Portland Players Learn Coach’s Life Lessons

Wearing dress shirts and ties, the University of Portland men’s basketball players turned heads as they lumbered silently into a bustling suburban restaurant.

They sat for much more than a fancy preseason meal. The team was there for an etiquette class, a requirement imposed by a coach who is as concerned with developing fine young men as he is with winning.

In a city where the NBA team down the road has developed a reputation for misdeeds and trouble with the law, Portland Coach Michael Holton runs a disciplined program where players are held accountable for their actions on and off the court.

“He wants all of us to succeed in life, not just in basketball,” guard Pooh Jeter said. “That’s the great thing about it.”

A former UCLA player who had a stint in the NBA (including two seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers), Holton says he is not just building a team, he is building a family.

Holton requires his players to sign a performance agreement that stipulates: “As a team, we will live together, eat together, study together, condition and play together, and weight train together. Teamwork requires sacrifice.”

The agreement covers four areas of commitment, including class attendance and punctuality, required study hall time, adherence to the team’s monthly calendar of events and a commitment to the game. Repeat offenses can lead to dismissal from the team.

Holton said the main goal is to help graduate his students. The basketball is a bonus.

“Any lack of academic effort is met with a lack of athletic participation,” he said. “Most students only have to experience that once.”

Holton’s etiquette seminar, in its second year, is just one part of his overall team strategy. The idea formed after years in the NBA, where players basically lived their own lives off court.

“I missed the days we had at UCLA when we did everything together as a team,” Holton said.

There were no boys-will-be-boys antics as the players filed quietly into the Hall St. Grill in Beaverton. After being seated in a back room, they were treated to manager Mike Rowan’s lecture about appropriate behavior.

“The biggest thing about etiquette is treating everyone like you’d like to be treated,” Rowan said.

After explaining which fork or spoon to use -- “The rule is real easy, outside-in” -- he addressed proper conversation topics. Don’t bring up the latest episode of “Fear Factor.” And politics also should be off-limits.

“Unless you’re sure that everyone at the table is like-minded,” he said.

Oh, yeah, and no elbows on the table.

“I don’t think a lot of other schools do anything like this,” sophomore guard Sean Smith said. “I didn’t have a clue about some of these things, and now I think I can carry myself on a date or a special occasion. This is something that I’ll be able to use for the rest of my life.”

Holton was a starter under coach Larry Brown at UCLA in 1980, when the Bruins went to the NCAA championship game.

But he credits the idea of the performance agreement to Memphis Coach John Calipari. Two years ago, Holton attended a coaching conference in Memphis with his mentor, Brown, as well as Jerry West, Jeff Van Gundy and others.

On the wall of Calipari’s locker room was a similar contract with players.

The message was simple, Holton said: “It ensures students-athletes always stay committed to a degree.”