Just Plain Bill Quits as Coach of the 76ers

One of the first things you notice when you hear him being interviewed is that he often refers to himself in the third person. When he does, he invariably calls himself Bill Cunningham. It’s not Billy or Billy C, which is the name people in basketball have for him. It’s plain, respectable Bill Cunningham.

Maybe that has something to do with the announcement of his resignation Tuesday after eight years as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, in which he won 400 games faster than any other coach in NBA history. Before that, he was a professional player for 11 seasons and part of a 12th, nine in Philadelphia.

Maybe he was tired of being called Billy, having a short-pants name in the sports pages, being an adult, going on 42, in an adolescent’s game. That’s fine for some men, but not for Bill Cunningham.

Time, he figured, could stand still no longer. His mother, of course, didn’t see why not. When he called her and said he was getting out after 20 years in the pros as a player and coach, she said, “Twenty years? Has it been that long? Has it been that fast?”

Or maybe Cunningham was just tired of never being able to win enough to please the Philadelphia fans. The 76ers have been to the NBA finals three of the last six seasons, but the only time anyone here said congratulations was the year they won it all.

It wasn’t that there were no incentives to return for another season. He couldn’t complain about the money. One season remained on his contract, which reportedly paid him close to $400,000 a year.

But he probably can multiply that in the real world, considering that he owns a travel agency, a hotel and some additional real estate to go along with his other investments.

Maybe in the real world, he also can get some respect.

Those are some of the thoughts that must have been stirring around with the egg nog at Christmas, when he said he first began considering life without basketball. By the end of the regular season, the decision to resign was made.

The loss to Boston in five games during the Eastern Conference championship series simply reinforced it, although he didn’t feel quite so humiliated after watching the Celtics embarrass the Lakers on Sunday.

“I know one game doesn’t tell you anything about an entire series,” Cunningham said. “But after I saw what I did, I said, ‘Maybe we didn’t do too bad against Boston, after all.’ They certainly never had a performance like that in our series.”

Cunningham’s announcement Tuesday didn’t come as a lightning bolt out of the blue.

Every year, at the season’s end, he said he needed a week to think about whether he wanted to return. That was his position in good times as well as bad, even in 1983, when the 76ers swept the Lakers to win the championship.

If he had wanted to quit that year, he would have had to overrule Moses Malone.

“You’re stayin’, and we’re repeatin’,” Malone told him.

But the 76ers didn’t repeat in 1984, losing in the first round of the playoffs to New Jersey. They were better this year, but not significantly enough to win another championship.

So Cunningham decided he wasn’t staying this time.

“For me, it was the right decision,” he said. “There was no wavering. What direction will I go? I don’t know. Will I come back and coach two or three years down the way? I don’t know. I’m not burned out. It was just time for Bill Cunningham to move on.”

When Cunningham called team owner Harold Katz with the decision Saturday, Katz said he wasn’t expecting it. Neither, he said, did it come as a surprise.

“I’ve heard the rumors for four years, and they hadn’t been true before, so I thought they probably weren’t true this year,” he said. “In that regard, I wasn’t expecting it.

“At the same time, I noticed a change in Billy near the end of the season that made me think the rumors this time might be for real.

“I saw Billy at the end taking losses better than he had previously. That wasn’t Billy’s style. I think he realized his intensity had gotten to the point where it was beginning to take a toll on him health-wise.

“That’s not to say Billy took losses well, but he was better able to deal with them.”

Cunningham and Katz met for three hours Monday to discuss the decision.

“That seemed to be the most relaxed he’s ever been,” Katz said.

For that reason, Katz said he didn’t attempt to persuade Cunningham to change his mind.

“Once you hear that a decision is not reversible, then you don’t bother,” he said. “If you have to talk somebody into doing a job, he’s not going to do it well. This is the best decision for Billy and his family. I’m not sure it’s the best for us.”

Without mentioning names, Katz said he will interview seven to 10 coaches as possible successors to Cunningham.

