Herb Magee draws closer to 1,000th victory

ON SUNDAY afternoon against St. John's in Madison Square Garden, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski could get the 1,000th victory of a 40-year coaching career, which would make him the first to do that at the collegiate level.

In anticipation of the moment, ESPN has put together an hour-long "SportsCenter" special tribute entitled "Coach K-IK." As you'd expect.

Herb Magee, of Division II Philadelphia University, should soon be doubling the membership of that club in this, his 48th season at the same school. The one he first came to as a player in 1959, when it was still called Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science, and never found a good enough reason to leave.

The one on Henry Avenue in East Falls that in many ways has become almost synonymous with his name.

Maybe your worldwide leader will have something appropriate planned for when the next man reaches quadruple figures. Not that it seems to matter much to the second institution on the list.

"It'll be a big deal for the university, and my family," said the 73-year-old Magee, whose Rams are 12-5 this season and 997-397 since he took over the program nearly a half-century ago. "It's not too often that a place like Philadelphia University is going to be mentioned on ESPN, in the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., etc. But they're used to it, because it happens like every 4 or 5 years. They started doing it at I think 500. And Big House Gaines, his number was like [800]-something. Then 903, passing Bobby Knight. So . . .

"For me personally, I'll be glad when it's over. It'll be more a matter of relief. Because I don't want my players thinking they have to win a game for Coach Magee. It's a great teaching point for me. I've always told them that scoring 1,000 points, making all-league or being MVP, all that stuff, shouldn't have anything to do with what you're trying to do with your team. If it does enter into your thinking then you're making a big mistake. [One thousand] isn't something I dwell on. I dwell on today's practice, the next game. Once it's over you move on. It's not to the point where it's all consuming.

"Ten, 15, 20 years from now, when you're getting together with guys you played with, and guys that played before or after you, they talk about the fun they had in college and how well their teams did. It's never about how many points they had. Pat Chambers is our all-time assists leader. He never talks about that. It's about how many games they won."

Whenever he reaches the milestone, Magee promises not to deviate from his usual postgame routine.

"It's not like I'm walking away," he said. "We have more games. I just hope it doesn't happen next year . . . I'll grab my wife [Geri] - she's usually talking to someone - and say, 'Let's go, honey.' If it's an afternoon game we'll head out to get something to eat, have a couple of beers, be with friends and family, talk about the game and talk about other things. If it's at night we'll go home, sit with the box score, look at that, talk about the game and she'll fall asleep on the couch as I'm still talking. We'll get up the next day and walk. That's what we do. It doesn't matter. Makes no difference if it's 1,001, 1,002 or whatever. I know that sounds phony or something like that, but that's the way I live.

"It's never about how many wins you get. It's how your team's doing at the time. You don't get that many wins if you're concentrating on how many wins you have."

Yet even he acknowledges that a grand is a milestone that's, well, harder to ignore.

"It's a lot to wrap your head around," said Magee, whose office might be smaller than at least some of Coach K's assistants. "If you had told me way back when this was going to happen, it would have been a little bit unfathomable. When I got to either 500 or 600, I remember being interviewed on TV. And someone said to me, 'How long are you going to do this?' I was kind of laughing. So I said, 'I don't know. A thousand's a nice number.' But I wasn't even thinking that someday it could happen. Twenty years becomes 30, 30 becomes 40, and all of a sudden you turn around and you've had a couple of good years. And we've had a bunch of them.

"And you go boom, you're at a big number."

If only it were that simple. Especially for someone who only wanted to make West Catholic's roster.

"If you did that, you were considered a player," he said. "I didn't play much until my senior year. But when you got to the playground, it was a matter of respect."

In his last season, the Burrs lost to Overbrook in the city title game. Jim Lynam and the late Jim Boyle, two of his best friends, were backcourt teammates.

"They had Wally Jones and Walt Hazzard," Magee said. "They beat us . . . [Lynam] didn't get me the ball enough."

After Magee became Textile's all-time leading scorer (he still ranks third), he was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1963. He passed up that opportunity when Textile coach Bucky Harris created a job for him. Magee became the JV coach and the program's first varsity assistant. To even make the position possible he also had to teach physical education and coach cross-country. He later coached the tennis and golf teams (he still admits to having a 14 handicap).

"I also had to help out with intramurals," Magee said. "There was all kinds of things I had to do.

"I jumped at it. I didn't see me working 9 to 5."

In his third season, the Rams won the NCAA title.

"We won by 27, 17, 48, 16 and 11," he recalled. "I thought, 'It really wasn't that hard. We'll probably get a bunch of those.' And here I am, all these years later . . . We've been to the Elite Eight [four other] times, and the NCAA [another 26] times. We got beat at the buzzer. A guy banked one in on us one time. We got a bad call another time. One of our guys tripped another time. We missed a foul shot that would have won it. So who knows? We won so many games, but it's so damned hard [to win it all]. People back then probably thought I was gone.

"One thing I don't do is second-guess. When you look back at a season, you can say we lost by two here and four there. But we might have won at the buzzer like three times. All you can do as a coach is put your kids in position to do the correct thing."

He has a reputation for perhaps being the best shooting coach anywhere. And he has the DVDs to back that up.

"That was my game," Magee said.

