John MacLeod 's 13-Plus
Posted: Feb. 1998
JOHN MacLEOD.
Say the name now and Phoenix Suns fans will tell you he was the winningest coach in franchise history.
John MacLeod was known as a teacher, a motivator and a communicator during his 13-year coaching career with the Suns. |
He was then, as he is now, a coach, a teacher, a motivator and a good communicator. And for those reasons, he was Colangelo's choice to bring some stability to a franchise that had seen five (six if you count Colangelo's two stints) coaches come and go in its five years of existence.
MacLeod lasted nearly 14 years in Phoenix, compiling 579 wins and leading the Suns to four 50-win seasons, two Western Conference Finals and one NBA Finals appearance.
It was in many ways a historic run. His 13-plus years tie him with former Golden State Coach Al Attles for second all-time in the NBA for consecutive years coaching the same team behind only the legendary Red Auerbach, who coached the Boston Celtics for 16 straight seasons.
"I was one of the early proponents of bringing college coaches into the NBA," says Colangelo, now the Suns president and chief executive officer. "I recommended Dick Motta before I left the Chicago Bulls and he became the Bulls coach and I also hired John MacLeod and Cotton Fitzsimmons. So you look at three of the coaches who won a ton of basketball games during their coaching careers and had a great impact on the NBA."
MacLeod, now the head coach at the University of Notre Dame, began his coaching career at Oklahoma University as the freshman coach in 1966-67 where he guided them to a school-best 7-1 record.
A year later, he took over the Sooner varsity program, which had fallen on hard times, and over six seasons compiled a 90-69 record. His Sooner teams made back-to-back appearances in the National Invitational Tournament in 1970, when they were 19-9, and 1971, when they were 19-8. At that time, the 19 wins were second only to the 24 wins by the '46-47 team in school history.
In his final four years at Oklahoma, MacLeod's teams went 70-37. His roster included Clifford Ray as well as two players who would go on to star for MacLeod with the Suns - Gar Heard and Alvan Adams.
"That's the main reason I went to Oklahoma, because of John MacLeod," says Adams, now a vice president and assistant general manager for the America West Arena. "His whole personality and his coaching style is what attracted me and made me choose Oklahoma over the other schools that recruited me. He was friendly, he introduced me to everyone associated with the athletic program and academics. He seemed honest and straight forward."
MacLeod was hired by the Suns on March 30, 1973, and how the hiring came about was a story in and of itself.
After talking with MacLeod in the spring that year, Colangelo asked him if he would be interested in the Suns' head coaching job. MacLeod thought about it before telling Colangelo 'No thanks.'
Later, while the club was finishing up the regular season in Seattle, MacLeod telephoned Colangelo, who was eating a late dinner at a Seattle restaurant and told him he had reconsidered.
"Originally John turned down a job he hadn't been offered," Colangelo recalls. "But then I made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
While the fans might have had a skeptical reaction to the hiring, those who knew MacLeod, knew he would be successful. They knew what the others would come to learn over the next 13 seasons, that MacLeod would not be outworked or outhustled by any other coach.
"That's why Jerry's so smart," Adams says of Colangelo's decision to hire MacLeod. "He did some homework and saw things, starting with John's intensity and his commitment to figuring out how to be successful. John would research the latest stretching techniques, the latest defenses. John was a real student, he's a teacher now, but at that time he had a real thirst for knowing everything about basketball. I'm sure that shone through with Jerry."
MacLeod's first two years included an overhaul in the roster and the accompanying growing pains as the Suns went 30-52 and 32-50. But in '75-76 the "Sunderella" Suns finished the regular season 42-40 and followed that with an upset victory over the Golden State Warriors in the Conference Finals to gain a berth into the NBA Finals. The Suns took Boston to the brink before falling in six games.
The series with Golden State and Boston stand out in MacLeod's mind even today.
"The Boston series was great," he says. "The Golden State series, which was a seven-game series leading up to it, was tremendous as well. We beat Golden State twice on their floor and we won the seventh game on their floor to go to the Finals, and they were the defending champions.
"We were major underdogs all the way through the playoffs. Those games, you never forget."
A young MacLeod fired up his troops in 1975-76, leading the "Sunderellas" to a surprise appearance in the NBA Finals that season. |
"We had a great run there," MacLeod says. "We had a lot of real strong teams. Teams that played defense, that moved the ball, that played an entertaining style and I think that was evidenced by the fact that the fans really packed the house to watch those guys play."
MacLeod was so focused on each and every game that he did not realize that his tenure ranked second all-time. He knew he'd been in Phoenix for over 13 years, but at the time did not realize, nor care, about its significance.
Nowadays he looks back with pride at how long he lasted in the Valley and what he accomplished. His longevity streak is one that is probably not in danger of being matched by many coaches.
"I don't think that's going to happen anymore," he says. "There's just so much movement now that's part of pro basketball. I think it's just the nature of pro basketball right now. That's just part of the business."
MacLeod's ability to communicate, certainly helped him keep players attentions over his tenure. Another was the feeling the players had that if the game came down to coaching, they were going to come out on top.
"I do think things have probably changed," Adams says regarding coaching tenures. "But looking back, communicating with players was a real strength for John. He knew every part of the game, he had every aspect covered. In the majority of those years, we thought we could go out and win the game on any particular night. He was able to get his players to run his system, which was a very good one, and be successful with it.
