http://www.sacbee.com/100/story/407128.html
Paying some more dues
Reggie Theus' road to the Kings' coaching job meant paying some more dues
By Sam Amick - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 30, 2007
Story appeared in SPORTS section, Page C1
There was little glamour to be found on 118th Street in Los Angeles, even with Reggie Theus living there.
One block up from Main and in the heart of Watts, where the violent riots of 1965 soon would bring the area infamy, a basketball-playing beefcake was being raised.
Even when his parents' divorce prompted a move to what was then white-bread Inglewood before Theus' sixth birthday, there was nothing pretty about it. Especially when it came time to go to work.
Five days a week in the mid-1970s, the boy who was well on his way to hoops prominence and prima donna status spent his early mornings and late nights cleaning toilets and mopping floors.
He was one of four assistants for the Felix Janitor Service, a company established in 1939 and named for its founder, Theus' father. Along with two older sisters and an older brother -- the other helpers -- Theus learned the value of a solid work ethic and felt no shame for his dirty little secret.
"My dad's whole thing was, 'Reggie, I don't ever want you to have to do this for a living, but it's not going to hurt you to learn,' " Theus said. "That attitude and the willingness to do it was what stuck with me the most. I didn't care that I was cleaning toilets."
The off-days were Fridays and Sundays, convenient for a teenager who was fast becoming a hardwood legend with his sweet shot and unending charisma. But even for the kid whose sisters claim he had unending energy, the schedule was a challenge.
Some days, Theus was up at 4 in the morning for two hours of cleaning before school, then back after basketball practice for a midnight to 3 a.m. shift.
Theus lived with his father but rarely saw him at home because of the long hours, leaving Theus to "pretty much raise myself."
"We went to work when everybody else went home," Phylis Theus, Reggie's sister, said of her siblings. "We did our homework in the waiting rooms of doctors' offices after we did our chores. Our parents worked the lazy out of us. Hard work is no stranger to us at all."
Theus' mother, Willie Mae Booker, handled the business end and helped with the grunt work before the divorce. And while her "baby boy" would go on to be known as the black Clark Gable, he wasn't quite as polished early on.
"He's been so dirty on the job, you wouldn't know him if you saw him," Booker, 84, says with a laugh from her Inglewood home. "Maintenance is not a clean job, but he thought it was funny."
The dirty work was far from over.
* * *
As coaching careers go, Theus' rise was meteoric -- five years in all before he became the Kings' new coach in June. The first breakthrough is well-known, when Theus cold-called Louisville coach Rick Pitino in 2002 and found himself landing an assistant-coaching job for an elite program. A Final Four appearance and a nationally acclaimed recruiting class later, Theus found himself with his own program.
In two seasons at New Mexico State, winning at a historic pace helped Theus win over a growing fan base that dubbed itself the "Reggie Nation." But it was Theus' time at Division II Cal State Los Angeles that served as the real roots, fitting considering the hometown locale and humble feel to the program. Like most everyone else in the area, head coach Dave Yanai knew Theus and his repute. A legendary coach in his own right for decades on the Los Angeles prep scene, Yanai welcomed Theus onto his coaching staff as a volunteer assistant.
There was dirty work to be done again, and Theus -- whose coaching résumé included only one season as head coach of the American Basketball Association's Las Vegas Slam in 2002 -- juggled the unpaid position with his job as an NBA broadcaster. He joined former Syracuse star Steve Thompson on the coaching staff.
"If you know anything about Division II programs, you don't have 20 guys running around to get things done," said Thompson, who played for the Kings briefly in 1991 and has since assumed the head-coaching role at Cal State Los Angeles. "If Reggie had to get a wet spot on the floor, he did it. He did a lot of floor coaching, breaking down tape, scouting, all aspects of the program. ... He was hungry to do anything to get started."
Including, apparently, absorbing a tongue-lashing from his early mentor.
"One day coach Yanai wasn't too happy with what us assistant coaches were doing, and he jumped down our throat," Thompson said. "I'm thinking, Wow, he's saying this to me? But then I look over, and he's on Reggie in front of the whole team. ... Here's Reggie Theus, not getting paid to do this, and he's being read the riot act in front of the whole team. It was unreal."
Theus is sure his Hollywood image was an obstacle in his pursuit of a coaching career. Before he landed at Cal State Los Angeles, phone calls made to USC, UC Irvine and Loyola Marymount looking for a first shot were airballs. He looked into NBA assistant jobs, too, and even had former Kings coach Jerry Reynolds call numerous teams on his behalf to no avail.
