Bill Patrick's car has 187,000 miles and his truck 165,000 miles because Patrick is old-school and believes in getting the most for your dollar.

Patrick is 61 years old, but age is something he does not like to talk about. He says he's been 39 for several years. As a basketball coach, he has the reputation of being a no-nonsense whipcracker who prohibits long hair; a kinder, gentler Bobby Knight minus the cussing and theatrics.

He's also an old softy.

Fans knew Friday night was special. If Patrick's Tippecanoe Valley boys basketball team beat Northfield, the coach would win No. 500 in his 31st season of coaching. No upsets would be pulled on this night as a Valley team that entered with a 7-3 record beat a Northfield team that entered with a 3-5 record 55-39. Patrick got his 500th win.

As fans walk in front of Valley's bench during the junior varsity game, several pause to offer a handshake to the coach sitting on the bench, which he gladly accepts. One fan tells him he'd "better get it done tonight, because I can't come back tomorrow."

And with 3:01 left in a junior varsity game Valley leads 42-21, Patrick holds his grandson on his lap while he watches the game.

Finally it is time for him to go prepare for the varsity game, so he hands his grandson up to his family.

Valley's varsity players, 16- and 17-year-old boys, know what's at stake, and not surprisingly, press early. Nearly four minutes pass before they make their first basket, a layup by senior Dax Snyder, that ensures they will not get shut out. Northfield leads 6-2.

"With everything going on all week," Valley senior forward Brandon Eaton says later, "I think nerves were a factor."

The slow start does not cost Valley as the Vikings pull into a 13-13 tie at the end of the first quarter.

Patrick the coach is not the only Patrick who works the refs. "Travel," someone yells early in the second quarter to the ref about a Northfield player. "He's dragging his foot." This is not Chad Patrick, his son and assistant, saying this, but Nancy, his wife, sitting three rows behind him.

Valley switches to a 2-3 zone that shuts down Northfield in the second quarter, a quarter in which they take control of the game by outscoring the Norsemen 20-7 to take a 33-20 halftime lead.

***Patrick's Chalk Talks***

At halftime, Patrick draws a free-throw lane and five Xs on the chalkboard and talks. The Viking coaches feel good about this game as they tell the players they played only one good quarter of basketball yet are up by 13.

Maybe it's the 13-point lead or maybe it's always this way, but on this night, Valley's locker room is a laid-back place. Players may leave their seats to get cups of water or Gatorade as Patrick talks and points at the chalkboard.

Players are free to offer their input as Patrick asks them what they think is going on out on the court and what they need to do. Eaton, cup in hand, walks over to the board and points something out to his coach.

Much of the halftime talk on this night deals with running their offense - called the wheel - better.

"They know Brandon is coming off the picks, so there should be somebody else open," Patrick tells his players. "We're running the wheel, but we're not setting good picks. We're not cutting hard. We're floating off the top. We're walking through the cuts. We need to make good, hard cuts.

"Every cut you make, you have to make as if you're gonna get the ball. We'll start with a 2-3 zone in the second half.

"We didn't get off to a very good start. Now we're doing some things better."

The players huddle, put their arms in the middle and shout, "TRC!" They don't know then, but after Manchester loses that night, they will take first place in the Three Rivers Conference with a 4-0 record.

Valley plays well enough to keep the lead in double-digits, usually around 15 points, in the second half. Holding a 47-34 lead with 4:34 left, several kids in the top row at the east side of the gym each hold up one green letter on yellow cardboard. The letters combine to read "Patrick's 500."

The celebration did not begin too early as the team wins 55-39 to help the coach up his career record to 500-190 (.725).

It turns out Patrick could have been receiving recognition for another coaching record. Patrick teams have had winning records for 31 straight seasons - every season he's coached - which the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame says is a record.

After the game, the ceremony begins.

***Patrick Honored For Winning 500 Games***

One by one the gray-haired coach in the dark suit lays plaques aside, first the one from the booster club, then the one from his players, then the one from his assistant coaches, then the one from his first Sidney team and finally the one from IHSAA representative Blake Ress.

"There's a lot of great coaches out there who have great careers but never reach this pinnacle," Ress says. "It puts you with very few."

Larry Kuhn, father of center Craig Kuhn, presents the plaque from the booster club and says "You're a true Hoosier legend."

Then the presentation that means most to him takes place. Son and assistant coach Chad presents him with the game ball.