Media speculation here Tuesday centered on Detroit Coach Chuck Daly, a former 76er assistant; former Clipper Coach Jim Lynam, now coach at Loyola Marymount; Kevin Loughery, fired Tuesday as Chicago’s head coach; Cunningham’s top assistant, Matt Goukas, and Villanova Coach Rollie Massimino.

“Whoever it is will have my phone number,” Cunningham said.

And his empathy.

After a few years in the NBA, most coaches acquire a look known here as the Cunningham Syndrome. Its features are crow’s feet, bags under the eyes and skin that is a whiter shade of pale.

Cunningham still had the bags under his eyes Tuesday, but his color is returning after a week on the golf course.

“Billy does seem relaxed, happy,” 76er General Manager Pat Williams said after a mid-morning press conference in a hotel near the Spectrum.

Later, after Cunningham met with the players at the Spectrum, Julius Erving said, “You could hear the relaxation in his voice, see it in his face. It was almost an uplifting experience.”

The only time Tuesday that Cunningham exhibited the combativeness that became his trademark was after a reporter asked him about a story in that morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer.

Quoting an unnamed source, the newspaper reported that Katz pressured Cunningham to resign and that they were working on a financial settlement.

“If one of my children said something like that, I’d wash her mouth out with soap and send her to bed,” Cunningham said.

Katz also denied the report.

“In the entire league, I would say we had the best relationship of any owner and coach,” Katz said.

But, unquestionably, there was tension this season between Cunningham and some of his players.

He always was a screamer, a coach who paced in front of the bench, stomping his feet and kicking the ice bag.

Players complained in the past that they didn’t like to be shown up by him while they were on the court.

But, in the past, he usually was able to get through to most of them.

This season, he didn’t.

And the screaming became louder.

During the Eastern Conference championship series, Celtic forward Kevin McHale said he was stunned by Cunningham’s verbal lashings.

“Maybe that’s the way they converse down here,” McHale said.

Cunningham’s relationship with guard Andrew Toney deteriorated this season. After a loss to the Celtics, guard Clint Richardson complained that Cunningham wasn’t defining the players’ roles on the court. Even Erving criticized him after one of the losses to Boston, although Doctor J tried to make amends by praising the coach after the next two games.

Most of the 76ers had nothing to say to reporters after Tuesday’s meeting with Cunningham.

“I’m not talkin’ about nothin’, man,” Malone said.

“I’m in a hurry,” Toney said.

Erving said he couldn’t explain where it all went wrong.

“The balance of personalities that Billy could control took a shift this year,” he said. “It was disturbing to him. At times, Billy had to feel like he was talking to a wall.

“He got 90% out of this team. He didn’t get 100%. In the past, with some teams, he got 100% and sometimes more. But 90% wasn’t enough. The combination of that and the fact that he’s been in the game so long led to the decision.”

Perhaps the most disappointed of the 76ers was rookie Charles Barkley, who wasn’t always on the best of terms with Cunningham but respected him.

“When the season started, I thought he was too tough on me,” Barkley said. “People say rookies are supposed to make mistakes. I noticed the other rookies didn’t get hollered at as much as I did.

“But I came to realize he was the best coach for me. I don’t always give 100%. All he was trying to do was make me a better player. The less mistakes I made, the more he stood by me.”

Barkley said he will be upset if Goukas isn’t named to replace Cunningham.

“He has the same ideas as Coach Cunningham,” Barkley said. “Coach Cunningham’s ideas would have worked if we’d stuck together as a team.”

In the Philadelphia Daily News Tuesday, Cunningham said, “I’m still wondering what I should’ve done, how I could have improved it.

“Looking at it now, I think too many people didn’t have the ability to look in the mirror and face the issues. They always seemed to be finding fault in other areas. Some of them never just said, ‘I played bad, maybe I can play better, maybe I can contribute in some other way.’

“But it comes with the territory, and I knew it. A coach is always the easiest to blame, and that will always be true.”

As he walked out of the Spectrum Tuesday for the first time as a free man, after his final meeting with the players, Cunningham walked with the ease of a man who could be blamed no more.

Opening his car door, he looked at the overcast sky.

“Until the storm comes,” he said, “I’ll be on the golf course.”