New Varsity Boys Basketball Coach Joe Otis sat down with us for an in-depth interview about growing up in Valparaiso, his playing days, some of his coaching influences, the storied history of Valparaiso basketball, and his team looking forward.
You can catch the highlights of the interview in a video we produced by clicking here, or you can read the full session by clicking on the "Read more" below.
ValpoLife: How does it feel to be back at Boucher Gym where you have had so much success in the past?
Joe Otis: There was a time in my life, particularly when I was a sophomore on the Varsity team; this would be 1967 so it was a long time ago, where this place seemed like the biggest arena in the world. I would come out of the locker room and out of the corner of the gym. Every year Boucher Gym was sold out in advance to season ticket holders, so there were no tickets on sale at the ticket window. People would come to their feet and there was just an enormous amount of energy. There were bleachers around the bottom level also at that time; the seating capacity was about 2,200. It's a place were I have a lot of fond memories as a player but as a kid as well. There were a lot of great teams that came through here, and sometimes I would come to the games just to watch the opponents. We lived for those Friday and Saturday night home games in those days and there was an enormous amount of excitement.
I lived in an era were you could watch three or four Division I players on each team throughout the sixties, including the ones I played on. There had been over a half-dozen go to Big Ten Colleges to play in just the last decade, as well as some of my teammates on my Varsity team. I grew up playing outdoors at Gardner Schools with the greatest talent you could ever possibly imagine.
You had players like Chuck Kristen. I remember Scotty Ward coming back from South Carolina where he played All-SEC and he was trying out for the Bulls, and if I remember correctly he was the last one to get cut from the team. They kept Guy Rodgers instead of him, who was a veteran point guard. Chuck Kristen was also the last one cut by the Celtics and some guy named John Havlicek, who turned out to be a pretty good player. There is a tremendous amount of history in this tiny little gym. By modern standards, county schools have gyms this big. But in our day, this was a spectacular place to come and watch basketball in the gym.
VL: What was your feeling the first time you ever got to come out here and play, even as a kid?
JO: We came to summer camp in the fifth and sixth grade, and getting to meet the players was such a big deal. Getting to know them over the years, you would hang around a Gardner School pickup game until they didn’t have enough guys, and then you would have to play. When you’re in the ninth grade and you’re playing against college kids, there’s quite a talent gap there. You learned things the hard way, but when you got something done there was a great sense of accomplishment because the guy guarding you was obviously a lot better than you.
VL: Talk about the legends you are following in the perspective of a basketball coach.
JO: Well, Coach (Virgil) Sweet had the greatest impact. You can look back and even Ralph Paul had great teams in the thirties, and he would probably be the first great coach, and of course he had been gone a long time. Coach Sweet came in 1954 and basically coached here for twenty years and built Valpo into a program that was getting state-wide recognition. He produced great basketball players, but he was best known for his free throw shooting techniques.
Back in those days, you had an hour for lunch, so you came right away to the gym and shot a hundred free throws before you went to lunch. Then, you would shoot fifty of them on the basket known as the Sharpie goal, which was invented by Howard Sharp. It was only two inches larger than the diameter of a basketball so you had to be incredibly accurate. Even at Gardner School, Coach Sweet had baskets made that were a couple inches smaller than regulation rims and you would shoot on those all summer long. That court was only eighty feet long, as opposed to eighty-four, which meant it took less time to get from one end of the court to the other, which meant that there would be more offensive and defensive action on the floor. These were cutting-edge ways for Sweet to really teach people how to shoot, which is why he won games. In those days, you would shoot more throws earlier because you didn’t have to wait for the seventh foul to be in bonus.
VL: What about successors to coach Sweet?
JO: Well Dale Ciciora succeeded Coach Sweet for a of couple years there. Even though he was only head coach for two years I remember being at semi-state in Lafayette and this extremely talented East Chicago team with Drake Morris was a heavy favorite in that game. Ciciora played a soft 2-2-1 press and got beat 66-64 and he had a shot at the end to tie it. They won the Regional that year, and Coach Sweet in all his years only won a couple Regional titles. Getting into the Sweet-Sixteen, when there are over four hundred teams, is quite an achievement. Ironically, Skip Collins, who was coaching at LaPorte, won the LaPorte Sectional in 1976 which was LaPorte’s first sectional since 1949. Ciciora stepped down that season and Skip came here to Valpo.
