“Going One-on-One”
Posted by Steve Bzomowski on February 7, 2007
NTL Photo Library
I can still hear my eighth grade coach, Bill Tweedy, yelling, “you’re going one-on-one”! That, the going one-on-one, used to be a bad thing. Basketball was, and is, first and foremost, a team game. So, the idea, back then, was if you weren’t completely relying on your teammates, then you weren’t playing the game right. In the late 60s and early 70s, the game made a big turn; the game went modern. Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Dean Meminger and a host of new breed basketball wizards brought a dazzling array of never-before-seen offensive skills and therein expanded what was possible. Behind the back, between the legs, inside-outs, spins and fallaways went from being “showing off” to part of the standard repertoire. Players copied what they saw the great ones doing and coaches saw that one-on-one, if it was the right “one”, was indeed an offensive advantage. Now coaches scheme to create those situations where players can be isolated with a solitary defender. Moral to the story: work on your one-on-one skills and hope that someday, somewhere, someone calls you “Pistol” or “Pearl” or “Dream”.
Technorati Tags: One-on-One-Basketball
Jean said
I’ve heard of “Pistol” and “Pearl”, but never “Dream” until your
recent “one-on-one” entry (the link to his story is interesting).
The tips provided on this site are great, very informative and
funny…now, if I can only find 10 minutes and a nearby hoop…
Steve Bzomowski said
When I was a freshmen playing at Fordham, there was a senior All-American named Charlie Yelverton, maybe the best player in the country that year. Outplayed Dr J, John Roche, Austin Carr; single-handedly beat Notre Dame (I can still remember the chants from the crowd at The Garden – to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar – “Austin Carr, Austin Carr, you’re not as good as they say you are. Notre Dame, Notre Dame, when you gonna quit trying to play this game?”) Charley and Dean “The Dream” Meminger played together at Rice HS. Charlie Y to me was the greatest human being who ever walked the earth.
Nathaniel Rink said
Great -
Now I’m all confused! I always thought one on one was ball hogging. How do you find the balance?
Steve Bzomowski said
Nat – - Good to hear that someone’s concerned about ball hogging. The U.S. might still be the pre-eminent world basketball power if more people had taken it seriously years ago. It, like, infected the culture. Next to wide-open shots, one-on-one is the best thing going. Not “dancing with the ball” (see the Feb 9, 2007 post) one-on-one while your teammates stand around and watch you, but one-on-one where after ball movement, there’s an opportunity to break defense down. Certainly, one-on-one in the post is desirable. Certainly after good ball movement, having made the defense work, with a quick, strong, aggressive move protecting the ball and going straight-at-the-hoop will result in a play that any coach would be happy with.
Dan Ziminski said
Nat, you can go one-on-one anytime you please, especially after your PFL lefty game-winner.
Hobie Jones said
You mention some great old names, John Roche, Dean The Dream Meminger and the Digger Phelps coached Charles Yelverton…BUT didn’t Roche and Tom Owens as high school seniors at La Salle Academy knock off Rice High with The Dream and Yelverton in the NYC catholic school championship? Also you seem to be referring to Yelverton in the past tense…is he no longer alive?
Steve Bzomowski said
Hobie – - Thanks for responding. You sound like someone who was there and knows the NYC scene! I came down from Albany and caught Charlie Y only for my freshman year (his senior year and Digger’s only year) at Rose Hill, so can’t say that I know what happened at Rice High Y’s senior year (four years earlier). Roche and Owens would have been a formidable duo. (A teammate and I did travel down from Albany after our high school team, Shaker High, later home to Sam Perkins, lost in the sectionals our senior year to see Molloy [Brian Winters] and Power Memorial [Len Elmore, Jap Trimble, Ed Searcy] play for the Catholic Schools Championship in ‘70, some of whom we played with at Jack Donahue’s Summer Camp in The Catskills.) Also, I have no idea what Y is up to. I pray he is doing well. As I said in comment #2, he was my absolute hero. Not just a great, great player, but an interesting and compassionate and sweet and engaging, intelligent guy. Last I heard, and this was long ago, he played in Yugoslavia (do I have that right?) for many years after leaving Portland. The crowning glory of my playing days was Charlie Y nicknaming me, honoring me with the nickname, “Hambone”.
