A TASTE OF MORTALITY

Training camp is starting soon, and Clipper Coach Bill Fitch already is working on his substitution policy.

For ice cream, he’s substituting nonfat yogurt.

For chicken-fried steak, it’s steamed broccoli. He also is substituting broiled halibut for fried catfish, whole-grain bread for garlic toast and a bowl of fruit for cheesecake.

As for pizza, well, he’s stumped right now.

“There is no substitute for pizza,” Fitch said.

Chances are that many feel the same way.

But less than two months after undergoing an emergency triple-bypass operation, Fitch is 15 pounds lighter, much more interested in what he eats and wondering just how his 24th year as an NBA coach is going to work without his usual late-night dinner companions of fried calamari, French fries, cheeseburgers and chocolate.

Last week at his home on Lake Conroe, about 45 miles north of Houston, Fitch prepared to pack up and leave for his third Clipper training camp, which begins Friday.

All this seems to put Fitch in an unusual situation. For the first time, he’s more concerned about what he eats than what Stanley Roberts eats.

At the insistence of his medical team, which urged him to watch his diet, Fitch has been able to develop a new philosophy about food.

“If it tastes good, don’t eat it,” Fitch said.

The beginning of training camp is the time that NBA coaches like best, for several reasons. They haven’t lost a game, they actually get to teach a little bit and nobody ever has been fired before the season started.

Some coaches use the time to search for a new half-court offense or look for a backup center. Sure, Fitch thinks about such things, but he has another mission.

“I’m searching for a salad dressing,” he said.

And so it goes for our city’s latest coach/heart patient, following Tom Lasorda’s experience by about two months. Unlike the former Dodger manager, however, Fitch gave no thought to quitting.

“There was never any question about coming back,” Fitch said. “You pick up a book and you want to know how it ends.

“I’d just like to know what we can do. In two years, we haven’t been able to get a big-time player like Shaq, but we’ve got young, hard-working guys and I’d like to stick it out with them and see how they end up.”

The Clippers are 46-118 under Fitch, who at 62 has coached 1,886 games, more than any coach in NBA history. He also has won more games than any NBA coach except Lenny Wilkens, Red Auerbach and Dick Motta. And he has lost more than any of them. Fitch’s 23-year record is 891-995.

Steve Farber, Fitch’s cardiologist, doesn’t think there will be any problems if Fitch follows a diet-exercise program.

“He should be able to coach, hopefully, for as long as he wants,” Farber said. “Bill is the kind of person who can handle stress well.”

Fitch said his illness was not job-related, but a result of his coaching lifestyle that included room service at 3 a.m. while he watched videotape.

He always tried to order something he could eat with one hand so he could use the remote control with his other.

Eventually it caught up to him. Fitch had taken a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Houston and arrived Aug. 7. He carried his luggage to his car, but he didn’t feel right.

That day, Fitch canceled a golf date. He had a burning sensation in his chest, but the intense pain had subsided.

On Thursday, Fitch felt better, although the burning feeling had not gone away, so he called Farber that night. Farber told Fitch to meet him at the Columbia Conroe Medical Center.

Tests showed that one of Fitch’s heart vessels was totally blocked, another was 95% blocked and a third 75% blocked. Fitch was told an immediate bypass was absolutely necessary.

“I said, ‘Fine, I’m not going anywhere,’ ” Fitch said.

Fitch spent six days in the hospital, but he always will remember becoming conscious the morning after surgery.

“Well, I woke up, so I figured everything turned out all right,” he said.

Actually, it had. Farber said the damage to Fitch’s heart was minimal.

“I think he’s fortunate,” Farber said. “He came in at the right time for us to help. He could have been in big trouble.”

Within a day or so, Fitch was working the telephones, starting his basketball business again.

He also had visitors. One was Carroll Dawson, general manager of the Houston Rockets, whose cellular phone started ringing while he was with Fitch in intensive care. Fitch said the nurses scolded Dawson.

“I’m glad he didn’t have a pacemaker,” Dawson said. “I’d have stopped it.”

Dawson, who has known Fitch for 18 years, said he felt all along that Fitch would return to basketball as soon as he could, for one good reason.

“He’s a much better coach than he is a golfer,” Dawson said. “I’ve got to be truthful about this.

“But seriously, I can’t think of anyone better at the fundamentals of building a team, of organizing it and getting it started in the right direction.”

And now Fitch is starting in a new direction. Doctors told him he suffered a heart attack that Thursday night at home. They told him what he must do to prevent another one.

Fitch knows his chest is still sore, he is just now thinking about swinging a golf club and he thinks about what his illness meant.

“It’s halftime,” he said. “Time to make adjustments. I realized the same things that were important to me before are important to me now. I still have deep feelings and a love for the game.

“If it was my time, he was either going to take me or leave me. Once I figured out he was going to leave me, I figured to stay with the ship.”

That would be the Clippers. Fitch has presided over the resurgence of teams before, such as the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Boston Celtics, the Rockets and the New Jersey Nets. But the Clippers probably represent his biggest challenge, at least on the basketball court.

“People ask me, ‘Why did you go to the Clippers?’ like, ‘Why did you jump off that building?’ ” he said. “Well, to get to the other side.”

He sees both sides now. From the window of the second-floor office of his home at Lake Conroe, Fitch can watch sailboats test the choppy water, their mainsails taut against the wind.

There is a lighthouse on the far shore. If you looked the other direction, you could see the golf course. Fitch hasn’t been in the pool, on the golf course or in a boat since his heart attack.

Maybe later. This season, like his first two with the Clippers, Fitch is leasing a place at Manhattan Beach in a building near the water.

“I saw the ocean once when I moved in and once after the season,” Fitch said. “I’m going to make it a point to see it a lot more often this season.”

This is one coach’s halftime.