Nuggets Have Moe Fun : Denver’s Free-Spirited Coach Is Good for a Few Laughs, but When He’s at Work, He’s No Stooge

Dusk arrived almost unnoticed at the local dog racing track, where a few hundred avid gamblers had spent a pleasant weekday afternoon intently wagering on greyhound racing beamed via closed-circuit television from a track 40 miles east.

The results of the final race had been posted and the betting windows closed, but none of the regulars seemed in a hurry to leave. Eventually, though, the day’s winners and losers folded their tout sheets, counted their money--if they had any left--and headed out.

“Well,” Doug Moe said with a sigh, “should we go?”

Maybe you should, Doug. The Denver Nuggets are playing the New Jersey Nets in a little more than two hours across town at McNichols Arena, and it would be nice if you could make an appearance.

After all, Moe is the Nugget coach, although on this afternoon his two-day stubble and faded jeans made him look like just another bettor skipping work to play the dogs.

Moe looked at his watch and nodded. He gathered two weeks worth of past-performance charts, discarded about $400 worth of losing tickets from the 13 races he had bet on and strolled to the parking lot. Only then did Moe concern himself with his basketball team, which had lost four games in six days.

“You hit stretches like that,” he said, talking about basketball and the dogs.

A few hours later, Moe’s luck improved. After a nap, a shave and a change of clothes in his coach’s office, he watched his own sleek greyhounds run up 137 points and beat New Jersey by 13. No doubt, Moe’s game-day preparations contributed greatly to the victory.

Other than a brief morning meeting with Vince Boryla, the team’s vice president, Moe’s day consisted of several hours of frivolity. He talked about that night’s game only when somebody was rude enough to ask him about it.

The Nugget shoot-around, which began at 11 a.m. without the coach, ended in fewer than 20 minutes when Moe uttered his standard line in a thick Brooklyn accent: “OK fellas, let’s head on in.”

After wisecracking his way through three local TV interviews, Moe lunched with friends for two hours at his favorite Italian spot, giving the overworked waitress grief. “Hey, old goat, get us the check,” he barked affectionately. Then, it was time to blow a wad of money at the dog track.

Just a normal day for a coach in the National Basketball Assn.?

Hardly.

Then again, nobody has ever called Doug Moe normal.

It is Moe’s belief that coaches who watch game films all day and construct offensive patterns that resemble road maps take themselves and the profession much too seriously. With a 409-326 record in 10 seasons in the NBA and the old American Basketball Assn., Moe has proven that you can win and have fun, too.

“Let’s face it,” Moe said. “What is it we’re really doing here? This is just a (bleeping) game. Coaches think they are more important than they really are. In the world, the NBA and the Denver Nuggets mean nothing. They don’t care in Libya. I mean, let’s get serious.”

That’s precisely what some coaches and critics around the league want Moe to do. He has a reputation of being more caretaker than coach, a guy greatly lacking in the three Ds of the profession--defense, discipline and direction.

Before last season, the Nuggets and defense were considered antonyms. Sure, the critics sneered, they run and score a lot, but the Nuggets simply weren’t disciplined enough to win in the playoffs. They blamed Moe, who at times seemed to be more concerned about having a good time than a good record.

Moe may not be as consumed by coaching as are many of his peers, but anyone who has caught his sideline act during a game knows otherwise.

Tie jerked to one side, suit drenched in sweat, hair disheveled, Moe is as intense and serious--not to forget profane--as those other coaches who clutch clipboards and bark out plays. But before and after games, Moe is gregarious, almost always available for lively conversation. To his face, you can call Moe loud, overbearing and things unprintable, and he won’t be at all offended. In fact, Moe is insulted if you don’t make snide remarks about him.

That’s because Moe treats his friends that way. If Moe likes someone, he greets him--or, yes, her--with one of his favorite terms of endearment, big stiff or dip(bleep) . If he really likes you, he’ll call you both.

Moe can pull it off because he delivers his verbal abuse with a sly smile and doesn’t spare himself, either. Asked to describe his role with the Nuggets, the self-deprecating Moe often answers: “I’m just above a moron.”

Moe’s friends still are debating that.

“I never say anything nice about that big stiff,” Nugget assistant coach Allan Bristow said, smiling. “He never says anything nice about me. We sort of have an understanding.”

In his just-published autobiography, former Nugget star Dan Issel devotes an entire chapter to taking good-natured jabs at Moe. Issel, however, did include a few nice things about his former coach, which rankled Moe.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Moe growled.