Hobie Jones said
Steve-I live in Georgia but in late 60s early 70s, as a kid, I was a big fan of the old University of South Carolina basketball program coached by the Irishman Frank McGuire and assisted by Donnie Walsh and the late Buck Freeman. I knew the school boy backgrounds (from reading game programs and summer camp gossip)of guys like Cremins, Roche, Owens, Riker, Joyce, Winters et. al. McGuire had an uncanny recruiting “underground railroad” bringing New Yorkers down south for very very formidable teams in the late 1960s and 1970s. Do you the whereabouts of any of the previously mentioned “names” in college basketball (and some with pro careers as well)? I am just a huge fan who has three favorite subjects…sports, history and sports history. Love your work.
Steve Bzomowski said
Hobie – - The answer to the question, “who won the 1967 CHSAA championship”? http://www.times-standard.com/sports/ci_5211038
Confirms you were right! The article brings up a name or two you might enjoy reading about, as well. I played against Kevin Joyce at Jack Donahue’s Friendship Farm camps in The Catskills when I was in 9th grade. He was two years ahead of me and a monster. Billy Schaefer, forward for St. John’s, Holy Cross High, introduced me to NYC basketball at that camp with a forearm to the head I can still feel.
I’m going to get in touch with some people I still know in the Fordham Athletic Dept and see if anyone knows what Charlie Y is up to.
Thanks for your comments AND your compliment. Much appreciated.
Hobie Jones said
Thanks for indulging my interest in the minutiae of high school sports…but “It’s Never Too Late” seems to be receptive to old hoop stories.
James said
Glad to hear that someone else remembers Charlie Yelverton. I was a freshman at Rice When Charlie and Dean won the national Championship. I saw Charlie many years later(around the early 1990’s) He became a successful Euro-leaguer in Italy, with a wife and children there.
oskar said
Great to hear talking about my friend Charlie Yelverton, I am from Varese, the Italian city where he played, became a Euro-league star and where he still lives and coaches to kids. Like all my friends in the earlie 80’s I grew up playing basketball in Italy but never had the pleasure of having Charlie as a coach, nonetheless many years later he became my saxophone teacher. Please contact me if you have stories about him to share I see Charlie in Italy every summer when I go back to Italy to visit my family.
michael stainback said
Hi, I am a schoolmate of Charlie and Dean (Rice). I played ball with both of them when Charlie eventually developed head and shoulders above the rest of us. The last I heard of Charlie at our old neighborhood reunion I was informed he is indeed thriving in Italy playing salsa music (he introduced me to the late Joe Cuba’s music). If there is any way you can contact and/or pass my info to him it will be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Oskar said
Sure Michael and thanks for getting back!
Send me an email at oskarlandi@hotmail.com
Best
Malachy Grange said
HI
–to all you guys who remember the glories of HS basketball in NYC in the 60s. I graduated from Cardinal Spellman HS in 1967. I played ball there and in our league were Rice, LaSalle and Power Memorial. There were great heroes (most mentioned above) then in the CHSAA (Catholic HS Athletic Association): Dean the Dream and Charlie the Super-Sub (He actually didn’t start for Rice!), Roche and Owens, Jackie Bettridge and Lew Alcindor at Power (Class of 66 I think), the Cronins and Larry Golden at Mt. St. Micheal, and many more. I remember that Archbishop Molloy from Brooklyn was a great team that won it all some years; they had tall blonde twins and great guards. We had no idea who played in the public school leagues back then. They were foreign territory.