I like to rub it in that he is so much older than me since when he was coaching at LaPorte, at his third head coaching job, I was playing as a senior here. When Skip got here he was one of the most successful coaches ever. I had a very difficult time coaching against Skip. He was a great defensive coach, and I like to think I learned a lot of lessons the hard way as a coach against him, because his team just took great care of the ball and didn’t waste scoring opportunities. Of course when he stepped down Coach Punter came along, and we all went on that ride to the Finals when Bryce Drew was a senior in 1994 with Tim Bishop. That was a great team. Sometimes you just don’t get those breaks when you need them at the end of a game, but of course there was a huge crowd there for that Finals game. Coach Punter had some great teams and did some great things in competing in what was becoming one of the toughest conferences in the state, in the Duneland (Athletic Conference). Now with that double round robin, it’s like a slugfest when you have to play everyone twice and almost all the teams are in the same sectional.
VL: Talk a little bit about the team you have this year, looking ahead.
JO: Coach Benedict did a very good job with them. That first year was a struggle because they really weren’t very good, and they had some growing pains and stuff. And they had that heartbreaking four overtime game. I think last year’s team really gelled, there’s only a couple seniors gone from that team, most notably Hayden Humes, but there are a lot of talented players back and we will have some good shooters. I’m not trying to point out anyone individually and I really haven’t had a chance to see them play since the Regional last year, but I have seen them play five or six times last year. I saw some of the JV games and I know coach Thomas had a great year with them, so there are a lot of good players coming in, and most importantly, kids that can shoot the basketball.
VL: You're coming in with a limited amount of time. What extra pressure does that put on you? What other steps do you put in place to accelerate your systems, your style, and coaching philosophy?
JO: I think anytime you’re coming in and you have a limited amount of time, you have to incorporate the things from the year before, but I don’t think that'll be difficult. If there’s anything we’re going to do, it’s going to be that we’re going to shoot the ball a little more often. It's not that we wont be patient when we need to be, but when the three point field goal came into play, it changed my coaching life, because if there was one thing I could teach it was shooting. I think these kids at Valpo are tailor-made for the kind of basketball we played at LaPorte, and that I plan on playing at Valparaiso High School.
VL: You talked the other night about how it’s not all athleticism, and not all how quick you are or how high you can jump but how intelligent you are with the ball. You’re a history teacher and you have a phenomenal memory of teams and players and situations. How do you think that historical background will apply itself on the court?
JO: I think that I should point out that Dan Dakich handcuffed Michael Jordan in the NCAA tournament, when he was playing at IU for Bobby Knight. Then you have the slow footed white guys, like Larry Byrd, who had a tremendous career and played here at the Old Hilltop Gym while I was coaching at Valpo University. I think it was his last game of his Sophomore year, and I think I mentioned the other night that we had four thousand fans at Hilltop gym and the Sectional championship was here against Chesterton. They had five thousand fans here so I think we have plenty of basketball fans in this town, enough to go around for two schools.
Those are the kids I would hold up as an example to the kids that don’t jump out of the gym like Kobe Bryant. There is always room for the John Paxson’s and the Steve Kerr’s and people that play a certain role, do things, and do them intelligently. I’m really good at gathering information and then making them read that information, so I want them to know that there are a lot of different ways you can win basketball games. All those Larry Byrd highlight reels are great examples.
VL: How do you view yourself as an educator beyond your role as a coach, since other than the classroom, you’re prepping these guys for the rest of their lives. Some of the people I’ve interviewed in the last week have all talked about the role you played in them being where they are today, and for many of them it may not be a basketball role.
JO: I brought Sweet's old rule handbook from 1958 or ’59. Its about 2,000 words and six pages long. These are my rules: Be on Time, Do Your Best, and Use Good Judgment. I think they cover everything. In basketball timing is everything, you have to be at the right place at the right time and giving a great effort is always important. And use good judgment. We have these athletic and student handbook that parents and everyone have to sign. Everyone knows that shoplifting is bad and vandalism is bad and that’s poor judgment, losing your temper on the basketball floor, that’s bad judgment.