Nearly five decades ago, he went to a friend's camp to speak. When asked what he wanted to talk about, he said he could talk about anything. He chose the jumper.

"I've never gone to a camp since and talked about anything else," Magee noted. "But you wouldn't always know it if you watch us play."

He obviously had opportunities to go elsewhere, including the NBA. He chose to stick with something that fit his lifestyle.

"The rest of us have all complicated it," Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli said. "Herb practices the same time every day. He practices the same amount of time each day. He practices the same thing, and his teams do the same thing year after year after year. He's a creature of comfort. He knows where he's going to be every night at 6.

"I see him as the ultimate coach, to be honest. In Philadelphia, average doesn't work. We all look at him with tremendous envy. That's the beauty. The rest of us, as John Chaney would say, serving too many masters. None of us can keep everybody happy.

"More than anything else, he's our friend. Not a Hall of Famer, a national champion, an institution. He's Herb. If we could all get out of life that way, without a label, that would be emulated. He's a treasure. You don't replace that."

Lynam, who found his own success traveling that more conventional path, understands as well as anyone that Magee has always been unique.

"He sees things his own way, and not just in basketball," Lynam said. "He's incredibly at ease in his environment. How can it get better than that? Everybody likes him. Some personalities are just that way. He's not the type of guy who's begging you to like him, either.

"I moved around a lot. But with Herb, not only did we remain close, our kids are friends, and our grandkids are friends. It's special, just something to really be cherished.

"What he's done is incredible, in terms of the excellence that's involved. Break down the math. And if he had left, there would be no Herb, no Textile, no 1,000."

In 2011, Magee was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

"That's it, the epitome for anybody," he said. "I think we all agree that everyone in the world has an ego. [Leaving] might have changed me. [Michigan's] John Beilein, who coached against me at Le Moyne, always tells me I did the right thing. Some day he may be in the Hall of Fame, but he knows that I am.

"It's a different world [in Division I]. I think that twice a month, when you're getting paid, that would be good. God bless them, they earn it, what they have to go through. [Krzyzewski] lost two straight and people were like, 'What's wrong? When we lose, nobody's busting down my door. I enjoy that.

"This was the right place for me. I was never really tempted [to move on]. Would I have more money? Not even close. But I wouldn't be approaching 1,000 wins, and I wouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. I wouldn't be happier. I told Jack Ramsay [his Hall of Fame presenter] once, 'If you'd recruited me I might have ended up coaching at Saint Joe's.' He said, 'You're right. But not for 45 years.' That hit me. What Mike and [Jim] Boeheim [962 wins in 39 seasons at Syracuse] have done is not done.

"I know I have a lot of fun with it," he continued. "I'll see guys like Franny [Dunphy] and Phil [Martelli], and they'll always go, 'Hey, how many wins you got?' And I'll say, 'I just checked. Exactly three times as many as you do.' Like I tell Phil, if you coach 'til you're 90 you might catch me. He'll count the number of guys at a table and say, 'You've got more wins than the table.' "

And so the kid who just wanted to be a player for West Catholic is about to make more history. It's a legacy we might never see in this town again. And he's going to keep doing it for the foreseeable future. Why not? He doesn't look much different than he did when he was 63. So maybe there's an 1,100th win out there for him. What will he be doing in, say, 2020?

"I'll know when it's time to stop," he said. "Because practice won't be as enjoyable for me, the games will become a drain. If I'm not lively and if I'm not coaching hard, then I'm not doing my job. That would be unfair to the kids.

"If I wasn't coaching, I wouldn't have any problem with leisure time. I love golf. There's other things, too. It wouldn't be one of those deals where I'd be sitting home in the chair. I've thought about the day I won't be coaching anymore. It also crossed my mind that I crossed it out, because it's not time yet.

"For me, the ultimate compliment is when somebody wants their kid to play for me. It means I must be doing something right. You're always learning, always evolving. You don't start doing this to become an institution. Once you do that, then it's all over. The idea behind this job is to make sure when your team goes on the court that your opponent can't do anything that we're not prepared for. That still intrigues me. There's still a reason for me to show up."

Eras change. Some details become distant memories. He understands. That doesn't mean he has to embrace all of it.

"I was at a game, the place is packed, and this kid makes a move with the ball," Magee said. "Just leaves the defender on the floor, busts his ankles to get an open look. Everyone is going crazy. Then he misses the shot. Doesn't matter. It's still nuts.

"And I'm going, 'But he missed the shot, you know.' "

All he could do was smile in disbelief.

Tuesday, Jan. 27: Holy Family 8:00

Thursday, Jan. 29: at Goldey-Beacom 7:00

Saturday, Jan. 31: Caldwell 4:00

Tuesday, Feb. 3: Wilmington (Del.) 8:00

Saturday, Feb. 7: Post 4:00

Tuesday, Feb. 10: at Chestnut Hill 8:00

Saturday, Feb. 14: at Nyack 3:00

Tuesday, Feb. 17: USciences 8:00

Saturday, Feb. 21: at Concordia 3:00

Tuesday, Feb. 24: Goldey-Beacom 8:00

Note: Philadelphia University is located at 4201 Henry Ave., Philadelphia, 19144. Basketball games are played at the Gallagher Athletic, Recreation, and Convocation Center.