Nice Guys Don't Finish Last

According to the late Leo Durocher, nice guys finish last. After giving this some thought, and looking back over my 20+ years in coaching, I can think of at least 5 nice guys that didn't finish last. Of course I know I've coached more than 5 nice guys, but these five have a special place in my memory.

In 1978, the first year I coached, I had the pleasure of coaching David Jobe. David was an all-purpose guard who helped us win the Greene County tournament by scoring 21 points, and having 7 rebounds and 7 assists in the final game. Beyond his playing ability, he was one of the best kids I ever coached. He went on to graduate from Rose Hulman and is doing well in his engineering career.

The next great kid I the pleasure of coaching was Tony Erdly. I got to coach Tony from the sixth grade until he graduated high school. He was always a gentleman on and off the court and is now the owner of Poolery Plus in Terre Haute.

Another outstanding young man would be David's brother Chriss. Chriss was a point guard on our '89 team. He was very unselfish and helped keep a team of characters in line. Once asked by an assistant coach why he didn't spend more time working on his shooting, he replied "I need to spend that time on the books - they'll do me more good when I graduate." I couldn't agree more with him. He also graduated from Rose Hulman and is an engineer for the state.

On the 1990 team, we had a player named Eric Walters who was just too nice. One time during a game, an opposing player was knocked to the floor. Instead of running to the other end as play continued, Eric stopped and helped him up. Eric is now the president of PCKA.com. In addition to his other roles, he had to serve as a buffer between me and Joey his senior year.

Davin Gambill is number 5 on my list of nice guys. He was a reserve on the 1997 team. Davin would do whatever he was asked to do in practice and played whatever role he needed to in games. He was always positive and was the type of player every coach dreams of working with. Davin is now managing a Walgreens pharmacy in Murray, Kentucky.

All of these nice guys had one common thread. They were very intelligent. I would guess that the average SAT score of that group was over 1200.

The Greene County Tourney draw came out this week. Right now I like North Central to win with WRV as a dark horse.

The Turkey Run Warriors girls team got a big win this week over the Attica Ramblers. The win was significant because Attica is led by Miss Basketball candidate Brittany Raburn who has signed to play at Purdue next year. I'm sure most Bloomfield fans are familiar with her. The Warriors won by 15 points. We'll see if this holds true in the sectional.