A Celtic Crossroad : After 16 Years as an Assistant, Rodgers Lands Job He Wanted Most

The era of the new Boston Celtics is off to a rocky start.

The new Celtics are going to be young, hungry, aggressive players who will change the look of traditional Boston teams--they will run at both ends of the floor.

This notion of the new Celtics is coming in handy right about now, because the old Celtics are coming up limp and lame. The man who runs the Celtics’ offense, Danny Ainge, is starting to play again after straining ligaments in his knee. The man who is Mr. Celtic, Larry Bird, is out for 4 months after undergoing surgery for the removal of bone spurs on his feet.

The ailments of the other three Celtic starters can be attributed to age: Center Robert Parish is 35, guard Dennis Johnson is 34 and forward Kevin McHale will be 31 next month.

Collectively, they are off to the Celtics’ worst start in 10 years.

The fact that the Celtics are losing is the news around here. The usual starters aren’t anymore, and the kids who are playing are just that, kids in Celtic uniforms. It’s a scary time for Boston when America’s blue-collar team is going out on workman’s comp.

In the midst of this is the first-year coach, Jimmy Rodgers, who is confident and happy. After 23 years of coaching--16 as an assistant and finally, as a head coach in the pros--this too-nice man lands right in the middle of it. The 10th coach of the Boston Celtics has a load of trouble ahead, but he’s ready.

Patience is one of Jimmy Rodgers’ virtues.

The Celtics were shooting 33% and the Chicago Bulls were taking them apart. Or at least Michael Jordan was. Jordan would score 52 points and the Celtics’ record would drop to 1-2. Boston is now 5-6.

Rodgers watched his team limp up the court, miss shots and not defend as aggressively as he would like. But he’s not a screamer or an arm-waver or a towel-biter.

Rodgers is calm. He is a squatter. He is a pacer. He rubs his face. In desperate moments during the game, he will hitch up his pants. Rodgers has that habit shared with many National Basketball Assn. coaches of adjusting their clothing when angered.

There is a questionable call against Johnson that has made Rodgers mad. He flings back his coat and hitches up his pants. (He’s wearing a belt.) He wiggles the knot on his tie and he tugs at his cuffs.

Rodgers is low-key. In this, he is similar to his predecessor, the elegant K.C. Jones, who is now the Celtics’ vice president for basketball operations. Jones stepped down last season and Rodgers, the trusted and patient assistant, stepped in.

At last. After all that time. Some wondered if Rodgers, 45, would ever get out of the assistant rut. Even for the loyal company man there comes a time when no forward movement means sliding back. If the coach is wonderful and winning and there are no flaws in sight, maybe that’s when the assistant should scan the horizon for jobs.

“My philosophy was always that it is better to have a good assistant job than a crummy head job,” Rodgers said of why he decided against many offers that came his way.

It’s a philosophy he stuck with. Since Rodgers came into the NBA in 1971, 95 people have coached in the league. Until now, the job just wasn’t right for him.

“When he was my assistant, he never talked about taking a head coaching job,” said Bill Fitch, who first hired Rodgers into the NBA. “He felt he would get a lead job when he was ready. I always felt there would be a time. That time has finally come now.”

Rodgers was a junior guard at the University of Iowa when he began thinking about coaching. He was a pre-dentistry major, but basketball had captivated him and he wanted to remain a part of it. One of the assistant coaches at Iowa was Lanny Van Eman. Rodgers’ first act after becoming Boston’s coach was to hire Van Eman as an assistant.

After college, Rodgers sent bushels of letters looking for a graduate assistant job. Only one offer came back, from a coach Rodgers had never met. Fitch was at the University of North Dakota and had seen Rodgers play. He offered him a job at $5,000 a year.

Rodgers jumped at it. He and his new wife, Donna, drove to Grand Forks, N.D., the flattest country they had ever seen.

“Potato country,” Rodgers told Peter May of the Hartford Courant. “They say if you lie on your back, the highest point in 10 square miles is your nose.”

Fitch left North Dakota after 1 year and Rodgers became the coach at 24.

He stayed 3 years before Van Eman, who was then coaching the University of Arkansas, asked him to be an assistant. Rodgers accepted, not minding the step down in jobs in light of the step up in programs. After he left North Dakota, it would be nearly 20 years before his next head coaching job.

Rodgers had barely settled in at Arkansas when Fitch called in 1971: How would he like to be an assistant and chief scout with the newly formed Cleveland Cavaliers? Rodgers thought it was a good opportunity.

His reunion with Fitch was successful. Together, they built a creditable team. Then, in 1979, Fitch left for Boston and Rodgers became the Cavaliers’ player personnel director.

Fitch, however, had recommended Rodgers to replace him.

“But that was (owner) Nick Mileti’s decision,” Fitch said. “Jimmy didn’t get it, but I think he should have.”

