Ramsay, cancer and all, remains on top of his game

MIAMI — For the past five decades Jack Ramsay has been an integral part of the NBA. For even longer, his life has been inextricably linked to this game.

He has been an innovator, a teacher, a winner. He has been an international ambassador, a leader, a voice.

He won the championship in Portland in 1977. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1992. And he has been the voice of the league, as the lead analyst for ESPN Radio since 1996.

Growing up, I idolized him. He was a legendary coach at my high school, Mount Pleasant in Wilmington, Del., where my father took me to my first basketball games. He was the coach for my favorite Philadelphia college team, Saint Joseph's.

I owe Ramsay a lot.

My high-school coach used many of his philosophies and we won a state championship with them. And when I was young and naïve, The Oregonian gave me a chance to cover the Portland Trail Blazers where Ramsay was the coach.

He was bigger than life to me. He was an intimidating force to cover. But he taught me a lot about the game and we've remained friends for almost 30 years.

Now, after these NBA Finals, which Ramsay is calling for ESPN radio, he is resigning. He has cancer.

A melanoma was discovered on the sole of Ramsay's foot. It was removed and treated, but now the cancer has spread to his chest and lungs. He is taking chemotherapy and the results have been promising.

"I'm 81 years old," he said before Thursday's Game 4. "How many people 81 have been able to do what I've been allowed to do. If this is the end of my life, I have no regrets. I'd like to stay longer and I enjoy doing this and if I can, I'd like to continue to do this.

"I'm getting good care. I'm doing whatever I can. If it works, that's fine. If it doesn't work, then that's life. But looking back, I've had a charmed life."

He has watched the league, from Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, to Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade. He has witnessed the ebbs and flows. He has experienced the irreplaceable joy of winning a championship. And, even as he resigns from his work at ESPN, he is thrilled with the state of the game.

"I think the league's in great shape," said Ramsay, who still looks fit enough to compete in a triathlon. "These playoffs, I think, have generated new interest in the league. The way the games have been played. The competitiveness of them. The quality of play. The young stars that are emerging. I think it only gets better."

After retiring from coaching following the 1987 season, Ramsay called commissioner David Stern, told him he would like to stay involved in the league and asked Stern for suggestions.

Stern sent Ramsay and Ramsay's good friend Hubie Brown, ABC's analyst, around the world, commissioning them to give coaching clinics, asking them to help grow the game globally.

The influx of foreign players, who have given new life to the league, are the direct result of those clinics.

"David saw this coming," Ramsay said. "He told me, 'We want to teach the game everywhere in the world,' and Hubie and I went just about everywhere. The goal was to teach the coaches how to teach the game. The clinics were well received and you could just sense it all growing."

Back in 1968, Ramsay became one of the first college coaches to make the jump to the NBA, going from St. Joe's to the Philadelphia 76ers. He brought a different mindset to coaching. He introduced the zone press and won a lot of games with it.

"When I was a high-school coach, I thought college coaching was the be-all and end-all," Ramsay said. "I still thought that when I first started college coaching. But then I noticed the [NBA] was changing. There was better team play. You could get a feel that coaching was becoming important in the NBA."

Ramsay's greatest coaching moments came in the 1976-77 season when he not only took the Blazers to their first playoffs, but won the NBA championship in six games over Philadelphia. He followed that season with a 50-10 start the next season, but that team was decimated by injuries and finished 58-24.

Like Miami, which tied these Finals at 2-2 with Thursday's victory over Dallas, the Blazers didn't play well in the first two games of the 1977 Finals and went down 2-0 to Philadelphia.

"We were really nervous, very edgy in Game 1," said Ramsay, who says he remembers almost every game — high school, college, NBA — in which he ever played or coached. "The team had never been in the playoffs before and suddenly they're in The Finals and it looked like we were running in sand.

"Julius Erving was quoted as saying, 'Portland needs some new plays. They're running the same plays all the time.' Well, we didn't change anything, we started playing the way we knew how to play. The same emphasis on defense, rebounding, running the floor, executing crisply in half court, because Philadelphia wasn't a very good defensive team."

In those seasons, Ramsay had only one assistant coach, Jack McKinney. Ramsay led the pre-practice calisthenics. He lifted in the weight room with the players. His conditioning was as good as his players. And he had no video coaches.

Today teams have four and five assistant coaches, including video coaches, who edit film like so many Robert Altmans. Many teams have two strength coaches. The staffs are swollen.

"I wouldn't know what to do with them all," Ramsay said. "I'm kind of a hands-on guy. I would be uncomfortable with all those guys, but everybody has them. It's just different now."

It's different, he says, but still the best show on Earth. And, although he is leaving to take care of his cancer, he also is leaving the door open for his return.

"I don't know what my health will allow me to do," he said, "but if it allows me to do something in the game, I'd like to. I'll know by the beginning of next season how I'm going to be. I'll see what happens."

Looking out onto the floor, anticipating another wondrous night of ball, Ramsay said he had no regrets, then he paused and amended his statement, "I wish we could have won more games."

It was the essential coach's answer. The essential Ramsay answer.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com