Competitive fire burns in WSU coach Ken Bone

As mild-mannered as he is, as easygoing as he seems, don't be fooled by Ken Bone. Don't underestimate the competitive passion that percolates beneath his Mayberry RFD exterior.

Former assistant Ben Scheffler remembers basketball practices at Seattle Pacific when Bone was the head coach. Almost daily, as the players stretched on the floor in front of them, Bone challenged Scheffler or associate head coach Jeff Hironaka to a game of H-O-R-S-E.

"The games started off easy enough, but then they changed," Scheffler said late last week. "They became crazy intense. He would resort to all of his trick shots. He'd take his patented jab step and jump stop and create tricks off of them."

And Bone, who replaced Tony Bennett at Washington State last week, almost always won.

"There was the time we were in Las Vegas at a tournament. It was hot and after we'd watched some games he asked me if I wanted to go swimming," Scheffler said. "I thought, 'Sure I'll jump in the pool.' But once we were in there he challenged me to a race. He beat me and then he asked me if I wanted to race him again. He's very competitive, and he hates to lose."

So understand how much Ken Bone wanted the WSU job. Understand how completely the competitor in Bone wanted to match clipboards and game plans in the Pac-10, against some of the best coaches in the country.

He didn't campaign for the job like a Chicago alderman. He didn't sell himself the way many hungry, young coaches do. This was his dream job, even if he never publicly shared those dreams.

"He's not the kind of guy who looks at the grass as being greener on the other side of the hill," his wife Connie said. "He's never questioned whether there was a better job out there. Never thought, 'Is there a better opportunity for me?'

"He's not a self promoter. I think that makes [getting] the Washington State job that much more satisfying, because he did it in a quiet, humble way."

Still, when he was the head coach at Seattle Pacific, there was a head-coaching opportunity at Eastern Washington and another at Portland State that he applied for and didn't get. There even was a time when Bone felt as if he might be pigeonholed.

He was a Division II coach at SPU and the wrongheaded, conventional wisdom was that he was a good coach, but not the fiery kind who could get a Division I school into NCAA tournaments and onto ESPN's "Game Day."

"There was a period when he was spinning his wheels, when nobody was giving him much of a chance," said Hironaka, who replaced Bone as head coach at Seattle Pacific in 2002. "But the best move he made was leaving to become an assistant coach at Washington. He had to make it happen. He had to give it that shot."

Bone had been at SPU for 16 years, 12 as a head coach. He may have had the most secure job in sports, and he loved it there. But a part of him — that H-O-R-S-E-playing, competitor part — wanted more.

"It was a risk," Hironaka said, "because he had to step back and take a secondary position and if the program didn't have success he could have been out of a job. But he knew down deep he had to take that risk."

Bone got his first D-I chance at Portland State four years ago. The past two seasons he has taken the school to its only NCAA appearances. But last year he went after the Oregon State job and didn't get it.

And, at age 50, he knew the expiration date on his Pac-10 coaching opportunities was approaching rapidly.

"I never thought I'd given up, but I thought my years were dwindling down," said Bone. "At my age, I thought my chances of coaching in the Pac-10 were slim and none. This spring it really hit home. Being a Pac-10 coach in the Northwest, those days of getting that opportunity, were probably gone."

And then Bennett left for Virginia, and Bone got his chance.

He is the perfect choice. This will be a destination job for him.

Bone has great recruiting contacts in Western Washington and, oh yeah, he knows how to coach. He won more than 72 percent of his games at SPU and made eight NCAA II appearances in 12 years there.

He raised the hoop profile at SPU and Portland State. He went to the NCAA tournament the final two of his four seasons at Portland State and was 46-20 in those two seasons. His record in 17 seasons as a head coach is 335-167.

"I could have sincerely stayed at Seattle Pacific forever," said Bone. "Great place to work. Great group of people. Great kids and my alma mater. It was a perfect job. But part of me wanted to go against the best.

"There were times I thought, 'Man, I'd like the opportunity to coach at a higher level and just see how I can do. Match up against those other coaches, compete against them in recruiting, match strategies and game preparations, then go out on the court and see who can get the job done.' "

Now he gets to match strategies through the cold Pullman winters with Washington's Lorenzo Romar and UCLA's Ben Howland, California's Mike Montgomery, Arizona State's Herb Sendek, USC's Tim Floyd and Arizona's Sean Miller.

"He deserves this chance," said Hironaka, who worked with Bone for 11 years. "He's a player's coach and at the same time, he's in control and the guys buy into what he's trying to do. He's the total package. He's like Tony [Bennett] that way. He's a good guy who doesn't have an ego. A good family man and good father."

Don't be fooled by his aw-shucks demeanor. Just because he looks buttoned down, doesn't mean he can't blow up.

There was a game at Humboldt State when SPU's Nick Johnson was driven into the bleachers and no foul was called. According to Hironaka, Bone went all "Bobby Knight."

Bone tossed his sports coat onto the floor and went after the offending official. He was ejected from the game and suspended for the Falcons' next game.

"That was very uncharacteristic of him," Hironaka said, "but he was standing up for his players."

There was a method to Bone's craziness that night. Down by double-digits when he left the game, SPU came back to win.

"In my mind there was never a doubt that he had the ability," said Scheffler, who was with Bone for eight years as a player and assistant coach. "But in that business you just never know. The thing about Ken is that he has this uncanny ability to put guys in a position where they can have the most success, not just as individuals, but collectively as a team.

"He created a culture at SPU. He expected you to be the best player, but also the best person you could be. He expected that on the basketball court, but also in the community and the classroom. You put everything together, and Ken fits the mold of a great coach. I can't think of a better guy to get this kind of break."

Bone says he was lucky to have coached for so many years in a city with the resources Seattle had. And he took advantage of his opportunities.

He sought Marv Harshman's counsel. He went to dozens of Sonics practices and had lunches with former coach George Karl and assistant Tim Grgurich.

He talked hoops for hours with former Washington coach Bob Bender, and when Romar replaced Bender, Bone mined Romar for information he believed would make him a better coach.

"Ken was never one to think he knew it all," Scheffler said. "He was always trying to find a better way to do things. He would bring in different guys to work with us on different things. We really benefited from Ken's philosophy of reaching out and giving us every opportunity he could to find something new."

And it was obvious the people who mentored him respected him.

Then-Sonics strength coach Bob Medina and assistant coach Grgurich volunteered to come to the SPU gym at 6 a.m. to work with players on the weightlifting programs. Former Husky and NBA center Steve Hawes came to practices and taught rebounding.

Bone always sought ways to make himself better, never knowing where his newfound knowledge would take him.

Now he's in the Pac-10. He's the head basketball coach at Washington State, and if you look deep enough into his eyes you can see the fire is burning brighter inside.

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