By Chris May
Contributing Writer
One is a Hall of Famer, the other certainly will be. Between 42-year coaching veteran Pat Rady and hardwood legend-turned-first-year coach Michael Menser, there was a lot to learn from our Dec. 10 visit to the Riverton Parke at Cloverdale game.
When I made out the preliminary list of games I wanted to hit on my â??Search for Hoosier Hysteriaâ? tour, this one was not at the top on my list. It was second.
The storyline was just too good to ignore: a coach who had been around the block a time or two and accomplished success that most coaches only dream about and the former player turned coach who established himself as a legend beating the bigger schools, carrying the little guys to prominence on both the high school and collegiate levels.
As it turns out (and I never had a doubt otherwise), Pat Rady and Michael Menser were tremendously great guys who had a wealth of knowledge to share.
As far as the game goes, it was the most competitive game of the tour so far. After an eight point halftime lead for the visitors, Cloverdale closed in in the 2nd half. Coming out of the break, the Clovers nearly doubled their scoring total in the 3rd quarter, putting up 20 points in the period and hanging within 1 point of Riverton Parke. The Clovers took their 2nd and final lead in the game with 5:51 left when All-State candidate Chase Haltom drove down the lane with a 2-pointer. The 5â??9â? Haltom finished with a rather quiet 17 points in his teamâ??s win.
A visit to the very cool Cloverdale gymnasium cannot be made without notice of their prominent 1966 boys basketball team. A banner recognizes their team that made it through the regular season undefeated and all the way to the final 4 under coach Jim Miller, while a full team portrait hangs in a foyer leading to the Cloverdale seats.
In addition to that great team, Clover fans also recall the teams of 1982 and 1983. Al Tucker, who was an assistant on the â??66 team and went on to become the head coach, told me of the success in the early 80s. Cloverdale was happy to have an undefeated season in 1982 until they were unpleasantly derailed by Mooresville in tournament play. However, the team returned in 1983 with another highly successful team that finished with a 21-7 record after making it to the â??Sweet Sixteenâ?? in the semi-state round. That team featured Alâ??s son Chad, who was named a 1982 Indiana All-Star, just the schoolâ??s 2nd All-Star after Rick Ford of 1968.
While deep postseason runs have been scattered throughout Cloverdaleâ??s history, their fans support the school. In fact, people are enthusiastic enough about Cloverdale Clover basketball and their school that you can sometimes find Clover-green colored popcorn at the concession stand (although I was informed there was none during my visit because some people had been turned off by the color its â??moldyâ?? appearance).
While the action and surroundings were a part of my visit, this one more than any other was based upon the people involved.
Meeting the characters
No small school had more success in the final four years leading into class basketball than the Batesville Bulldogs. Led by Menser, the Bulldogs lost only 15 games in a 4-year span, including a 49-4 record over those last two seasons. In Menserâ??s junior and senior seasons, those 4 losses came by a total of 8 points.
The Bulldogs took 4 straight sectional titles, and adopted New Castle Chrysler High Schoolâ??s fieldhouse as their adopted home, playing 8 games there. 6 of the 8 games were in regional play, while the other two were part of the annual Hall of Fame tournament.
In fact, New Castleâ??s Trojans also became a nearly annual opponent. Winners over the Trojans in 1994 regional play, the Bulldogs 1996 and 1997 seasons (and Menserâ??s career) were ended in New Castle by the hosts.
While he tries not to live in the past, Menser still acknowledges those days. â??Whenever you see someone from New Castle or something they bring it upâ?¦ I always tell them where else in the world can you play a high school game in front of about 11,000 people and have a whole community shut down and come see youâ?¦ it was just tremendousâ?
Folks also know about Menser’s trip to Terre Haute for college action, where he led Royce Waltman’s Indiana State teams to upsets including over in-state rival and ‘big brother’ Indiana (in which Menser hit that memorable final shot) as well as an NCAA tournament ouster of 4th seeded Oklahoma.