As an old school coach, Patrick is a lot like former Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry was. Win or lose, you never saw Landry's expression change on the sidelines. Patrick is the same during interviews after games and during this presentation. Patrick is stoic, standing with his chin in his hand. He shunned the attention of winning 500 games all week - "he's one of the most bashful guys I have ever met," senior guard Noah Silveus says - but now he is a prisoner of the ceremony, under the spotlight with no place to hide.

"I asked to give this honor because coach doesn't like recognition," Chad says. "He'll pawn it off and give it to his players. For once in his life, he's gonna take it.

"He's very hard on these kids. He makes you do things you never imagined you could do. He gets every ounce out of you. I don't know if parents care about these kids as much as he does."

Maybe as Chad talks, the father's eyes moisten. Maybe. Maybe not.

After the presentation finishes, Chad says, "(Five hundred wins) was in the back of his mind going into the game. He's great at hiding his emotions. He hates the recognition. He's a modest person.

"I struggled a little bit during the ceremony, and I think he did, but I don't know."

***Patrick In Public vs. Patrick With His Players***

The way Bill Patrick portrays himself to fans and media is different than the way he presents himself to his players. Publicly, Patrick relies on his "woe is me" act and grouses about his team. Privately, to his players, he tells them they are talented enough to win every game they play.

He coached at Whitko for 29 years, up until 1995, and has been at Valley for two, beginning in 1998. The act has not changed.

"We've taken Valley teams into Whitko," WRSW radio personality Rita Price says "and he'd say to me, 'I don't know, Rita, things are very bleak. They aren't very good. I have some guys who try, but they're just not very good.

"I'd say, 'I'm sorry, Bill.' I'd look up at the scoreboard at the end of the first quarter it would be 24-2. He actually sucked me into that for 15 years."

But the Patrick players know is often different.

"What people think is he's a hard guy," Silveus says. "But he's really not. He's one of the nicest guys you could ever talk to. He cares about his players and about what he does."

Says senior center Craig Kuhn: "He makes anybody believe they can win. He gets not just the star but everybody involved. During practice, he drives the negatives, but he wants to make you mad so you will prove to him you can do better. All of a sudden, you are doing better. After practice, it's all positive toward the players."

Says senior forward Dax Snyder: "He works you hard, but he makes you do things you don't think you can do. He pushes you to the limit and makes you believe."

Says Eaton: "He's a hard-working man who expects a lot out of you but gives back twice as much. He's a good guy all-around."

Maybe senior center Wes Yarian explains Patrick best: "He says some stuff that isn't true just to get us going and get us fired up."

Why does Patrick choose to be negative publicly?

"Maybe we try to fool the public," he says. "I want you (the fans, media) to think we're never going to win any. But these players, I don't think I've ever had players go out on the court not thinking they could win. The players always think we can win."

Patrick's biggest fan may be the woman who possesses his face, Grandma Patrick, his mother. She is a small elderly lady named Stella but prefers to be called Grandma. She wears Valley's green and gold colors and relies on a four-pronged cane when she walks. She missed one game in his first 29 years of coaching. She was sick when Patrick's Whitko team made it to the Final Four in 1991, but because she refused to miss the game, the family wheeled her into the RCA Dome in a wheelchair.

He credits her for his competitive edge that spawned 31 straight winning seasons.

"As a boy, he's just about like he is now," his mother says. "Everything had to be so-so. Whatever he started, he finished. He wanted it done, and he wanted it done right."

***How Much Longer?***

Now the big question left is, how much longer will he coach?

"At times I could say this would be about it, at other times I could see him go another five to 10 years," Chad says. "I know he missed the game when he was out of it."

Perhaps Brandon, who offered "three years," gave Patrick the ultimate endorsement. When told three years meant he would stay around for his brother, Trey Eaton, a talented freshman who has turned into a go-to guy this season, Brandon says, "I hope so. That would be good for him."

If Patrick goes until he originally said he'd quit, he'll die coaching. When Patrick began coaching, he said he would coach until he had a losing season. Then he would think about doing something else.

That losing season never has come.

One thing's for sure: he hasn't changed since 1963, so don't expect him to change in 2000 and beyond. He gets the most out of his players, and all of them feel as if they belong.

Just ask Yarian, Valley's 12th man. He seldom sees playing time and knew he would see little playing time before the season began, but still he chose to stay on the team.

"It's fun, and I'm glad he's given me the chance," Yarian said. "I'm a second-generation player. My dad played for him. I'm just glad to have this chance. Coach Patrick's meant a lot to me. He's helped me, and I'm grateful for that." [[In-content Ad]]