"Nothing quite worked out," said Reynolds, who was Theus' head coach from 1986 to 1988 and is now the Kings' director of player personnel and the team's television commentator. "I think there were some people who were a little scared of him. There were some coaches who didn't help him for this reason or that reason."
Added Theus, "Nobody did anything for me, and it was real frustrating because I was looking for just a way in the door."
If the fear was that Theus still came with plenty of glitter in his wake, it was founded. By the time Theus had turned his focus to coaching, it had been more than a decade since he retired as one of five NBA players to have totaled 19,000-plus points and more than 6,000 assists (there are now seven). In a 13-year career that included four playoff appearances and two All-Star showings and spanned five teams, he was remembered as much for his dashing looks off the floor as for his dominance on it. The glitzy lifestyle, if not the game, had remained.
He spent three years as coach Bill Fuller on the NBC Saturday morning show "Hang Time," then transitioned into traveling gigs as an NBA analyst with Turner Sports and ESPN that kept him on the basketball scene. He was one of the original panelists for the "Best Damn Sports Show Period" on Fox Sports Net, and was even hired by the Maloofs long before he would be running their team for a job not lacking in star power.
Already friendly with Kings co-owners Joe and Gavin Maloof, he talked his way into a three-day-a-week gig at their newly opened Las Vegas casino. Theus was a VIP host of sorts, catering to the top-notch clientele for six months when the Palms opened in 2001. His name still resonated in "Sin City," where he is forever tied to his Afro-sporting UNLV days that included the program's first trip to the Final Four in 1977 under coach Jerry Tarkanian.
"I was just there learning what was going on and building relationships," Theus said of his Palms job. "That was a connection thing, another way to make a living."
With one phone call to Pitino, the persona would no longer stop Theus from earning paychecks as a coach. In July 2003, Theus had heard of an assistant opening at Louisville. He knew Pitino only indirectly, having been recruited by him while Pitino was, of all things, a volunteer coach at Hawaii in 1974. Theus also had interviewed Pitino courtside during Pitino's six seasons coaching in the NBA (New York and Boston).
But while Theus was golfing with friend and former Los Angeles Dodgers executive Kevin Malone, who knew Louisville's sports information director, Malone urged Theus to call Louisville. He did, and Pitino -- unlike so many others -- saw Theus' charisma and presence as a plus.
"I was completely shocked," Theus said. "One of the reasons I couldn't get a job was because my profile was too strong. (But) I think coach Pitino hired me because he's Rick Pitino. He saw what I brought to the table, not the persona."
* * *
Reggie Theus as an NBA coach is a mystery. The newest entry into the debate about college coaches moving up the ranks is a bit different, given his NBA background as a player and analyst. If nothing else, Theus has gained respect in the early going for his unorthodox path into the league.
"The route he took was kind of interesting," said Utah's Jerry Sloan, Theus' coach in Chicago from 1979 to 1982 and, according to Theus, among his most influential former coaches. "I think he felt like it was important to take a different route rather than just jump out there and start coaching. I respect that."
Tarkanian, who recommended Theus to the Maloofs during the hiring process, said Theus' passion for coaching will pay off.
"When he was coaching at New Mexico State, I talked to him one day, and he said, 'You know, coach, this is the happiest I've ever been in my life,' " Tarkanian said. "I said, 'God, isn't that wonderful?' and he said, 'This is what I've always wanted to do.' "
Theus insists the timing is perfect for this challenge, which begins this week at training camp. He has his dream job, though the true dream would be to revive Arco Arena and the frustrated Kings fans the same way he sparked the New Mexico State program and its followers.
There is an appreciation for the present like never before, too, inspired partially by family members no longer here to enjoy this chapter of life. Theus' father -- who never saw him play basketball -- died of a heart attack as Theus was entering his senior year at Inglewood High School. Then just last month, Theus' older brother passed. Eundra, 58, was a Vietnam veteran who suffered for years from mental and physical effects of the war, dying, according to Theus, of liver complications related to medication.
Nothing pretty about it.
"One of the things that drives me so hard is that my dad died right about the time he was starting to really enjoy his life," Theus said. "He was starting to wear those funny hats, those loud-colored pants, had himself a girlfriend.
"(Eundra) got hurt in Vietnam and was never the same. Because of that situation, we never formed a relationship. ... The strength that we build from the places that we've been is everlasting."
About the writer: The Bee's Sam Amick can be reached at samick@ sacbee.com.