“I’m embarrassed when people say good things about me. I like it when I get abuse from people because that’s the way I treat them. They know I’m not serious.”

Lately, people have been saying a lot of good things about Moe, whether he likes it or not. Moe finished second to Milwaukee’s Don Nelson in last season’s voting for Coach of the Year. His Nuggets, revitalized by a four-player trade with the Portland Trail Blazers, had won the Midwest Division title with a 52-30 record, then advanced to the Western Conference final series.

This season, the Nuggets are 28-20 and trailing Houston by 4 1/2 games in the Midwest Division, even though forward Calvin Natt, who came to Denver along with Lafayette Lever and Wayne Cooper for Kiki Vandeweghe, is playing on bum knees and Issel has retired.

Nobody is saying these days that Denver doesn’t play defense, and many grudgingly admit that Moe’s unorthodox system works--for him, at least.

“The guy’s a partier, he cheats, and he doesn’t run any practices,” Houston Coach Bill Fitch said of Moe. “And I imagine if we looked deep enough, we would find he’s on someone’s 10 most-wanted list. I think they ought to fire him. That way, they would get him out of my hair, get somebody in there who can’t coach.

“He’s a free spirit and he does some things that aren’t exactly the way Bobby Knight would do them . . . (But) Doug is serious about basketball, and the last time I checked, that’s what counts.”

Everyone, from men in business suits to old men with broken teeth, stopped and acknowledged Moe as he walked from the track to the parking lot after his unproductive day at the races.

One of his greeters was Arnie.

“Arnie,” Moe said. “Wattaya say?”

Arnie, outfitted in frumpy race-track chic, had much to say. In the time it took for Moe to make it to his car and unlock the door, Arnie had offered to sell Moe miracle throat lozenges that supposedly will cure any cold Nugget players might get, had tried to unload some of his less-than-quality greyhounds and had asked for tips on the next day’s races.

Moe was still laughing as he drove off.

“Do you know that Arnie is a real successful lawyer?” Moe asked his passenger. “Wouldn’t know it by looking at him.”

The same could be said for Doug Moe. Not only does Moe have a distaste for coats and ties and refuse to abide by the standard coaching etiquette, but he also believes that too much importance is put on his job.

On the day before the 1979 NBA draft, Moe, then coaching the San Antonio Spurs, was sitting in his office, poring over the league’s wire reports. The machine was buzzing with messages from coaches of other teams, leaving phone numbers where they could be reached every hour of the day.

Moe punched in his own urgent message. “If you need me today, I’ll be on the ninth tee,” he wrote.

Said Moe: “That’s a great story, but not exactly true. I didn’t play golf at all. I stayed in the office. But all these guys were taking themselves too seriously, sending memos and stuff. C’mon. I’m sitting in the Spurs’ office, reading all this and cracking up. So, I figured I’d send my own message and shake these stiffs up. They were all so appalled that I’d do that.”

Other Moe stories are equally appalling to his peers.

His candid statements and heated actions have cost him thousands of dollars in fines. In 1983, for instance, he was fined $3,000 for throwing a cup of water on non-union referee Tommie Wood while the regular officials were striking. Afterward, Moe was quoted as saying that bringing in scab refs was “like asking Sam Sausage to do Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s job in the pivot.”

Perhaps the incident most damaging to Moe’s reputation, though, one that perpetuated the no-defense knock, happened Nov. 22, 1983, in Portland. The Trail Blazers were thoroughly trouncing the Nuggets and Portland fans were clamoring for a franchise-record 150 points.

With 1 minute 12 seconds left, a miffed Moe called timeout. Players expected the usual profanity and verbal abuse. Instead, Moe told the Nuggets to let the Trail Blazers get their record.

“You deserve to be embarrassed,” courtside observers heard Moe scream. “They want it so bad and you guys are playing so bad, that we’ll give it to them. Don’t even guard them the rest of the way.”

After Portland had recorded the 156-116 win, Trail Blazer Coach Jack Ramsay, Moe’s opposite in personality and coaching philosophy, glared at Moe as the teams walked off the court and later called Moe unprofessional.

Moe was fined $5,000 and was suspended for two games. League officials said that Moe was making a travesty of the NBA and seriously tarnishing the league’s image.

Moe does care about his image, but he isn’t willing to change his behavior just to fit somebody’s mold.