While the casual fan knows Menser for his basketball victories in a jersey, he is well respected amongst those in the basketball community for his knowledge of the game.
Among those who hold him in high regard is Rady. â??Iâ??m prejudicedâ?¦ when I was at Terre Haute South, Michael would come down and help our guards.â?
â??Iâ??ve been a big fan of his ever since he was an 8th grader and I saw him play at Batesville and I knew he was a winner when he went to Indiana State and turned that thing around.â?
Somewhere along the way Rady told Menser, â??You need to be coachingâ?
â??I said, â??You have such a knowledge and such a knack, the way you explain things to kids and so on, you are just a natural coach.â?? â??Iâ??m just real happy for him and Riverton Parke has got a steal there.â?
Menser, who worked in and around the ISU program as a radio announcer and assistant coach following his playing days, decided the college coaching lifestyle was not for him.
â??(College coaching) is just a lot more time away from the on-court scouting and all that that stuff… the recruiting and everything is really another job on itself, so that was the aspect that kind of turned me away from it was being on the road and doing all that other stuffâ?
Menser moved along into other things, including a stint in the world of finance at A.G. Edwards. But in the end, Menser felt a calling back to the one thing in life he had known
best.
â??I just love the game.â?
â??As I got out of college I didnâ??t think that Iâ??d miss it as much as I did. Two years after being out of school, I decided that going back to get my education degree and being a coach was where I should have been from the start.â?
Now that he is back in the game, the challenges have begun.
â??Our two losses, weâ??ve played about 28 minutes of good basketball,â? Menser said after a 65-61 loss to Radyâ??s Clovers.
â??Weâ??re searching for a 5th or 6th player to finish it off, but Iâ??m pretty happy with the way the guys are going about it.â?
â??He did a heck of a job of coaching. I was impressed with Riverton Parke, the way they came in and handled things we tried to do, they made us get in the grab-bag several times to change things,â? Rady explained after the game.
Menser also has the unique task of coaching his brother-in-law. Point guard Derek Cleghorn is the brother of Menserâ??s wife who scored 13 points during my visit.
A chat becomes a sit-down
I came to a coaching legend looking for five minutes of his time and he gave me nearly an hour.
Thatâ??s just the way Pat Rady is: kind, caring, and a man who knows his Indiana high school basketball. Our conversation ran for over 45 minutes and the stories Rady shared were the things great books are made of.
We began by talking in the empty gym after he had addressed his team, and ended up traipsing into the Clovers locker room and into his office where he continued his recollections of people and games gone by, while we drank Coca Colas and tasted some home-made cookies.
The Hall of Famer who spent his most recent stint as the head coach at Terre Haute South finds himself in his 2nd year at Cloverdale. A Putnam county native who came from tiny Bainbridge, he now coaches at what was once his alma materâ??s county rival.
In what can be a tricky transition from a 4A to 2A school, Rady thinks things are going well so far. â??This has been great, Iâ??ve enjoyed it,â? the coach said. â??Iâ??ve always been a fan of small school basketball; I think coaching is coaching no matter where youâ??re at.â?
â??The people and the administration and the fans have really been good to me here at Cloverdale.â?
â??I just enjoy the kidsâ?¦ weâ??ve got a group of kids that are really playing hard and I enjoy being around people like that.â?
Among the things to be gleaned from a conversation with Rady were the manâ??s principles. Peppered throughout the discussion were aphorisms you might expect to hear from a legendary coach a la John Wooden.
Among the one-liners that left me most impressed, â??Your time is the most valuable thing you can give anyone.â?
As he talked of his experiences around the game, the phrases and words he used made it clear what has made him a successful coach.
It was not the presses he implemented or plays he diagramed in huddles. Nor the conditioning drills or grueling practices he has likely put players through. Those things are necessary for wins, but wins and success are not always the same thing.
Radyâ??s success, it became apparent, were from deeper, less physical things.
Discipline, respect, and hard work were phrases and ideals that came to mind as we spoke. Those are the foundation of successful programs and successful coaches. Rady would also likely include his religion, which he referred to during our talk.
