I grew up a “Bethel kid.” My brother played basketball and baseball at Bethel College from 1978-1983, and I grew to love the place and the people I met there. Many of those people are still my friends today. Homer Drew was the basketball coach at that time. He always called me by name whenever he saw me, and he always asked me how my team was doing (I was in late elementary and junior high during those years). I quickly learned that Bethel and Grace College were rivals. When Bethel and Grace played it was different in the Grossman household. We left home earlier to get to the game to make sure we got our seats. There wasn’t a lot of conversation in the car on the way, whether we headed to Winona Lake or Mishawaka. It was intense in the car, it was intense in the gym – it was great. I have a lot of fond memories of those Bethel-Grace games. I remember sitting in the third row at the foul line on the west side of Goodman Auditorium, and the goosebumps that exploded off my arms when the Pilots came out of their locker room to the “Final Bell” from the Rocky soundtrack. I remember sitting on my coat on the floor at the east end of the old Lancer Gym while toga-clad Grace students filed in to take their places in the bleachers next to us. I remember the matchups: Greg Thomas against Greg Miller, Gary Knowles against Big John Boal, Kent Denlinger against Scott Hostetler. I remember Kevin Willour and Jeff Kowatch, Doug Snyder and Bill and Don O’Dell. They were larger than life. And then there were the coaches. Homer Drew. Mr. Positive. Always hopeful and enthusiastic. Always a smile. Always. His counterpart was Jim Kessler. At that time, I was not too enthralled with him. He coached at Grace (strike one), he wasn’t coaching my brother (strike two), and I was 10-14 years old – he had no chance with me. Of course, since then I have grown up a little … ok, a lot … and have gotten to work closely with Coach Kessler and have come to love him very much. In 1987, Drew moved on to Valparaiso and former Pilot Mike Lightfoot was tabbed as the new coach of his alma mater. Last week, Lightfoot announced he was stepping down after 30 seasons with the Pilots, and 39 as a head coach overall. It made me think about these three gentlemen: Homer Drew, Mike Lightfoot and Jim Kessler. Together they have won over 2,300 games and have coached in over 3,000. Three very different guys, but at their cores they are cut from the same cloth. Here is what they all have in common: • INTEGRITY: When any of these three men tell you something, you can believe what they have said is true. Of course, things change and coaches have to make adjustments. But when these three tell you something you can book the fact they were being straight with you. Honesty isn’t found very often anymore, but you found it in these three. • ATTENTION TO DETAIL: Drew, Lightfoot and Kessler are people who pay attention to the little things, and have trained their people to do the same. When you are a player, assistant coach or team manager for them, you are challenged to dig deep into the “why” and the “how” of every aspect of basketball. You will learn to study yourself, your team and your opponents. • PERSONAL TOUCH: We talk so much in these columns about leadership characteristics, and one of the most important is being directly involved in the lives of the people who are under you. A player may think they should play more or be used differently, but when you are talking about this trio of coaches no one can walk away and say they didn’t get a chance to have a personal relationship with any of them. They care about the people connected to their programs. • CHRISTIAN FAITH: The ironic part of the intensity of the rivalry between Bethel and Grace is that these are two schools who walk-the-walk when it comes to their faith. They don’t forget the concepts of mercy and peace when they play in athletic competition, but they do get challenged. Add all of that up, and you come to one conclusion: these three legends of coaching have made people better. They took guys who were passed over by the Division I programs and turned them into small-school legends. More importantly, they took some guys with checkered lives and turned them into better people than the ones that came for campus visits. They have shown their people, by word and deed, how to live right and how the ripple effect of making people better works. We should feel honored to have had people like Kessler, Lightfoot and Drew connect to our communities the way they have. They coached our kids, they coached people who are now coaches of our teams and teachers in our schools. Drew has put down his wipe board. Lightfoot is passing the Pilot helm to his son Ryne at the end of the season. And Coach K? He’s still chugging along, but we best not take that for granted. Kessler knows that he won’t coach forever, and we shouldn’t forget it. But no matter when “that day” comes for Kess, the legacies of Drew, and Kessler will have a long-lasting impact. In some cases, that impact will be eternal.