After a crushing overtime loss in Utah recently, Moe sat in the economy section of the flight back to Denver and didn’t seem at all affected by the loss.

“When I’m coaching, I get too involved and that’s the only time I get intense,” he said. “I rant and rave and get upset. But once (the game) is over, I leave it. Sometimes, I feel bad about how I’ve acted. I go home and say to myself, ‘Why did I say that?’ Or, ‘Why did I act like that?’

“That’s the only thing that bothers me. I’ve got to work on that. But I can’t. I used to tell the guys, I’m going to get better, I swear I am. But as soon as the game starts, I get emotionally carried away. I tell you, I don’t know if I could play for me. I’d probably get peeved if some (bleep) like me yelled at me.”

Playing for Doug Moe is an experience. During games, Moe screams insults and obscenities at his players. He doesn’t care if it’s superstar Alex English or reserve guard Mike Evans, although guard Bill Hanzlik said that Moe, 6-5 and 220, tends to pick on the little guys more because they aren’t as threatening physically.

During one game last season, Moe was screaming at Natt, who stands an intimidating 6-6 and weighs 220 pounds. Moe wanted Natt to play tougher defense. Natt, keeping one eye on his man, finally yelled back at Moe: “Shut up, Doug!”

Moe sat down and shut up.

Hanzlik, who is 6-7 but weighs only 185, tried the same thing on Moe earlier this season, but it didn’t carry the same impact.

“When Hanzlik yelled back, I started laughing and then the whole team cracked up,” Moe said. “I mean, it was funny.”

English, the NBA’s leading scorer so far this season, wasn’t particularly amused during one game last season when Moe would not stop yelling at him. English eventually approached the bench and said, “If I’m so bad, Doug, take me out.”

Moe did, and kept him out for at least 30 seconds.

Perhaps the reason Moe is respected by his players is that he admits his mistakes and does not pretend to know all there is to know about coaching.

Two seasons ago, Nugget players finally persuaded Moe to institute $50 fines for being late to practice.

Moe was the first to be fined.

Moe’s practices are much like his offense--impromptu, interpretive and fast-paced. They usually last only an hour, but the players can work up quite a sweat in that short a time because they aren’t standing around listening to instructions.

One day, Moe was upset about what he thought was a lack of effort, so he put a brown paper bag over his head to show the players how ashamed he was. Players snickered and wondered aloud if Moe would be smart enough to cut a hole in the bag to avoid suffocation.

“I’m comfortable with my players,” Moe said. “If you abuse them, it’s healthy for them to yell back. The thing you got to understand is that if you have good players on your team, they can accept it. They know what I’m like.”

Said Issel in his book: “I’ve played for coaches who take it as a personal affront when a player has a bad night . . . and they won’t talk to the player for three days. With Doug, when the game is over, you can still be his friend. You might go out for a beer or sandwich together.”

“Do you think it’s wise to be seen at the track after the team has lost four straight?” asks a Denver sportscaster lunching with Moe.

Moe’s reply: “Nah. They’d be concerned if I didn’t show up.”

Say what you want about Moe’s casual attitude, life style or wardrobe. He doesn’t care. But when you criticize his basketball philosophy and question his coaching ability, which some still do, he staunchly defends it.

Until last season’s trade with Portland, Moe’s teams customarily gave up as many points as they scored, sometimes more. And his teams scored a lot. So, people assumed, Moe didn’t teach defense.

Moe maintains that because the Nuggets get the ball upcourt fast and shoot quicker and more often than other teams, opponents also will have more opportunities to score against his gambling defense that overplays opponents’ main scoring threats.

“My second year in San Antonio (1977-78), we won 52 games and had the third-best record in the NBA,” he said. “But already, I had the reputation of no defense and scoring points without really coaching.

“It was because we played different from the others. People didn’t think that was the way it should be played. And because we lost in the playoffs, they said, ‘See, you can’t win that way in the playoffs.’ (Bleep)!”

Before last season, the Nuggets did not have the personnel to play tough defense. English, Issel and Kiki Vandeweghe were outstanding offensively, but greatly lacking in defensive skills. So, Moe concentrated on offense and had only one losing season.

Then, along came Natt, Cooper and Lever. All are good defensive players who also fit into Moe’s swirling offense.

“The trade changed how people perceived me and the team,” Moe said. “We didn’t do anything different. We just had more players and all of a sudden people woke up and saw we were playing pressure defense and running. You can do both if you have the players.”

