Dawkins takes on tall task

The 7-footer, best known as a free spirit with funky names for dunks, embraces coaching.

By MIKE READLING

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 25, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Darryl Dawkins doesn't need to be an NBA coach to be happy. He doesn't need to run around a court in a sea of confetti holding the NBA champion's trophy to be successful.

Truth be told, Dawkins is content coaching 22-year-old NBA wannabes in Winnipeg or Bethlehem, Pa. He's thrilled to have the chance to teach 14-year-old girls how to space their feet at the free-throw line. And he's absolutely delighted to be coach of the Tampa Bay ThunderDawgs, who begin play in the American Basketball Association 2000 in December at the Bayfront Center.

Sure, the NBA is the top step of the coaching ladder, but Dawkins has proven time and again that sometimes the middle rungs are just as fulfilling. That may not be the normal line of thinking, but understand that Dawkins isn't a normal person.

"I guess I'm just different, I've always been different and I'll be different until I die," Dawkins said. "My imagination will never cease."

That legendary imagination -- the one that brought us Chocolate Thunder, Planet Lovetron and dunks with monikers such as Turbo Sexophonic Delight -- never included pacing a sideline as the coach of any team, much less a fledgling professional team.

"When I was growing up, my mother told me I was going to be a coach someday," Dawkins said. "I didn't want to be a coach."

But after a 14-year NBA career and a short stint playing overseas, Dawkins found himself looking for a way to continue his basketball career. It turned out mother knew best.

The newest phase of Dawkins' career began about four years ago with a team in Italy for women 19-30. That was followed by varsity and junior varsity teams in Freehold, N.J.

"When I first started coaching girls, they didn't know who I was," Dawkins said. "A couple of them watched the Classic Sports Network and saw me play for the (Philadelphia) 76ers, and they came in the next day and made fun of my long socks and Daisy Dukes (shorts). I love coaching women's basketball; I love watching it."

Dawkins jumped to the International Basketball Association's Winnipeg Cyclone and led the team to a 22-12 record, the best in the team's four-year history. The Cyclone finished first in the West division in 1999 but lost in the quarterfinals of the playoffs.

When the Cyclone wasn't in season, the United States Basketball League was, and Dawkins quickly signed to coach the Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs. For two years he coached in Winnipeg during the winter and Bethlehem during the summer. It was an opportunity to enhance his skills while learning how to lead a group of men trying to get where Dawkins had been almost 20 years earlier.

"Because I didn't go to college, everybody tries to outcoach me," Dawkins said. "It's work, but it's my kind of work. As a coach you have to be part lawyer, part doctor, part psychologist and part baby-sitter. You have to be even-keeled. You have to know how to get in their heads and get out without hurting them."

That was one reason Dawkins was so attractive to ThunderDawgs general manager Peter Young.

Young was looking for someone who would be able to draw attention to a start-up league in a city that has never had basketball on this level. He needed a local name that people could relate to. More important, he needed a person who could relate to people.

If Dawkins wasn't that guy, Young wasn't sure who was.

"The biggest reason was, I saw Darryl could work with kids," Young said. "We needed a guy who can go out in public and will be the type of guy who would promote everything we need to promote, like family values. I think we found ourselves the best PR guy we could possibly have in this league. I guess we'll find out now how good a coach he is."

Perhaps the biggest thing Dawkins carries is the legacy of caring about the children of the community. Whether it's Winnipeg or Bethlehem or Orlando or St. Petersburg, stories abound of the 7-foot behemoth surrounded by youngsters as he reads from a children's book, turning it around after each page to show them the pictures. But it's not just kids.

During his coaching stint in New Jersey, Dawkins would regularly attract fans from other schools. John Tague was one of those people.

Tague worked at neighboring Freehold Township High during Dawkins' term at Freehold Boro, but the former high school and college basketball coach of 20 years remembers marveling at what he was seeing.

"I remember he had a great rapport with the kids and the response to his presence was very positive," said Tague, now an assistant principal at Freehold Boro. "There was a great appreciation from both the kids that he coached and the opposing teams. It was nothing but a positive situation. His teams weren't tremendously talented, but he did finish over .500. His expertise definitely helped (them). Truthfully, when you looked at it, I can't believe they won a game. He made them overachieve. They played beyond their abilities."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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