop dunk game it is today was a big part of his decision to step down as coach in 1979. He thought that his style of play was gone forever. But he was wrong.
In 1986, the women’s basketball team was desperate for a coach. Leaman was asked to serve as interim coach and initially turned the job down. He was coaxed into the job and soon found that his women played the game the way he felt it was meant to be played.
“Basketball is a game of grace and flow and when it’s played that way, basketball is absolutely beautiful to watch,” he said during his season as women’s head coach, “and that’s the way these women play the game.”
He led them to their first winning season in six years. He was only head coach for one year, but he enjoyed it enough to stay on as assistant coach from 1991-94 before beginning a decade-long stint as a color analyst for the men’s team on WRNX radio. Leaman was a natural behind the microphone. Remembered for his gravelly voice and direct comments, he and colleagues Mark Vandermeer and Bob Behler won best play-by-play honors from the Associated Press three times.
Though he was no longer instructing players, Leaman never really stopped coaching. His conversations with friends would inevitably turn to basketball. When he asked former men’s head coach John Calipari to “go get a cup of coffee,” Calipari knew that coffee was the last thing on Leaman’s mind; it was just his code word for “let’s talk basketball.” With Leaman’s advice, his protege turned a struggling team into an NCAA contender, a return to what Calipari referred to as “the Leaman years.”
His accomplishments in the athletic program are legendary, but Leaman is remembered as much for his warm presence and approachability as for anything he did on the sidelines.
“Whether you were young or old, black or white, the dean of the school or a part-time worker, Jack treated everybody the same,” said Calipari.
Always as proud of his players’ diplomas as he was of their stats, former players describe Leaman as a mentor whose wealth of knowledge extended far outside the realm of basketball.
“Coach Leaman was and is one of the single most influential people in my life, and I know I’m not alone in making that claim,” said Boston College men’s basketball coach Al Skinner. “I learned a lot of what I know from Jack and that goes far beyond basketball.”
The newly emblazoned floor at the Mullins Center carries Jack Leaman’s signature and his last name in UMass block-style letters, a fitting combination of old and new school. Equally fitting was the team’s 66-47 victory over Dayton, chalking up one last win for Coach Leaman.
March 9, 2006.
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