NBA PLAYOFFS : Collins and Bach: Bulls’ Improbable Coaching Match

On the surface, they seem an improbable match. The young, energetic, impressionable head coach and the cool, elder assistant, a year shy of Social Security, with the cowboy boots and military mind.

But it is a union of design and necessity, one of checks and balances that has, in time, crossed the normal boss-employee boundary to become something more. Something stronger. Something rare.

Doug Collins, the coach, saw his father, Paul, die in January 1979. He believes he has found the next best thing in John Bach--26 years his senior--whom he hired as an assistant in 1986 when he took over as the Chicago Bulls head coach.

“Since I lost my own father, Johnny almost has become a second father to me,” Collins said. “He has sort of become the guy who watches out for me. I’m very, very close to him.”

The hyperactive Collins, 37, has sometimes needed Bach’s safety net, undoubtedly starting with the very first game in 1986 when Granville Waiters was the starting center. Since then, the Bulls have known plenty of adversity and frustration, and little of their present success, which has them tied 1-1 with the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals.

“Doug can get so emotional at times that he seems to be totally drained,” said Bach, who turns 64 July 10 and coached the Golden State Warriors from 1983-86. “You have to hang close to him because he needs someone to talk to and absorb the fears and disappointment. I feel that’s my role, to be with him regardless of the hour. I think that’s one reason our relationship has developed so well.”

Does he see himself in the role of surrogate father?

“That’s very flattering, but no,” Bach said. “Uncle, maybe. Or older brother. But I knew Doug’s father and I don’t think I could ever be someone like that.”

Paul Collins, according to his son, was a lot like Bach. Or vice versa. The elder Collins was a political figure in the Benton, Ill., area, a county treasurer and sheriff who named his son, Douglas, after Illinois senator Paul Douglas. (Collins’ full name is Paul Douglas Collins.)

“My father was a very stoic man,” Collins said. “After a game, it was always, ‘Nice game, son’ and a handshake. That was all. I see a lot of my dad in Johnny. The tough-mindedness. The pussycat interior. And Johnny is the type of guy who’d do anything in the world for me. If I told him to rent a car and drive to Cleveland right now, he’d do it. And he wouldn’t ask why.”

Says Collins, “Johnny is probably the most loyal man I’ve ever been around in my entire life. I don’t know of anyone in the world I’d want with me more than him in a time of adversity because he sticks with you.”

Their paths crossed for the first time 17 years ago, when Bach already had 21 years of coaching experience at Penn State and Fordham and had enjoyed a cup of coffee in the NBA with the Celtics in 1948-49 (and wore No. 17). Collins was a high-scoring, low-profile guard from Illinois State.

The setting was the 1972 U.S. Olympic team tryouts. Collins easily made the team that Bach, as an assistant and Olympic Committee member, helped select.

After the painful defeat in Munich to the Soviets--a game Collins seemingly had won with two free throws--the two drifted apart. Bach returned to Penn State. Collins went back to Illinois State and later to the NBA with the 76ers.

Then, out of a job in 1986, Bach asked for an interview with the Bulls, who’d just hired Collins.

“He absolutely blew me away with his organizational skills,” Collins said. “I’ve never seen anyone like him. You talk about someone proud of his work. . . . “

Collins quickly discovered Bach was something more than just an experienced hand. “He saw what didn’t work for him at Golden State and he wanted to make sure it didn’t happen to me,” Collins said.

And Bach quickly discovered that Collins, then 35, needed some guidance through the NBA minefield, someone to run interference between the coach and a referee or a dejected player or who knows what (a tall building? a sharp object?) after a particularly tough night.

Even now, Collins said Bach provides a necessary dose of reality on a daily basis. While Collins was celebrating victories over the Cavaliers and Knicks, Bach already was looking ahead to the weightier task.

“We call him Dr. Doom. After we beat Cleveland, he comes in the next day and says, ‘OK, time to get on with it.’ And after we beat New York, he did the same thing,” Collins said.