A year later the team was sold three times and it became clear to Rodgers that there was some instability afoot. Fitch called again: How would he like to be an assistant in Boston?

Rodgers came to Boston as the second assistant behind K.C. Jones. When Fitch left for Houston in 1983, Jones was named coach. Rodgers stayed as an assistant.

As the Celtics began to establish themselves under Jones, Rodgers’ reputation also grew. He was given more responsibility, and in 1984 he became personnel director. Still, with all the vacancies around the league, there had not been any significant offers for a head coaching job.

But in 1985, the first bite came--from the New Jersey Nets. Yet Rodgers didn’t want the job. He didn’t want to relocate his family, with two sons in high school.

“We talked seriously about that,” Rodgers said. “My son was a senior in high school, and a damn good football player. I decided against that (job).

“I have certain priorities that I’ve always tried to maintain in my life. My family happens to rate way up on top of that list. It was important to me that my son finish high school. We bypassed that job.”

There were more. For every job that came up, Rodgers’ name seemed to be on the list. Last year, he was finally offered a job he wanted--the New York Knicks.

But the Celtics wouldn’t release him. They demanded a first-round draft pick as compensation. After negotiations, the Knicks balked. The loyal assistant had been slapped down and he, finally, was angry.

“That was one I probably pursued harder than any other job I’ve considered,” Rodgers said. “I was in a position to be hired there.

“If I had known at that point in time that K.C. was going to retire this past season, if that had been part of the plan and I knew that I definitely was going to be the next guy--then I probably would not have gotten involved in anything like the New York job. But I didn’t know all the facts at the time. And in this profession, things don’t come up like that. I perceived that to be a good job and one which had potential.”

Just because Rodgers had been quiet didn’t mean he hadn’t been ambitious. He had been antsy to move up.

“I felt ready--and for quite some time--to be a head coach. That happened to be a job, being particular, that had a lot of potential. It was a little bit frustrating at the time, but I got over it very quickly. I understood where the Celtics were coming from. Their compensation (demand) was meant to thwart anything happening. I understood that.

“On the one hand I felt . . . I had a love/hate relationship. I loved what they were doing, (but) there was some hate there because there was something I was being denied that I really wanted. I felt like I had earned the right to be involved in something like that.

“I got over it. I got focused in on what my job was here. The way everything has come down here, I couldn’t be happier.”

The Celtics were delighted to have kept Rodgers. How long he was going to stay, waiting for Jones to step down, was questionable.

Boston General Manager Jan Volk didn’t like getting tough with Rodgers over the Knicks’ job, but he didn’t want to lose him.

“From my point of view it was awful,” he said. “I guess we both agree in retrospect, all’s well that ends well. It was a very difficult situation.

“He had had or looked at opportunities before that he felt were right for him,” Volk said. “Obviously, he felt it was one that offered an opportunity.”

Said Rodgers, lest there be doubt, “This was ideal.”

One of the advantages of promoting an assistant is that it decreases the transition time for the staff and players.

Few in the organization think there’ll be much upheaval. Or, if change will take place, it already happened.

“Coach Rodgers is moving us in the right direction,” Bird said. “But it just takes time. We just need to stay away from injuries.”

Said Fitch, of Rodgers replacing Jones: “If Boston stays healthy and he keeps all the talent that’s there, he’ll do every bit as good.”

To Volk, the transition has been smooth.

“He’s earned our respect,” Volk said. “Jimmy has nothing to prove to anyone.

“Those banners that are flying above the (Boston) Garden floor sometimes can be a burden to people coming from the outside. But when you look up there and can say, rightfully so, ‘That’s mine, I was a part of that one, part of that one,’ it makes it that much easier.”

Or, as McHale puts it, what’s the fuss?

“I think Jimmy will make the transition; that is no big deal,” McHale said. “It’s almost kind of an extension, really. He’s been doing a lot of the coaching around here awhile, anyway. The only difference for Jimmy this year is that he’ll have to answer all those stupid media questions.”

Rodgers is quick to point out that he has been here, he helped develop the system and whatever changes there have been, he has made.

“None of this is foreign to me; I don’t feel at all uneasy about it,” he said. “It’s something that I’m very comfortable with, very relaxed with.

“I guess the bottom line to it all is the expectations are very high. But I felt those as an assistant coach. Coaching is coaching, whether it’s head coach or an assistant coach. Yes, you take on a little different role from one to the next, but you still feel the expectations. The goals are the same.

“In practices, the difference is they are practices that I have designed. We do what I feel has to be done, that’s different. Not that I didn’t have any input in the past, or that my assistants don’t now. But, again, the final decision as to what we are going to do and how we are going to do it falls on my shoulders. That’s different.”

At last. It’s his team and his reputation to make or lose. For Rodgers, pressure or no, the wait has been worth it.