9201170450
DETROIT FREE PRESS
920506
Wednesday, May 06, 1992
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo Color WILLIAM ARCHIE
:
(WILLIAM ARCHIE/Detroit Free Press)
In his West Bloomfield Township restaurant Tuesday, Chuck Daly
announces he's quitting. "You just know when it's time," he
said.
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO METRO EDITION, Page 1A
Copyright (c) 1992, Detroit Free Press
RIDE ENDS SMOOTHLY FOR DALY
PISTONS COACH LEAVES LAUGHING
There were no tears when he stepped to the podium, no mush. Would Chuck
Daly ever go mushy in public? Besides, when he first arrived here nine years
ago, he couldn't have filled a phone booth if he called a news conference,
and now there were hundreds of important people crammed inside a suburban
eatery that bears his name -- Chuck Daly's Great Northern Restaurant -- to bid
him adieu. So hey. Why cry? Business was booming.
Which does not mean something special hasn't ended, left us behind forever.
They will remember Chuck Daly for many things, his Italian suits, his
blow-dried hair, his sideline tantrums, his nightclub comic's persona, his
gruff voice, his winks and shrugs -- but mostly they will remember that he
won. He went to the mountaintop, came back down, and went there again the
very next year, with a group of players everyone loved to hate except the
folks in this city. A lot of coaches never take that big champagne bath in
June. Daly took it twice -- and Detroit dived right in with him. Fans called
him Chuck. Players called him Daddy Rich.
Daddy Gone now.
"Let's make this an Irish wake," he laughed Tuesday afternoon, when he said
good-bye -- with no other firm offers, he says -- to the franchise that gave
him two championship rings, five straight appearances in the Eastern
Conference finals, and all but nine of his 547 NBA career victories. "On the
other hand, I'm only half-Irish and half-Scottish. So you can have one drink,
but not too much food. Hahahaha!"
Slick to the end. That's Chuck. Nobody heard the real story of why he's
leaving at age 61, one of the top coaches in the game, not at this news
conference; but little ever comes out of news conferences anyhow. Between
Channel 7's Bill Bonds shamelessly pointing a camera at himself, another at
Daly, then hogging the questions to make viewers think he was the only one
worth listening to, frankly, we'd have been better off ordering from the menu
and waiting until Daly came around to our table, like at a bar mitzvah.
And I bet Chuck would have preferred that. He loves to schmooze, he hates
to open up. If you ever asked for an autograph, he might slow down, but his
feet kept stepping, because he didn't want to get caught. There was always
another place to be. And he always knew when to go.
Just as he does now.
Daddy Gone.
A player's coach
"I don't have a plan, I have nothing in mind," Daly said, although no sane
person believes this. "But I'm in love with the game. I'll work somewhere.
During the summer, I look up and see an airplane, and I start wondering how
come I'm not on it? I have to work!"
He laughed again. The crowd chuckled with him. Behind him sat most of the
Pistons' players, crammed into the restaurant booths: Joe Dumars, John Salley,
Bill Laimbeer, Isiah Thomas, Dennis Rodman, Mark Aguirre, even Vinnie
Johnson, who left the team last summer but spent his best years under Chuck
and came back to let him know it. It was a nice show of respect. They may
have made life miserable for Daly at times, but just as children stop goofing
around when their father falls ill, so too were the Pistons there for Daly.
Over the years he had yelled at them, fought with them, denied them playing
time -- but he also bled with them, sweated with them.
And, of course, won with them.
This was his magic as a coach: He understood people. He knew that not
everything is fair, he knew that sometimes they're going to hate you, and
sometimes the best action is just to let that pass. As the son of a
Pennsylvania traveling salesman and a mother who actually went to different
churches just to meet people -- "church, synagogue, I never knew what religion
she was" -- Daly obviously learned the art of communication.
This was the lesson he communicated to the Pistons: You are all grown men.
Give me all you got, and we'll win.
"I'm going to miss him. It's going to be really strange having someone else
here next year," Salley whispered. Like Rodman, 30, and Dumars, 28, Salley,
27, has never taken an order from another head coach in the NBA. Chuck Daly is
all these guys know.
"You remember how he always yelled at me?" Salley said. "I never minded. I
figured, as long as he was yelling at me, he was noticing me. If he ever
stopped yelling I figured, uh-oh, I'm in trouble.
"Isn't that weird?"
Daddy Gone.
