Westhead Does Quite a Job of Not Coaching

Wearing tweed with a bow tie, wielding a professorial pointer, standing before a blackboard with a polished delicious apple on his desk, Paul Westhead once posed for a magazine photograph inside a classroom with several of his long-legged Los Angeles Lakers shoe-horned into tiny schoolchildren’s desks.

A year or two later, when Professor Paul was given custody of the Chicago Bulls, he apparently exercised a theory on the mysterious powers of the mind by asking the players in practice to wear little vials of liquid mercury, called “energy bars,” around their necks, theoretically to enable them all to run faster and jump higher.

Paul’s an interesting guy. Paul’s an inventive guy. Paul’s a peculiar guy.

“Paul’s a smart guy,” says Wimp Sanderson, the down-home coach of an Alabama squad that confronts Westhead’s Loyola Marymount miracle-workers in the NCAA West Regional basketball tournament today. “Paul knows English, Shakespeare, drama, all that crap. He’s too smart. He knows Longfellow, Shortfellow . . . “

We have here the same Paul Westhead who quoted the Bard so eloquently while coaching the Lakers, then had a pox put on his house by yon Earvin (Magic) Johnson, who wanted the teacher expelled. Westhead supposedly wouldn’t turn the claustrophobic Lakers loose, kept them after class studying their playbooks. Eight years later, he runs the loosiest, goosiest basketball band in the land and chuckles when asked if Loyola Marymount even has a playbook.

“Three pages,” Westhead finally says.

Thinks it over.

“Double-spaced.”

Thinks some more.

“With a lot of big pictures.”

Paul Westhead, the Coach Who Knew Too Much, has become the man of the hour by virtually not coaching at all. He’s become an un-coach. He tells his players they should get off shots in three seconds or less. He says his strategy is to hand them a basketball with “SHOOT ME” stenciled on the side. He leaves guys on the floor with four fouls. Suddenly he’s Professor Backwards. He points and says: There’s a basket. Here’s a ball. Go play basketball.

“We practice the way we play,” Westhead said here Thursday. “We never practice a zone offense, never practice a zone defense. We run. We shoot.”

Seldom has anyone done so much by doing so little. Westhead’s approach even to the Hank Gathers’ development was to do nothing. As he explained it: “I expected there would be an incredible array of emotion at our first game after Hank’s death. Rather than try to control it or channel it, rather than try to unify them in a collective spirit, I just left them alone to exorcise it in their own ways.”

Paul Westhead may be the first college coach in years whose principal desire is not to interfere. He does take more pride than he shows in the Lions’ full-court press, choosing instead to amuse himself and others by pretending that he coaches no defense at all. He also actively works the sidelines, nagging officials not to permit Loyola’s opponents to delay the inbounds pass after baskets. Against Michigan, Westhead screamed bloody murder on this point until somebody listened.

Yet, he continues the “what-me-coach?” act, even on the eve of a big game against his good buddy Sanderson.

“We’ll do what we usually do on the sidelines,” Westhead said. “Wimp’ll scowl . . . “

And?

“And I’ll take a nap.”

Either Paul Westhead doesn’t hog enough credit for what Loyola Marymount is doing--or he doesn’t deserve any. Pop-quiz his players, and they choose (a) Doesn’t Get Enough Credit. They tell you that Westhead has an open mind, that at last the world has a coach who doesn’t do everything by rote, a coach who trusts his superstar not to draw that fifth foul, a coach who doesn’t carp about “executing the offense” all day long, but instead lets his players do just what the word suggests--play.

Westhead hardly flunked his test with the Lakers--his record was 112-50--but it seems as though he is remembered as something of an NBA failure, as The Man Magic Johnson Didn’t Like, which was tantamount to being disliked by Will or Mister Rogers. During his one season in Chicago, some of the Bulls saw nothing but madness in Westhead’s methods, parting with no sorrow whatsoever, sweet or otherwise.

Now, even fellow coaches stop and gawk. Michigan’s Steve Fisher was seeing double, calling Westhead’s offense “run-and-gun-and-gun-and-run.” Jerry Tarkanian of Nevada Las Vegas couldn’t believe his eyes, saying: “I’d have bet my house, my wife and my car that Loyola wouldn’t beat Michigan. What Loyola has done so far is beyond belief.”

Paul Westhead is playing it smart, playing it dumb.

No matter what anybody, including Westhead himself, says, we should all be sure of one thing. He has done quite a job so far, not coaching Loyola Marymount.