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POSTED: April 5, 2011
By Bob Ford
Inquirer Sports Columnist
HOUSTON - The Basketball Hall of Fame made it official
yesterday. Herb Magee, Philadelphia schoolboy and college star,
and the winningest NCAA coach of all time, is a legend.
Magee, 69, was announced as part of the 2011 induction class
to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., and
was among those who walked onto the court at halftime of Monday
night's national championship game in Reliant Stadium to accept
the cheers of the crowd.
Philadelphia University's Herb Magee is now a member
of the Basketball Hall of Fame. The skinny kid went
from West Catholic star to all-American to becoming
the winningest NCAA coach of all time.
I never really thought I deserved it," Magee said, in an
uncharacteristic display of humility for a wisecracking
character whose proficiency at all aspects of the game is
nearly matched by his ability to remind others about them.
"I thought it would be nice. You never want to compare
yourself to anybody else, but certainly winning more games
than anybody has won would make the Hall of Fame take
notice. But what also helped me was what I've done with my
shooting."
The news that Magee is a legend is no news in
Philadelphia. It is a legend that was born in the mid-1950's
on city playgrounds such as Fourth and Shunk, and in the
cramped gymnasium at St. Francis de Sales in Southwest
Philadelphia.
Herb Magee could shoot a basketball. Still can. He can
shoot a basketball like very few who have ever attempted to
perfect the art of throwing a rubber ball through an 18-inch
steel rim situated 10 feet from the ground. It was that
singular, natural skill that made Magee a star at West
Catholic High School and Philadelphia Textile College,
giving the 5-foot-9, 150-pound kid a stature in the game
that belied his own.
"My earliest recollection is on that little indoor court
at St. Francis and we were in, like, eighth grade," said Jim
Lynam, who would become Magee's backcourt partner at West
Catholic before going on to his own fame as a player and
coach. "We went there and would play like four, five, six
hours - and I had played with some good guys. I remember
walking out and saying, 'I've never seen anybody shoot like
that.' I don't know that he missed a shot in four or five
hours."
Magee parlayed his shooting talent into a playing career,
and then stayed at Textile to become an assistant coach,
turning down at least one NBA training camp invitation in
the process. In 1967, Magee became the head coach at the
Division II school, which would change its name to
Philadelphia University in 1999. All these years and 922
career wins later, Magee is still there, a legend not just
for his coaching, but for the stable of young coaches who
prospered under his tutelage, and for his thriving side
business as a "shot doctor," in demand for his clinics and
private instruction on the finer points of shooting a
basketball. This summer, Sixers guard Evan Turner is
scheduled to be one of his pupils.
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"This is tremendous for Herb," said a longtime friend,
Temple coach Fran Dunphy. "He's a great friend and we all
share in this, and he allows you to share. Of course, he is
a character and will tell you how many points he scored. You
have to be ready for that and bust on him and say, 'How many
assists did you have?' It wasn't a lot."
Compiling assists was not Magee's concern. Getting open
and getting a shot were his goals. Once those were
accomplished, the ball did the rest.
"We'd play at Fourth and Shunk, and once Herbie came
across half-court and went up for a shot, all you could do
was untie his shoes while he was up there to try to mess him
up," said former Temple coach John Chaney, who would later
battle Magee for years when Chaney coached Division II
Cheyney University. "You'd do everything dirty and bad to
him, but his mechanics were so outstanding it didn't matter.
He'd still make the shot."
Magee said Monday he intends to ask Chaney and Jack
Ramsay, both Hall of Fame members, to introduce him at the
Hall of Fame induction in Springfield on Aug. 12. Ramsay,
then the coach at St. Joseph's, attended a West Catholic
game to watch Lynam, whom he would later recruit to play for
the Hawks. Ramsay saw a skinny guard have a great game and
came away convinced Lynam would do well at St. Joseph's. The
only problem was the player he thought was Lynam was
actually Magee. Ramsay stuck to his original plan and says
one of his great recruiting mistakes was not taking both of
them.
"And as Herbie will then add, 'Who didn't know that?' "
Lynam said.
Magee, whose teams have advanced to 25 Division
II NCAA tournaments and won the 1970 national championship,
had opportunities over the years to leave Philadelphia
University and get other coaching jobs, but he had no taste
for departing the city and always preferred running his own
program to working as an assistant on someone else's. Plus,
he was happy, he was successful, his family was around, and
he didn't have anything he felt he needed to prove.
Sixers coach Doug Collins, who is on the Hall of Fame
election committee and voted for Magee, has known about the
coach since Collins came to Philadelphia as a rookie
professional player in 1973.
"Sometimes guys who don't coach at the D-I level or are
not out there in the spotlight or on TV, sometimes they get
lost in the shuffle when it comes to recognition," Collins
said. "But I don't know anyone in Philadelphia who has
devoted more of themselves to basketball."
Basketball allowed itself a little devotion in return on
Monday. Right there on national television, Herb Magee's
legendary status was announced to the whole country. Maybe
that news arrived half a century after it did in
Philadelphia, but waiting to get your shot is sometimes the
name of the game.
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