Ready for some football? Really... no?

Most people know that John Chaney was famous for his focus on disciplined approach to coaching basketball at Temple University. In fact, Chaney was such an unrelenting taskmaster that the famous 5 a.m. practice sessions were just the tip of the iceberg. Sometimes, it was told, Chaney would hold practices where he would lecture the team the entire session. His players would just sit there rapt with both fear and wonderment as the coach waxed on about topics that had nothing to do with basketball. Chaney didn’t have guidelines or rules for his players to follow – he laid down the law. Whatever came out of his mouth was followed to the very last detail… or else. Needless to say, Chaney’s players were not too eager to find out what would happen if they crossed him.

One of Chaney’s laws was that his team was not allowed to talk during the bus ride to the arena before a game. They were supposed to sit quietly and focus on the game and the task at hand. Talking, laughing or other types of socialization were forbidden until the game was over.

Once during the ride to the game a fire broke out on the back of the bus. The story goes that the small blaze burned for a while until the driver finally pulled over to put it out. Yet during the entire fire, Chaney’s sat in stony silence. No one said a word. Even as a fire raged on the team bus, Chaney’s players were so programmed to follow the rules that even the risk of life and limb kept them quiet.

Whether or not such coaching tactics are effective are open to debate and there certainly is no shortage of coaches using such theories. Actually, back in the ninth grade my basketball team followed similar guidelines. For games on the road we were expected to wear ties, a team sweater, a blazer (which we wore to school anyway) and we were not allowed to talk at all, though I imagine the rule would have been waived if a fire broke out.

The idea, of course, was to focus on the game, but the truth is it did nothing more than make traveling to a basketball game feel like a job. Worse, we were a bad team that might have won six games all year. Off the bus we bickered, complained, whined and undermined each other for everything from minutes on the court to shots to spots to set up the offense.

The entire season was miserable.

But the following season at McCaskey High, we didn’t have to be quiet on the bus ride. Instead, we talked, told jokes, laughed and had a great time. We also carried a large boom box on trips that we blasted as part of the pre-game routine. In the days before iPods or even the proliferation of CDs, the boom box was intimidating – that was especially the case when the city kids from McCaskey rolled out to the sticks to play teams around the county.

Better yet, the loose, relaxed atmosphere was perfect for a bunch of kids looking to have fun playing basketball. That year we went 16-1. The following season we won 20 games and went to the District playoffs – we even beat a few “powerhouse” teams during the regular season. The year after that we went to the league championship game, and we never even had to be quiet.

Needless to say, such tactics don’t work with pro athletes. That type of forced asceticism as a motivation ploy is foolhardy for the best one percent of athletes in the world. They are motivated enough already, and when the millions and millions of dollars are factored into the mix, what good is forcing grown men to have a faux intensity?

Why no good at all.

But that doesn’t mean coaches and managers don’t try it. In the case of Charlie Manuel it isn’t so much as a matter of motivation – his players are already intense enough. If you don’t believe that, try talking to Chase Utley for three hours following a loss. Chances are it’s not going to be especially insightful.

Focus, though, is a buzzword that transcends all levels of sports. In the pros team have psychologists to help players keep their heads clear. In baseball, since players spend more time with teammates than their family during the season, cards, golf, video games and movies are omnipresent.

However, sometimes those things are taken away. When Larry Bowa managed the Phillies, players were not allowed to take golf clubs on road trips. Charlie Manuel famously removed the ping pong table from the clubhouse back when he was managing the Indians when he thought his players were too intent on winning at ping pong than baseball.

Otherwise, Manuel is fairly laidback with his players. His reasoning is that preparation is a personal task. With so much at stake for every player in the room, no one is intentionally going to be less than ready for a game.

But sometimes they might need a little extra reminder. Take last Sunday’s doubleheader against the Mets at Shea Stadium, for instance. After taking apart the Mets in the opener to climb within a game of first place, Manuel posted a notice that no televisions in the cramped clubhouse were to be tuned to football.