Paying some more dues
Reggie Theus' road to the Kings' coaching job meant paying some more dues
By Sam Amick - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 30, 2007
Story appeared in SPORTS section, Page C1
There was little glamour to be found on 118th Street in Los Angeles, even with Reggie Theus living there.
One block up from Main and in the heart of Watts, where the violent riots of 1965 soon would bring the area infamy, a basketball-playing beefcake was being raised.
Even when his parents' divorce prompted a move to what was then white-bread Inglewood before Theus' sixth birthday, there was nothing pretty about it. Especially when it came time to go to work.
Five days a week in the mid-1970s, the boy who was well on his way to hoops prominence and prima donna status spent his early mornings and late nights cleaning toilets and mopping floors.
He was one of four assistants for the Felix Janitor Service, a company established in 1939 and named for its founder, Theus' father. Along with two older sisters and an older brother -- the other helpers -- Theus learned the value of a solid work ethic and felt no shame for his dirty little secret.
"My dad's whole thing was, 'Reggie, I don't ever want you to have to do this for a living, but it's not going to hurt you to learn,' " Theus said. "That attitude and the willingness to do it was what stuck with me the most. I didn't care that I was cleaning toilets."
The off-days were Fridays and Sundays, convenient for a teenager who was fast becoming a hardwood legend with his sweet shot and unending charisma. But even for the kid whose sisters claim he had unending energy, the schedule was a challenge.
Some days, Theus was up at 4 in the morning for two hours of cleaning before school, then back after basketball practice for a midnight to 3 a.m. shift.
Theus lived with his father but rarely saw him at home because of the long hours, leaving Theus to "pretty much raise myself."
"We went to work when everybody else went home," Phylis Theus, Reggie's sister, said of her siblings. "We did our homework in the waiting rooms of doctors' offices after we did our chores. Our parents worked the lazy out of us. Hard work is no stranger to us at all."
Theus' mother, Willie Mae Booker, handled the business end and helped with the grunt work before the divorce. And while her "baby boy" would go on to be known as the black Clark Gable, he wasn't quite as polished early on.
"He's been so dirty on the job, you wouldn't know him if you saw him," Booker, 84, says with a laugh from her Inglewood home. "Maintenance is not a clean job, but he thought it was funny."
The dirty work was far from over.
* * *
As coaching careers go, Theus' rise was meteoric -- five years in all before he became the Kings' new coach in June. The first breakthrough is well-known, when Theus cold-called Louisville coach Rick Pitino in 2002 and found himself landing an assistant-coaching job for an elite program. A Final Four appearance and a nationally acclaimed recruiting class later, Theus found himself with his own program.
In two seasons at New Mexico State, winning at a historic pace helped Theus win over a growing fan base that dubbed itself the "Reggie Nation." But it was Theus' time at Division II Cal State Los Angeles that served as the real roots, fitting considering the hometown locale and humble feel to the program. Like most everyone else in the area, head coach Dave Yanai knew Theus and his repute. A legendary coach in his own right for decades on the Los Angeles prep scene, Yanai welcomed Theus onto his coaching staff as a volunteer assistant.
There was dirty work to be done again, and Theus -- whose coaching résumé included only one season as head coach of the American Basketball Association's Las Vegas Slam in 2002 -- juggled the unpaid position with his job as an NBA broadcaster. He joined former Syracuse star Steve Thompson on the coaching staff.
"If you know anything about Division II programs, you don't have 20 guys running around to get things done," said Thompson, who played for the Kings briefly in 1991 and has since assumed the head-coaching role at Cal State Los Angeles. "If Reggie had to get a wet spot on the floor, he did it. He did a lot of floor coaching, breaking down tape, scouting, all aspects of the program. ... He was hungry to do anything to get started."
Including, apparently, absorbing a tongue-lashing from his early mentor.
"One day coach Yanai wasn't too happy with what us assistant coaches were doing, and he jumped down our throat," Thompson said. "I'm thinking, Wow, he's saying this to me? But then I look over, and he's on Reggie in front of the whole team. ... Here's Reggie Theus, not getting paid to do this, and he's being read the riot act in front of the whole team. It was unreal."
Theus is sure his Hollywood image was an obstacle in his pursuit of a coaching career. Before he landed at Cal State Los Angeles, phone calls made to USC, UC Irvine and Loyola Marymount looking for a first shot were airballs. He looked into NBA assistant jobs, too, and even had former Kings coach Jerry Reynolds call numerous teams on his behalf to no avail.
