Casey Tunes Up the Clippers by Keeping Things Upbeat

Ken Norman was there, and so were Charles Smith and Gary Grant and the rest of the Clippers, as expected. Then, the surprise guests materialized in the gym at Cal Poly Pomona.

Chuck Berry, came out of nowhere, followed by Jerry Lee Lewis. Ritchie Valens made his entrance, and Bill Haley and the Comets weren’t far behind. Mozart came by about a week later, followed by the jazzy sounds of Maze.

The first time “Johnny B. Goode” blasted from the loudspeakers, heads whirled around in amazement, as if Mr. Naismith himself had walked in. You bet, there was a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.

Coach Don Casey didn’t flinch, and with good reason. He had ordered the musical accompaniment, 1950s style, to a free-throw drill at the end of a recent practice.

“A lot of people might have thought it was a bit unusual,” said Dave Twardzik, Casey’s first-year assistant who has spent 17 years in pro basketball as a player, broadcaster, front-office administrator and coach. “But when you go to games, they’re always playing loud music before and then during important timeouts near the end, right?”

Well, yes, but that wasn’t the idea behind Casey’s orchestrated move. Something about keeping the atmosphere loose would be more like it.

So it has been in Casey’s first training camp as permanent head coach and his first days truly in charge of the Clippers, after running the club for the final 44 games of 1988-89 as the interim boss. His imprint has been obvious.

Such as the other day when he arrived at practice wearing a T-shirt given to him by his wife, Dwynne, poking fun at Casey’s newness to the job. Against a gray background, the red lettering queried:

HOW AM I COACHING? CALL 1-800-748-8000

That would be the number of the Clipper offices at the Sports Arena. Casey admitted to stuffing the ballot box on the nonexistent survey, having voted five times--all positive, of course. Players had one question before deciding whether to respond.

“We asked if we had to leave our names,” Joe Wolf said.

In all seriousness, his players are giving Casey, who spent nine years as the coach at Temple and six more as a National Basketball Assn. assistant, high marks nearly three weeks into his first pro training camp as a head coach. They say that the difference from Gene Shue, last season’s coach, is especially evident in conditioning.

“We didn’t do much running last year,” Reggie Williams said. “I don’t think the guys were 100% physically conditioned. All we did was run plays, a lot of half-court stuff. It’s a lot more running this time.”

So they’ve noticed. “I don’t remember last year exactly, but I know we’re all feeling this now,” Wolf said. “Our legs are saying, ‘Hey, this is what it feels like to be in two-a-day (drills).’ ”

Casey replaced Shue, a good friend, last Jan. 19, in the midst of a losing streak that eventually reached 19 games, equaling the franchise record for futility.

Casey emphasized attitude: Don’t play to not lose, have fun and ignore all comments sounding anything like, “Same old Clippers.”

It’s the same keep-things-loose atmosphere that carried over to training camp. Come Nov. 3, when the Clippers play host to the Houston Rockets at the Sports Arena, Casey hopes it continues in the regular season.

“The bottom line is that this is a game,” Twardzik said. “It’s a job and you have to take it seriously, but you don’t want drudgery and to get caught in a rut. It makes things like practice real difficult. (Casey) is great at keeping (the players) loose and ready to go. A lot of that is because of his personality, so there is a method to his madness.”

That madness helped Casey get a job he probably had little hope of landing permanently when he replaced Shue. The players responded by making the finish the best part of the season, beating Cleveland, Utah, Golden State and the Lakers, among others, to end, for them, on a high note.

The upsets gave Casey an 11-33 record as interim coach.

“It’s not just about having fun,” Casey said. “That’s part of it, but a lot of the fun will come from success. I think you have to have that passion to get up and go to work every morning, and there’s a lot of tension around here. There are guys fighting for jobs, guys fighting for contracts. (Keeping the atmosphere light) helps.

“I want things more spontaneous than programmed. . . . We have so many miles to go before we can sleep, and I don’t want to slack off or lighten up, but I don’t want to burn them out.”

Casey knows the pitfalls all too well after his 44 games last season, when he paid close attention to the other head coaches in the league. He doesn’t pattern himself after any of them but has tried to combine the attributes and demeanor of sharp dressers Pat Riley and Chuck Daly, with the folksy tennis-shoes approach of Don Nelson.

They are three of the more successful leaders, although they cover quite a range in wardrobes.

“That’s why I went out and bought some new clothes, to hang with Riley and Daly,” Casey said. “I’ll keep my old clothes to hang with Nelson.”