Even though the opening Sunday of the NFL season was in full swing and the players had a keen interest in the games, Charlie Manuel was not ready for some football... at least not before the nationally televised nightcap against the Mets.

Certainly the Phillies have wiled away the afternoon watching sports on TV before games. During a trip to D.C. a couple years back, players spent the time before batting practice lounging on oversized couches to watch the World Cup matches. Suddenly, the tiny clubhouse at RFK had become the best little sports bar in The District.

Saturday college football also piques the interest of ballplayers, though (obviously) not to the degree as other baseball games. Even the broadcast Little League World Series draws in the viewers in big league clubhouses.

But the prohibition on the NFL last Sunday showed that Manuel meant business. Good-time Charlie was clearly taking the game against the Mets more seriously than the other ones in the series. It was as clear as the black void on the closed down TV set.

Maybe that’s why the Phillies laid a big egg last Sunday night.

Nothing went right for the Phillies following the football ban. Ace Cole Hamels turned in a clunker, the team was sloppy on defense where failed execution and errors led to costly runs and the bats sleepwalked through most of the game. Hell, Manuel even got himself ejected during the first inning.

Maybe he wanted to go back to his office in the clubhouse and catch up on some football.

Dunphy replaces a legend at Temple

Nearly twenty-five years ago when Temple’s president Peter Liacouras was looking for a coach to turn his school’s middling basketball program back into a big-time, perennial powerhouse, he decided to hire an up-and-coming, 50-year-old man to restore the glory. A “best-kept-secret,” John Chaney was not exactly a household name beyond the insular world of Division II basketball, specifically, the small school PSAC, where Chaney guided little Cheyney State into one of those teams that just scared the living daylights out of people.

In fact, they still talk about Chaney, who was much more unbridled than during the later years at Temple, putting on shows on the sidelines while his teams took care of business at places like Millersville, Kutztown and Shippensburg. Certainly, no one back then thought Chaney was heading for the Hall of Fame. Count him in that bunch, too, since he has always maintained that he would have never left Cheyney had they offered him tenure.

But they didn’t and we all know how his story turned out.

So 25 years after Temple took a chance on 50-year old Wild John from Cheyney State, Temple announced that it will take a chance on a 56-year-old basketball lifer. This time, though, the choice to take Temple back to its basketball glory days is Fran Dunphy, who has spent the past decade-and-a-half nearby at Penn. It was there that Dunphy won title after title in the Ivy League in very much the same way Chaney did in the PSAC.

Obviously, there is a quite a difference between the Ivy League and the state schools of Pennsylvania. And certainly Dunphy is not quite the “unknown” that Chaney was when he arrived at Temple despite being tabbed with such a label.

“He’s one of America’s best-kept secrets,” Chaney said.

That in itself is quite a feat. Dunphy had taken Penn to 10 NCAA Tournaments, and compiled over 300 victories all without offering a single scholarship to any of his players. In the history of the city’s Big 5, Dunphy is one of just six coaches to win more than 300 games at the same school. Yet with four starters returning from last season’s team that cruised to the Ivy League championship before losing to Texas in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament, Dunphy could have very easily relaxed for the rest of his career, earning tournament bid after tournament bid while cultivating his legendary status at 33rd and Walnut.

But there is something kind of boring about that for Dunphy. Having spent his entire life with basketball programs that were almost big time, but not quite as an undergrad and assistant at La Salle before taking over at Penn, Dunphy, deep down, knows he will never get to the Final Four with the Quakers.

Yes, of course there are many challenges remaining at Penn for Dunphy. After all, it’s hard work to get to the top and stay there year after year. But if George Mason can go to a Final Four with Jim Larranaga as the coach, why can’t Dunphy do it?

Then again, Chaney never got to the Final Four at Temple, one of the winningest basketball programs in the country, though he came awfully close five times. Plus, recruiting kids to play for Temple is a lot different than at Penn. That’s not a knock on either school, it’s just the way it is.

So with his dreams and wanderlust, Dunphy will dig in on North Broad Street where his teams will play in a fancy new building complete with all of the modern amenities that coddled college basketball studs expect. Those things come with bigger expectations and more pressure, but it seems as if the unflappable Dunphy, seemingly rejuvenated by the switch, can handle it just fine.