Throw those ideals into a gymnasium with some basketballs, sneakers, and hoops and that is not only how Rady has won games, but also positively influenced boys as they became young men.
No introduction necessary
As Rady explained, he knew of Menser before the future Batesville Bulldog was in high school. But the pair got to know each other much better during the span both were in Terre Haute.
â??I met him through Indiana State,â? Menser recalled. â??He was tremendous to me there and had me come in and work with some of his guards on ballhandlingâ?¦ and I got to play in South open gyms.â?
â??Coach Rady has been good to me and it was fun to coach against him though I wish I could have had the upper hand but obviously heâ??s in the hall of fame for a reason.â?
Class basketball revisited
For our â??Search for Hoosier Hysteriaâ? it was another location, but we asked the same question: Is Hoosier Hysteria alive and did class basketball **** it?
You must know how small-school hero Menser felt about the issue.
â??I was really against class basketball, but in our area itâ??s still alive for sure. Our sectional consists of the little rural towns that still play each other, so when you go to the North Vermillion sectional its still the atmosphere that I saw in â??97.â?
The Riverton Parke coach continued: â??Iâ??m not sure about other areas, ’cause I havenâ??t been around there, but Hoosier Hysteria is definitely alive in our part of the state.â?
Rady says he still sees interest in the game. â??Last year was so great down watching Forest Park win the regional, with almost a sellout crowd. So the enthusiasm is still there, but I guess us old-timers realize itâ??s not the same tournament. I just think (we should) quit trying to say itâ??s the same tournamentâ?¦ and live with it.â?
Rady reiterates that the current playoff is not the one of decades ago. â??I think what they did is theyâ??ve kept calling the sectional, regional, and semi-state to make people think that we still have the same tournament. Well itâ??s not the same tournament. Thatâ??s what bothers me to see these teams who win a sectional or regional and they donâ??t put their class that theyâ??re in they say â??Weâ??re regional championsâ?? or â??state championsâ?? and they donâ??t put their classâ?¦ I think thatâ??s what causes people to think â??oh, wellâ?? (itâ??s the state tournament)â?
â??Itâ??s not the state tournament, me personally, I think they should have changed to a different nameâ?¦ it should have been super sectional or super regional or something of that nature, because the old tournament is gone.â?
Rady has some ideas on how things could have been handled to make the class-basketball tournament more appealing. â??I think there should have been some tweaks to it. I still think it was awful unique to have 1 championâ?¦ the only thing I was disappointed in that there was never an attempt to keep the 1 champion, but to do it in some type of a class to get to the one champion. I still think that could have been done in a way that would satisfy people.â?
â??But then when they went to class, the other thing that I have been perturbed about, (is) that itâ??s not based on enrollment. Basically what you are saying it takes a certain amount of numbers to make a team better. Then what is that number? Because there is a greater distance (in enrollment) between the lowest school in 4A and the top school in 4a than compared to the low school in 1A and the top school in 1Aâ?¦ and I just think they should quit worrying (about having the same number of schools in each class)â?
Whether you are talking about the days of class or non-class basketball, be it in towns like Terre Haute and Shelbyville or at schools like Bainbridge, Winchester, or Cloverdale, one thing was certain: Pat Rady has enjoyed what he has done.
â??I just think the whole atmosphere of being a high school coach in Indiana – where a guy like me from a little school of only 24 in my high school class – dreamed of being a coach, and then getting to live that dream in the greatest state that you could ever have high school basketball.â?
â??I donâ??t think thereâ??s another state that has a better, total basketball program. I think when you look at the whole picture, nothing takes the place of coaching high school basketball in Indiana. I happen to be in the greatest profession a guy can be in.â?
NOTE: Stay logged on to HoosierAuthority.com for more of Chris Mayâ??s â??Search for Hoosier Hysteriaâ? â??? and also check out our PrepPics section to see what we saw along this grand tour.
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