Something new: A weekly menu of sports book reviews
As a service to our readers — the ones who enjoy sports books — we’ll critique an offering a week from now until Christmas.
The first one is a book written by one of my favorite writers and a great guy familiar to sports fans in this area. Bud Withers worked for a long time for the Seattle Times and P-I, but before that was with the Register-Guard in Eugene, where he came across one of the most polarizing figures ever to hit the Northwest college basketball scene.
“Mad Hoops: The Dizzying, Floor-Burning Ride of the Kamikaze Kids of 1970s Oregon”
By Bud Withers
Self-published
Withers, who retired a few years ago, is one of the Northwest’s underappreciated sportswriters, and he doesn’t disappoint with this gem on Dick Harter and his controversial eight-year run as basketball coach of the Ducks in the 1970s.
During his time with the Register-Guard, Withers spent several seasons covering Oregon State basketball, getting a great look at the Civil War rivalry and how the Beavers and their faithful felt about Harter. But Withers was also in Eugene to feel the love and support for the program by the hometown fans as well as the antipathy for it from the outside world.
It would have been fortuitous for Withers to be able to interview Harter for the book, and Dick would have obliged with truth and candor. But he died of lung cancer at age 81 in 2012, leaving those close to him — including his widow, Mari — to tell the story.
Full disclosure: I attended Oregon State in the ’70’s and loathed Harter’s teams and how they conducted business, diving for loose balls already out of bounds, clutching and grabbing on defense, standing near midcourt and staring at the opposition during pre-game warmups.
My feelings about the coach changed as I got to know him while covering the NBA, beginning with the stint Harter served as an assistant coach with the Knicks. When he joined P.J. Carlesimo’s staff with the Trail Blazers in the mid-90’s, we became friends. Dick and Mari had Dwight Jaynes and me over for dinner a couple of times, and I visited them twice at their summer home in Vermont.
Through the years, as Dick made assistant coaching stops at Philadelphia, Boston and Indiana, we would talk periodically via phone, the subject of Oregon and Oregon State football always near the top of his interest list. There was some debate and a lot of laughs, too. He was a dry wit and I loved his sense of humor.
By then, I had great respect for the man, an old-school coach who stressed defense, competitiveness and the value of working for a good shot. He coached until he was 80 and didn’t want to quit even then. “Gotta get another job,” he’d tell me during his brief times of unemployment, and he was only half-kidding.
Dick was a very different person than he’d been during his time at Oregon, when he was ruthless as a coach, a philanderer and somewhat absentee father to his five children. His long-time relationship to Mari — it began when he was married and 45 and she was a 20-year-old cheerleader at Oregon — softened and matured him. (They wed in 1985 and enjoyed 27 years of an excellent marriage together.)
“Mari changed him … in a really good way,” former player and later UO coach Ernie Kent tells Withers. I believe that’s true. But the semi-public knowledge of their affair increased public resentment of Harter during those turbulent times in the ‘70s. When I knew him, Harter was embarrassed for his behavior — both as a coach and person — during his Oregon years.
Withers offers a comprehensive look at the complicated life of the former Marine, who built a successful program at Penn before taking over at Oregon, where he beat vaunted UCLA four times and sometimes scared the pants off of both opposing coaches and his own players.
Much of Harter’s coaching style was built on intimidation. The reader gets the perspective of many of the players we remember from those times, including the great Ronnie Lee, Doug “Cowboy” Little, Stu Jackson, Mike “Bulldog” Drummond, Mark Barwig (known derisively as “Earwig” to opposing fans) and Ken Stringer, along with a succession of those who quit when they’d had enough of Harter’s coaching style.
“He’d be fired today,” long-time UO administrator Herb Yamanaka tells Withers of Harter’s practice drills. “It was cruel and inhumane.”
Harter never won a Pac-8 title or took an Oregon team to the NCAA Tournament. The Kamikaze Kids whipped adoring Oregon fans to a frenzy, though, and the coach left an indelible legacy in the state’s annals. Withers pulls no punches in a complete, honest appraisal of the Harter era in Eugene. It’s a great read.
Shop local. Mad Hoops is available from Powell’s Books.
Most of my books are also available at Powell’s and make great gifts.
Readers: what are your thoughts on the Kamikaze Kids in Eugene? Share your comments below.
Reach out to Kerry Eggers here.
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