A well-dressed regular guy
Of course, anyone who knew Daly understands Salley's logic: Chuck made you
feel good when he noticed you. True, he sometimes behaved as crudely as a
barfly -- in his time, he worked as a dishwasher, a bouncer, and a grunt in a
leather factory, slapping hides in the lime pits. He also ate like a slob. I'm
sorry, Chuck, but the first time I interviewed you, seven years ago, you
slurped clam chowder all over yourself, your sleeves, your hands, and last
time I watched you eat, last month, well, it wasn't much better.
But having said that, I must add this: that was part of his charm. The
regular guy from Punxsutawney, Pa., lurking beneath those expensive Italian
suits, just longing to bust out for a whiskey with the boys and get really
loose and loud. And Daly could get loud. He still does some of the best
yelling in the NBA. He croaks. He roars. He waves his arms and bangs on
tables and hollers, "AW, GIMME A BLEEPIN' BREAK!"
Once, when Aguirre was tossing one bad shot after another, Daly grabbed the
telephone from press row, lifted the receiver and screamed, "HEY MARK! IT'S
THE CBA!" Another time, he came to practice after a particularly bad loss and
bellowed: "Practice today will last only long enough to throw up!" There was
the night he did a strenuous jump at a referee -- and split his pants! We sat
the rest of the game holding our sides laughing, because he didn't know: Daddy
Rich, Mr. GQ, with his underwear sticking out.
That was one of the few moments something got past Daly on the court. He
was a master of defense, an escape artist when it came to substitutions. He
had a good feel. Last Sunday, in Game 5 against New York -- his final game as
Detroit coach -- the Knicks were banging the Pistons and getting no whistles.
Daly spun, tugged on his lapels, then spotted a Chicago scout, sitting near
the court, checking out which team his Bulls would play next.
"Hey, Jimmy!" Daly yelled, pointing at the Knicks. "You see what you got to
look forward to?"
Daddy Gone.
A career coach
Which of course, leaves us wondering: Why? Why now? Daly will repeat the
same words: "It was time." (Like a Borscht Belt comic, when Daly gets a good
line, he works it.) But what does this mean? Some say with the Pistons'
talent aging and slowing down, Daly couldn't have success and he knows it.
Some say the head-butting with general manager Jack McCloskey finally got to
be too much. Some say Daly is tired of playing second fiddle to captain Isiah
Thomas, who basically runs the team and once even intervened with owner Bill
Davidson to save Daly's job. It was not uncommon to see Thomas turn and hold
up fingers for substitutions this year, then see Daly send in exactly those
players. Hey -- who's the boss here?
But these are all theories. What are the facts? Well, the fact is, Daly's
contract is up. And the fact is, Pistons management hasn't done anything to
address that. And the fact is, if they really wanted him back, they wouldn't
let him go so easily, right?
"I've always said Chuck could have coached here for as long as he wanted,"
McCloskey said Tuesday, artfully shifting the blame to Daly. But McCloskey
didn't sound too upset. The fact is, this team is slowly unraveling. Defeat
will do that. And Daly, after Rick Mahorn, Johnson and James Edwards, is just
the fourth big face from the glory years to depart, not the last.
And so he goes, his last words booming through a PA system underneath the
wooden beams of his restaurant. He thanked his wife and daughter. He thanked
the players and, yes, management. He said if he didn't find another job (ha!)
he could always come back and cook here.
And he said it was a hell of ride, which it was.
No one will ever know what he had to put up with here, the quarrels, the
back-biting, the personalities. No one can appreciate the life-sucking force
that comes with this job. But people will sure feel funny if Daly is on the
far sideline at the Palace next year, coaching some other team -- New Jersey?
Sacramento? -- and trying to beat the Pistons.
I still can see Chuck that first time they won the title, bursting into the
pile of players, getting doused with so much champagne, Brendan Suhr said,
"He looks like Pat Riley now." Daly had never won anything as head coach in
his life, not in high school, college or the pros. He called himself "Second
Banana." To see him that night, at age 58, was to see every runner-up on the
planet finally get his trickle of sunlight.
Now here was Daly on Tuesday afternoon, rich, famous, the Olympic coach,
secure enough to walk away from a team that will never be the same again.
Only a hard man wouldn't feel sad.
"No regrets," Daly said, leaving the podium. "Let the good times roll!"
Last question, Chuck.
How do we do that without you?
CHUCK DALY; END; RESIGNATION; DPISTONS;Pistons