"Jerry went through however many coaches before John and he had one or two good ones, including Cotton Fitzsimmons and himself, and a few that didn't work out and that left quickly. He knew he had a real complete leader and coach in John." According to Adams, MacLeod's system consisted of playing tough defense, practicing hard, and using his bench liberally. The bench was important if the team was going to play with the type of intensity and hustle he wanted.
"He had a rule, 'You stayed in the game as long as you played hard,'" Adams says. "If he saw you dogging it back on defense he'd take you out. He didn't yell at you, or throw a chair at you, he just took you out, and you knew why you were out, and he'd put someone else in there.
"He wanted us to go as hard as we could for as long as we could. He liked people that had full intensity, people running back on defense, setting the picks, running the plays on offense."
Another reason players liked to play for MacLeod was the feeling they got that he was interested in them as people, not just athletes. And because he loved teaching so much, he would often go above and beyond to work with a player on a particular skill or counsel him about life.
"I think coach MacLeod is definitely a people person," says former All-Star Larry Nance, who played for MacLeod in Phoenix. "He really cared about each one of his players. He spent a lot of time with me in the gym helping me improve my game. As far as my work ethic, coach MacLeod definitely got me off on the right foot. He spent a lot of time talking with me about on and off the court things. He's a great, great man."
Just how much MacLeod loves to teach the game of basketball was obvious when he said he was fortunate that he had players who wanted to put in extra time with him, before games or during the summer, working on their games For MacLeod, the key was to keep his players in the same positive mindset that he had.
"I tried to look at the good things in a player as opposed to the negative things," he explains. "I tried to build players up and not knock them down. I thought that was a more effective way to teach and coach than to be constantly critical and telling them all the time what they didn't do well. I tried to play to their strengths and away from their weaknesses.
"I'd rather be positive and optimistic. You're always going to have things that you can work on, so work on them. But don't belabor the point and keep talking about what you don't have. I try to look at the bright side and the positive side of what my players had and build through that."
After his run with the Suns ended with his dismissal in 1987, MacLeod moved on to the Dallas Mavericks where he led them to a 53-29 record and the Western Conference Finals in 1987-88.
Then, 11 games into the '89-90 season, he was fired by the Mavericks. He coached the New York Knicks for 67 games in '90-91 before joining Notre Dame on May 4, 1991. With the Fighting Irish, MacLeod has had to help rebuild a program that had fallen on hard times.
The Notre Dame job is the third rebuilding challenge of MacLeod's career. First there was Oklahoma, then Phoenix. Now his challenge is to return the Fighting Irish to national prominence.
It's one he relishes.
"We're making progress," he says of the Fighting Irish, who were 16-14 in their second year in the Big East Conference last season. "We've improved in recruiting, we have the Big East Most Valuable Player from last season (forward Pat Garrity) back for his senior year. Our attendance has gone up, we had what was considered the 10th-best recruiting class in the country last year. I think things are looking up."
Big East coaches showed how much respect they have for MacLeod last season when they named him Coach of the Year.
And while most coaches struggle to have success at either the pro or college level, MacLeod is unique in the sense that he's had success at both. It puts him in a good position to compare the two from a coaching standpoint.
"It's such a wide question," he said. "The biggest difference is in pro ball you're going to play 90 games every year with the preseason and regular season and you hope you play 110 or more with the playoffs. In college ball the most you're going to play is 30 or 35, so right there is a big difference.
"Collegiately, you don't travel as much as you do from a professional standpoint. And in the pros, you're up against the best players, the best coaches in the best arenas every night out. And you know you're at the pinnacle of basketball, there's not a higher league than the NBA.
"I enjoy college coaching and I enjoyed pro ball."
Adams still keeps in touch with MacLeod these days and while he knows his former coach could still be an excellent pro coach, he thinks MacLeod is in a good place right now.
"I think he's a builder of young men," Adams says. "My opinion is he's well suited for doing that at the collegiate level, because quite simply, the players are younger there and more impressionable."
In fact, MacLeod does try and teach his current group of players about more than basketball. Last season when the Fighting Irish traveled to Georgetown to play the Hoyas, MacLeod arranged for his team to visit the Supreme Court and got them an audience with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
"It was a real treat for those kids to see and hear Sandra Day O'Connor," he says. "What an experience! She was kind enough to do it and it was tremendous. And we were able to tour the White House. We had time to make it educational for them as well as play a basketball game."
MacLeod, who has little free time in his own busy schedule, still follows the Suns as closely as he can.
"I'm pretty impressed with them," he says of the current team. "They can really score the ball and they have a lot of weapons that Danny Ainge can use; players who can score in double figures. It's really an impressive roster when you look at it."
Impressive is also a word that can be used to describe MacLeod's time with the Suns.
Not surprisingly, Colangelo has no regrets about that spring day when he turned over the reigns of his club to the unknown coach out of Oklahoma.
"I think the record speaks for itself," Colangelo says. "John MacLeod came in and took a few years to institute his program and we had a turnover in personnel and then we were off and running on a terrific run of seasons of 50-plus wins. He earned his tenure for sure and it was a sign of tremendous stability for the Phoenix Suns during that time period. He did a terrific job."
Reprinted with permission of Fastbreak magazine.