Moe’s motion offense is rudimentary--”We have only one set play,” he boasts--but not every team can run it. The Phoenix Suns tried it earlier this season and lost nearly all of their games the first month of the season before Coach John McLeod returned to his patterned play.

“When you first start running it, you make a lot of mistakes,” Moe said. “You’re reacting off each other. Everything is spontaneous. It takes a long time for guys to get comfortable with it, knowing when to cut, when to screen.

“I don’t know what the secret to it is. I really don’t. Just remember that the players are the guys out there playing. If they don’t believe in it, kiss it goodby. It’s that simple.”

The private clubhouse at the greyhound track was deserted on a Wednesday afternoon except for Moe, a reporter and an older man introduced only as George. George doesn’t have to work, either, Moe said, because he’s one of Denver’s richest men.

“I think he owns a town in Texas,” Moe whispered.

Yet, both men were perusing the tout sheets as if the rent money depended on hitting the quinella double in the 10th and 11th races.

Moe loves to play the dogs, particularly, and enjoys gambling, generally. Which is ironic if you consider that his life in basketball, his other consuming passion, was almost ruined by the great basketball betting scandal of 1961.

Moe, a two-time All-American at North Carolina, was spending the summer of 1960 back in Brooklyn when a gambler named Aaron Wagman offered him money to throw games and shave points during the next season. Moe turned him down, but did accept $75 in expense money so he could get back to North Carolina.

After the season, Wagman was arrested and it came out that Moe, Connie Hawkins of Iowa and other players had not reported the bribe attempts. Both players, along with those who had shaved points, were blackballed by the NBA. Moe was kicked out of North Carolina.

“It was a devastating time,” Moe said. “That was my whole life, basketball. I went into the Army. I sold insurance. I didn’t know what to do. I had no degree.”

Dean Smith, then the assistant coach at North Carolina, eventually arranged for Moe to return to classes and get his degree at tiny Elon College in North Carolina.

“Smitty’s helped me more than anyone,” said Moe, probably the only person who calls the Tar Heel coach Smitty. “He got me into school. He got me a pro contract. When I first coached in San Antonio, he used to circle my quotes in newspaper articles and send them to me with messages like, ‘Don’t say that.’ ”

After graduation, Smith arranged for Moe to play professionally in Italy. Moe starred there for two years and sent his friends newspaper clippings with headlines like, Il Grandioso Moe.

The ABA was formed in the late ‘60s, and Moe was not blackballed. He played for five seasons with four teams, spending some of that time with a pal from North Carolina named Larry Brown, who eventually was hired as coach of the Carolina Cougars.

Moe, who was even wilder and crazier as a player than he is as a coach, didn’t appear to be coaching material. But Brown made him his assistant, and Moe followed Brown to Denver, where, when the ABA was absorbed by the NBA in 1976, he finally beat the NBA’s blackball--as an assistant coach.

Before Brown moved on to another of his many coaching stops, Moe left to become the Spurs’ coach. In his first three seasons at San Antonio, Moe’s teams won almost 60% of their games. But in his fourth year, Moe had a falling out with owner Angelo Drossos and was fired, 66 games into the season. In typical Moe fashion, he went home and celebrated by popping the corks on champagne bottles and toasting his wife, Jane.

Eventually, Moe returned to Denver as Donnie Walsh’s assistant and later, in a strange twist, became head coach and hired Walsh as his assistant.

The Nuggets have had only one losing season in Moe’s tenure, but that was in 1983-84, when Moe had only a year left on his contract. Late that season, Boryla replaced Carl Scheer as general manager and Moe’s status became shaky.

Boryla put the pressure on Moe before the start of last season, saying that the Nuggets had acquired enough talent in the Portland trade to win 50 games. He also demanded that Moe wear a tie during games, which didn’t help their relationship any.

Moe, ever the gambler, could have played it safe and requested a one-year contract extension similar to the ones that then-owner Red McCombs had granted him before. Instead, he decided to roll the basketball and try to live up to Boryla’s expectations.

In early February, with the Nuggets’ record an impressive 34-20, Moe signed a new three-year contract believed to be worth $275,000 a year, plus incentives. The Nuggets finished with 52 victories, two more than Boryla’s prediction.

“I never worried about getting fired,” Moe said. “Like big Jane always says, ‘Ah, forget it. We’ll just do something else if you get fired.’ ”

But what else could this big stiff do besides coach basketball and play the dogs?

“I guess I’d have to work for a living,” Moe said.