I use these rules in the classroom too, there are only three rules that a student can violate; tell me what it is, and it’s always covered by one of those three things. And these are all things I got from my father who was a lifer in the Army. I look back and I had such great teachers here in Valpo. I have kids in my classes who couldn’t name their elementary teachers, and I could name all of mine, and I could name a whole bunch of the ones I had in junior high and high school. I think somewhere along the way they made me enjoy reading, which is a great gift I think.
VL: How do you instill values in today’s kids, which may be a challenge more so now than it was for a coach twenty or thirty years ago?
JO: I think we have to be reminded that it is still just basketball and it is just a game. Unfortunately, some kids get pushed into sports at a very young age and I always worry that playing that sport was not a discovery of their own. We all grew up in pick up games where you were attracted to the game or you weren’t, so you learned to love the game for what it was. Sometimes these kids have success early and sometimes it gets to their head I think, and that’s a difficult thing to deal with. Once they get into organized programs, you run into problems where parents coach the teams and sometime favor their child over other kids who may have promise, but never get that playing time. In the old days, everyone got to play in those pick up games and of course being picked last was a kind of estimate of your not-so-great ability.
VL: You talked about how you don’t have to be a good player to be a role model or a leader on the team. Joel Beesely mentioned to me playing and having a messed up ankle, and you guys were in a major game, and he got a talking to afterward about the kind of role you can play as leader when you’re not on the floor. Tell me a little bit about that.
JO: We don’t just keep you in the program to keep you around, we keep you because everybody has a role, and over the years I probably cut about 4 kids as freshman or sophomores who came back and made the team as seniors. They weren't great players but I knew one thing: they wanted it so badly that they'd never give up. They’d come to practice everyday and work hard, and sometimes part of your success is other people pushing each other constantly to make them better. Everybody has a role, and they need to understand that some kids will get more shots than others and they'll score more points. For some people, their major job will be rebounding, or defense, or maybe just playmaking at the point.
VL: Is it neat to be coaching along side with Jeanette Gray?
JO: Yes, I knew her grandfather, Bob Gray. He was a park director at Tower Park when I was a little kid, and her dad Gary and I grew up together playing baseball and basketball. Ten years ago this summer I was coaching the Indiana All Stars and Jeanette was on the girls All Star team. So, I spent two weeks with her that summer, and I watched her play and I think she was the best player out there. I think that everyone will be pleased with the program that she'll develop and put in place.
VL: Last question I’ll ask you is about your connection to Valpo as a whole, outside of basketball. The idea behind ValpoLife is what a great community this is. Tell me a little bit about your connection to the city and community of Valparaiso itself.
JO: For a while, I lived on Campbell Street and my Hungarian mother raised the three of us. My stepfather had a lot of problems and went off to jail when I was about six, and long before that I was looking up to my teachers. I don’t think I would have got in trouble because I was more afraid of my mother than anyone else. Mom helped us keep focused and out of trouble, and when my real father came home after being badly wounded in Vietnam, he ended up marrying my mother and we all lived happily ever after.
I was already sixteen years old and I was already a man. I was helping pay the rent and I had been raised by the fathers of my friends. My friends and their fathers took me to high school basketball games, we didn’t even have a car, I had to borrow a car just to get my drivers license. I don’t think I got cheated in my childhood because of the whole nature of the community.
I was a kid when Fred Smoke died, and he helped build a third of the hospital at various times, donating money. I think by the time he passed away he had given a million dollars, and that was a lot of money. I had to get glasses as a freshman in high school, when contacts were just coming out and my mother couldn’t afford those. Mr. Harding from Harding’s Dress Sop paid for my contact lenses, and I used those until I got to Northwestern and got a pair of soft lenses finally. So there’s always been generous, kind, and caring people in this community. There’s no substitute for people who will take you to basketball games, teach you how to fish or hunt, or give you books to read. For me it’s a great thrill to come back to a community like this that has given me and my younger brother so much.
VL: Any other additional comment you want to make, or want the community to know about you, your team, or the history?
JO: I think at this point, I want to look forward to this year and encourage people to come to the games. I know we will be exciting to watch, and I know we'll put a team out there that will give one hundred percent every time they’re out there. We do have an abundance of shooters, and we can play an up-tempo type of game that is going to be very entertaining. Any time we can come in contact with people who love basketball we are going to be there.