"Nothing quite worked out," said Reynolds, who was Theus' head coach from 1986 to 1988 and is now the Kings' director of player personnel and the team's television commentator. "I think there were some people who were a little scared of him. There were some coaches who didn't help him for this reason or that reason."
Added Theus, "Nobody did anything for me, and it was real frustrating because I was looking for just a way in the door."
If the fear was that Theus still came with plenty of glitter in his wake, it was founded. By the time Theus had turned his focus to coaching, it had been more than a decade since he retired as one of five NBA players to have totaled 19,000-plus points and more than 6,000 assists (there are now seven). In a 13-year career that included four playoff appearances and two All-Star showings and spanned five teams, he was remembered as much for his dashing looks off the floor as for his dominance on it. The glitzy lifestyle, if not the game, had remained.
He spent three years as coach Bill Fuller on the NBC Saturday morning show "Hang Time," then transitioned into traveling gigs as an NBA analyst with Turner Sports and ESPN that kept him on the basketball scene. He was one of the original panelists for the "Best Damn Sports Show Period" on Fox Sports Net, and was even hired by the Maloofs long before he would be running their team for a job not lacking in star power.
Already friendly with Kings co-owners Joe and Gavin Maloof, he talked his way into a three-day-a-week gig at their newly opened Las Vegas casino. Theus was a VIP host of sorts, catering to the top-notch clientele for six months when the Palms opened in 2001. His name still resonated in "Sin City," where he is forever tied to his Afro-sporting UNLV days that included the program's first trip to the Final Four in 1977 under coach Jerry Tarkanian.
"I was just there learning what was going on and building relationships," Theus said of his Palms job. "That was a connection thing, another way to make a living."
With one phone call to Pitino, the persona would no longer stop Theus from earning paychecks as a coach. In July 2003, Theus had heard of an assistant opening at Louisville. He knew Pitino only indirectly, having been recruited by him while Pitino was, of all things, a volunteer coach at Hawaii in 1974. Theus also had interviewed Pitino courtside during Pitino's six seasons coaching in the NBA (New York and Boston).
But while Theus was golfing with friend and former Los Angeles Dodgers executive Kevin Malone, who knew Louisville's sports information director, Malone urged Theus to call Louisville. He did, and Pitino -- unlike so many others -- saw Theus' charisma and presence as a plus.
"I was completely shocked," Theus said. "One of the reasons I couldn't get a job was because my profile was too strong. (But) I think coach Pitino hired me because he's Rick Pitino. He saw what I brought to the table, not the persona."
* * *
Reggie Theus as an NBA coach is a mystery. The newest entry into the debate about college coaches moving up the ranks is a bit different, given his NBA background as a player and analyst. If nothing else, Theus has gained respect in the early going for his unorthodox path into the league.
"The route he took was kind of interesting," said Utah's Jerry Sloan, Theus' coach in Chicago from 1979 to 1982 and, according to Theus, among his most influential former coaches. "I think he felt like it was important to take a different route rather than just jump out there and start coaching. I respect that."
Tarkanian, who recommended Theus to the Maloofs during the hiring process, said Theus' passion for coaching will pay off.
"When he was coaching at New Mexico State, I talked to him one day, and he said, 'You know, coach, this is the happiest I've ever been in my life,' " Tarkanian said. "I said, 'God, isn't that wonderful?' and he said, 'This is what I've always wanted to do.' "
Theus insists the timing is perfect for this challenge, which begins this week at training camp. He has his dream job, though the true dream would be to revive Arco Arena and the frustrated Kings fans the same way he sparked the New Mexico State program and its followers.
There is an appreciation for the present like never before, too, inspired partially by family members no longer here to enjoy this chapter of life. Theus' father -- who never saw him play basketball -- died of a heart attack as Theus was entering his senior year at Inglewood High School. Then just last month, Theus' older brother passed. Eundra, 58, was a Vietnam veteran who suffered for years from mental and physical effects of the war, dying, according to Theus, of liver complications related to medication.
Nothing pretty about it.
"One of the things that drives me so hard is that my dad died right about the time he was starting to really enjoy his life," Theus said. "He was starting to wear those funny hats, those loud-colored pants, had himself a girlfriend.
"(Eundra) got hurt in Vietnam and was never the same. Because of that situation, we never formed a relationship. ... The strength that we build from the places that we've been is everlasting."
About the writer: The Bee's Sam Amick can be reached at samick@ sacbee.com.