He just seems like the man Temple was looking for.

“It’s as I once said, you want to stay your course,” Chaney said. “That means when you have made a decision on who you want to come into our high-profile program, you want to be sure you’re bringing in a great person.”

Excuse Chaney while he disappears

I'm just a blue-collar guy that goes to work ... In any job I've ever had, I've never thought about a time when I would leave. I just go to work. -- John Chaney

A few years back, an old college friend was stopped at a red light heading down North Broad after a summer school class at Temple when John Chaney rolled up in the lane next to him. But instead of waving hello, Chaney started right in needling the guy all while gathering information.

“Where are you off to?” Chaney asked between cracks about driving as if the old friend were fleeing the scene of a crime.

My friend told Chaney that he was off to visit a friend who had just undergone surgery and was in the hospital. In a conversation that lasted the length of time it takes a signal to turn from red to green, Chaney somehow deciphered the name of the friend and which hospital he was in.

In fact, my friend wasn’t even sure if he gave Chaney any revealing information until he was getting up to leave the hospital room. That’s when a package filled with Temple Basketball shirts, posters and a handwritten get-well card arrived.

“Who does that kind of thing?” my friend asked when re-telling the story.

John Chaney, that’s who.

“It took me a while to realize that everything he did, he did for me,” said NBA star and Temple alum, Eddie Jones, a few years ago. “It was all for me, never for him.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As long as I'm in this city, I'm a lightning rod. People don't like me for a lot of reasons and I create all of them. I love it when they hate me. All my closest friends hate me. -- John Chaney ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a day that everyone knew was looming, the 74-year-old Chaney finally decided to take a cue from the last line from one of his favorite old Frank Sinatra standards and begged a full house in a conference room at the university’s Liacouras Center on Monday to, “Excuse me while I disappear.”

Fortunately for the people close to him – which seems to be just about half of the city – Chaney will not disappear. We won’t let him. Oh sure, he might sleep in to 6 a.m. now, or he might turn up on TV here and there or find a seat in the stands “with some peanuts and a beer, telling lies.” He just won’t be stalking, ranting and cussing along the sidelines looking like an unmade bed with his tie off-center, top two buttons undone and a sweater vest hanging on for dear life. That’s all over.

But he’s not going anywhere. There are just too many stories to tell.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A blind man ain't got no business at a circus. --John Chaney ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like the one where he tried to keep Ramon Rivas out of a huddle during a timeout so that his brawny center would not hear the play after his teammates ignored the coach’s plea not to pass him the ball even though he was wide open.

“There's a reason why a guy's open, you know what I'm saying? He's always going to be open if he can't shoot. There's a reason. They leave him open.”

During Monday’s announcement, Temple’s president David Adamany told of how Chaney donated money to the school’s plea for funds for the library. Adamany revealed the story as if it tales of Chaney’s generosity was a new thing, which is hardly the case. In fact, Chaney dipped into his own pocket to help pay for the new basketball arena and he was renowned for taking sponsorship money from the likes of Nike and turning it over to the school and the underprivileged.

“If you’re going to reach the ceiling, you have to lift the floor up,” he said Monday. “If you can get a youngster to reach that ceiling, he’ll reach back and pick somebody else up.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Winning is an attitude. -- John Chaney ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surely, generosity from the well-heeled isn’t really a big deal and it’s not anything people should celebrate. It’s a duty, according to Chaney.

“I remember an old poem by a man named Walt Whitman who once said, ‘I celebrate myself.’ I didn’t come here to celebrate myself. I came here to recognize people and recognize this university for giving a 50-year-old man a chance to come and coach,” Chaney said.

Oh, but Camden’s Uncle Walt could have been writing about Chaney in his epic Song of Myself. After all, it’s the line following, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” that tells the story:

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

So Chaney should celebrate himself. After all, his allure and the reason why so many people love him has nothing to do with basketball.

Read this column on CSN.com