Coach Paul Westhead Joins Kareem’s Tour for an ‘Exciting Finale’

Loyola Marymount basketball Coach Paul Westhead was reunited with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the big fella’s recent Pacific exhibition tour, and may have set up Kareem’s last public sky hook.

International rules made it tougher to orchestrate.

Abdul-Jabbar and several other National Basketball Assn. veterans--some retired--toured Australia and Taiwan last month. Jabbar and Westhead have remained friends since Westhead was replaced as Lakers’ coach in 1981, so Westhead was pleased to be invited to coach the team, which included Artis Gilmore and George Gervin.

Jabbar, of course, recently completed a 20-year NBA career. His final season included retirement ceremonies in every NBA city. The NBA’s all-time scoring leader is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world.

At most stops on the Pacific trip, Westhead said, the team was introduced, then Kareem made a grand entrance. “It was kind of an exciting finale to be with Kareem. He was very well received,” Westhead said.

While most of the contests were in Australia, the last game was in Taipei, where the plan was for Kareem to hit a last shot late in the game, then Westhead would call a timeout and allow Jabbar to make a dramatic exit. “Here, in college or the pros, you can engineer that. But we were playing international rules, where you can’t call timeout unless there’s a dead ball,” Westhead said.

So, late in the game, the ball was passed in to Kareem, but he passed off. Moments later, he had another chance but missed the shot.

With about a minute left, Westhead said, “He made the classic turnaround skyhook. We couldn’t call timeout but all of us on the bench went onto the court and stopped the game. We weren’t supposed to be able to do that but nobody minded at that point.

“This was to be his last game, maybe for all time. Kareem made a nice kind of tour of the court, shaking hands with fans along the side. I think he just intended to do that with the people sitting there, but it was like everyone in the stands took that as a signal and all the people in Taiwan came down to the court. It was like the Pied Piper. So he made his final skyhook.”

The international timeout rule, which bars timeouts for substitutions, made for some tired ballplayers on the trip, Westhead said. “You could only play these guys five or six minutes, then they’d give me a signal, like ‘Take me out.’ Then, ‘Please take me out!’ And on the bench, ‘We can’t take you out.’ We had to wait for a dead ball.”

The veteran team obviously couldn’t play an all-out Loyola style, but Westhead said that, curiously, the team still played better in a running attack. “Even with their aged legs they performed better in the faster-paced games,” he noted. “The Australian team, which plays very methodical, hurt our team the most at a slower pace.”

Lions on the Move: There have been several coaching and administrative changes in the Loyola athletic department. In men’s soccer, Peter Novak has been named coach. The 1982 graduate of Adelphi University in New York, who also coaches the women’s team, will be assisted by Jay Simon, a Loyola graduate. Bob Riley has been named assistant volleyball coach. Riley, who has been a high school coach in Honolulu for several years, joins the staff of Mike Normand, who is beginning his first season with the Loyola women’s team. Mike Sheehan, a 1985 graduate of Loyola, has been named coach of the men’s and women’s cross-country teams. Sheehan, a veteran of 24 marathons, including Boston, New York and Los Angeles, teaches at Daniel Murphy High School, where he is also track and field coach.

On the administrative side, Bruce Woods, who has been a graduate assistant coach in men’s basketball for the last two years, has been named assistant to the athletic director. The 1986 graduate of Wheeling College in West Virginia will work under Athletic Director Brian Quinn and will continue to assist basketball coaches Paul Westhead and Todd Corman.

Finally, Andy Marafino, a 1989 graduate of Loyola, has been named assistant sports information director. The Connecticut native will oversee publicity for women’s basketball, baseball and volleyball.

One of the West Coast Conference’s prospective basketball stars, Osei Appiah, is out of the lineup at Santa Clara after transfer plans fell through.

Appiah, a Long Beach Poly High graduate, was a three-year part-time starting guard at Santa Clara who averaged 9.1 points as a junior. In two games against Loyola he averaged 16. But after the school year he asked out of his commitment to Santa Clara and looked into transferring to an Ivy League school.

When his transfer plans didn’t materialize, Appiah asked Santa Clara Coach Carroll Williams to reinstate him. Williams is allowing Appiah to stay in school and complete his studies but declined to put him back on the team.

Barring a last-minute transfer, Appiah will apparently be a spectator for his senior year.

College Notes:

Loyola Marymount guard Bo Kimble leads the Sonny Hill League in scoring at 33.8 points per game in the latest stats from the Philadelphia-based summer basketball league, ranking just ahead of an upcoming Loyola opponent, LaSalle’s Lionel Simmons at 33.3.