Loughery, the Original Mr. T, Has His Temper Under Control

Four times this season, the Bullets have been in games decided by one point. Washington won all four. Each time, Kevin Loughery was on the sideline diagramming plays, discussing strategy and demonstrating why he is considered one of the NBA’s better bench coaches.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Loughery is in it, that’s what.

The pro basketball coach most likely to be placed under house arrest has finally learned how to control the worst temper of his era. The king of the technical foul, the real Mr. T, now is just a piece of history. The captain of the All-Ejection team is in retirement.

Yes, there he is--quiet, rational Kevin Loughery, still around for the final crucial minutes, calmly directing his troops. Well, maybe not exactly calm. Okay, maybe jumping up and down and screaming. Maybe smashing his hands against his face in disbelief. Maybe spinning into a squat thrust. Cursing? Well, sure. Riding the refs? Naturally.

“I’ve really gotten my temper under control now,” said Loughery. “I’m not at all like the old days. I’ve only gotten thrown out of one game so far this season.”

That thumb came two weeks ago, courtesy of Earl Strom, in a Capital Centre game against the Lakers. Loughery was on Strom’s case for two periods, raging so wildly at times that a spray of spittle streamed from his mouth. He seemed like a man ready for a police escort. Yet, afterward, Loughery was cheerful and chirped, “Hey, back when I was at my best--er, worst--depending how you look at it, that would have been a ‘2’ on my scale of 10 . . . Washington fans are probably never going to get to see my old act.”

For 13 years, Loughery needed a seat belt and a translator so that, when his blue vocabulary went off the spectrum of human communication, the refs still would know what he was calling them.

Once, in a New Jersey Nets game at Rutgers, a ref left the ball sitting on the foul line. As Loughery headed to his early shower, he unleashed his mightiest boot. “If the ball doesn’t hit the backboard, it gets the Rutgers trophy case--all plate glass,” said Loughery, sheepishly.

Loughery’s personal favorite, from his three ABA seasons when the old New York Nets won two league titles, came against the Virginia Squires. “In the ABA, they wanted animated coaches. So, you had unlimited technicals without an ejection,” said Loughery. “I got eight in one game.”

The refs said Loughery’s team was in a zone, but the other team wasn’t. He thought the reverse. After his exodus, he sent word from the locker room for his club to play “a high school zone” with its hands up. “They sent somebody back to beg me to call it off because it was making a mockery of the game,” said Loughery, who got the final laugh when the league upheld his protest and ordered the final 13 minutes replayed.

How did Loughery develop such an obsession with officials--one that brought him ridicule and that even he now admits may have hurt his teams? And how has he cured it?

First, you have to know Loughery, who grew up Irish in the South Bronx, son of a Harlem police detective. Street-smart. Tough. Hypercompetitive.

Once, during a 12,000-point NBA career with the Pistons, Baltimore Bullets and 76ers, he played despite a recently collapsed lung. In midgame, he tore off the protective corset. Teammate Wes Unseld thought he was crazy to take such a chance, but adds, “You respect him.”

As a coach, Loughery was dealt what may be the worst succession of centers ever inflicted on one man: Manny Leaks, LeRoy Ellis, George Johnson, Harvey Catchings, Mike Gminski, Tree Rollins, Dave Corzine, Jawann Oldham and the unforgettable Kim Hughes, who once played 80 games for Loughery in one year and had a season free-throw percentage of .275. The pick of the Loughery’s pivot litter? Billy (The Whopper) Paultz.

“I’ve had some bad teams,” he said, ruefully. “When Kim Hughes went to the line for two, you knew you’d get none.”

Loughery’s first job was coaching the worst team in pro sports history-the ‘72-73 76ers who went 9-73. Taking over at 4-47, he endured the final 5-26. His NBA pattern was set: Inherit the awful and work like hell to make them merely bad.

Add it all up and by the time Loughery got to Washington, he had the worst career winning percentage (.396) of any NBA coach in history who’d stayed employed long enough to win 200 games.

Somewhere along the way, Loughery, who calls himself “crazy competitive,” began to fixate on the officials.

“You know you need every break to win,” he said. “Basketball is just one close judgment call after another all night long. So, you’re fighting from the opening tap for every call, bitching and moaning and begging. You get a little paranoid.”

In his case, he felt persecuted enough that he suspected certain old buddies in stripes might love to get him. Loughery even did advance research to find out which tormentors would be assigned to his next game; he’d work himself into a fine state by tipoff. Hello, vicious circle.

Finally, after 23 straight NBA seasons, as a player and coach, Loughery finally got fired--and not rehired---for the first time last season. He was forced to relax and reflect on the sport that had consumed and defined him. He also had to wonder if the NBA would ever ask him back again.

“I played golf three times a week with a top college referee,” said Loughery, who always held fast to his sense of humor and his big cigar as soon as the game had ended. “He kept telling me, ‘You’re dealing with the human factor, Kevin. If you get on the refs early, you throw them out of sync. They call a bad game. They resent it. Sooner or later, even if you don’t lose control of yourself, you only hurt your ballclub.’ ”

Loughery switched to courtside as a TV broadcaster for several months. “I was working games for Detroit and didn’t care who won,” he said. “Gradually I realized that, night after night, the refs were doing a pretty decent job. They weren’t out to get anybody. They weren’t deciding who won and lost.”

To Loughery, it was like removing a huge weight.

“I have made a terrific effort,” Loughery said of his improved behavior. “I’m still gonna get nailed for some techs because of my rep, which I earned. And because it’s impossible for me to sit down. You can get away with yelling a lot more if you’ll just sit down. But I can’t.”

Loughery even has a plan to solve that final problem. “We play tennis every afternoon before the games,” said assistant coach Bill Blair. “My job is to wear him out so bad that he’s too tired to stand up.”