I went to Fordham and became friends with Charlie Yelverton. As was said, he had a spectacular senior year at Fordham and the team went far into the playoff with Digger Phelps as coach who was a HS coach from upstate NY the year before. He incurred the wrath of the campus when he left for Notre Dame the next year after he said he wouldn’t. (Who could blame him?) In fact, watching the Nova-Pitt game yesterday, Nova was 20 for 20 at the line and they flashed a stat on the screen that said they were approaching the long held record for perfect free throw attempts in NCAA playoff games that was held by Fordham in 1971 when they beat South Carolina, coached by Frank McGuire, in the consolation game for the regional finals (they had consolation games back then). In fact, I think Howard Porter on the Villanova team beat the Rams and went on to the Final Four. On that South Carolina Gamecock team were Owens and Roache! However, Nova missed their 21st attempt, preserving the Rams record. It’s interesting to see Digger Phelps on TV as a commentator. It’s not a stretch to say that Charlie Y. made Digger’s career. If Charlie didn’t have the phenomenal year he did during the 70-71 season, it’s doubtful Phelps would have wound up in South Bend the next year.
Charlie was drafted first pick in the second round by the Portland Trailblazers, who also took Sidney Wicks of UCLA with the first pick of the first round. I rambled around the country after graduation and spent the winter months living with Charlie in Oregon. I attended most Blazer games with courtside seats, courtesy of Charlie. They were awful that year, their second in the league. Most games were contests between Geoff Petrie from Princeton (fist pick of the year before) and Sidney Wicks over who would score more.
Charlie started his NBA career well, coming off the bench often and changing the energy and momentum of games with his defense and acrobatic moves. He usually guarded the other team stars like Connie Hawkins from Phoenix, Billie Cunningham of Philadelphia, Spencer Haywood of Seattle and Havilicek of the Celtics, though at 6-3 he was much smaller than the people he guarded. He usually did quite well. If my memory serves me well, he won an award for ‘rookie of the month’ or something like that.
But, like me, Charlie was a child of the 60s and our lifestyle reflected that. Over time, he missed planes, forgot his uniform, came late to practice and similar things frowned upon by the authorities. I wish now that I had enough wisdom to give him better guidance and support to preserve and enhance his NBA career. He got less playing time as the year went on and the final straw for the Blazers was when he sat down at the midline of the court during warmups and refused to get up. He then refused to get up during the National Anthem (in the crowd, I never stood up for it either, as many others did also – this was Nixon/Vietman era and protests were as common then as flag waving is now).
I think Charlie was protesting that a black guard, Willie something, had been let go. As I remember the story, Willie had been obtained from the Lakers (where he warmed the bench) with the offer of lots of playing time in Portland. He left the Lakers (where he would be with a winner and have gotten playoff money), with the idea he would get court time and exposure in Portland. Charlie felt his release was racist, something to do with Petrie’s good old white boy image. I don’t know what the reality was, but I sure wish I knew what he was gonna do, because I would have tried to talk him out of it. However, this was the era of Black Power and protest,even in sports. We all remember the iconic image of Juan Carlos and Tommy Smith standing on the podium at the Olympics in Mexico City giving the Black Power salute when receiving their medals. Like Charlie, they too were blackblisted (ironic term) immediately.
Charlie never played another minute that season I think. And the Blazers, though he had a 2 or 3 year contract, left him off the roster the next year and that was it for his NBA career. I hear he had a successful career in Europe.
Charlie was an afficiando of John Coltrane and owned tenor, alto and soprano saxophones. We were always listening to jazz records and playing along. I think he bought his tenor from Lew Alcindor, then of the Milwaukie Bucks (soon to become Kareem Abdul Jabbar), who told him he shouldn’t be hanging around with ‘white hippies’ (me). I met a lot of NBA players that year when Charlie would invariably have a party after a game. I remember almost all the young guys came, and all the older, more established players stayed away, as if they knew what was good for business.
Oskar said
Thanks Malachy for sharing this.
Please you and everyone else feel free to contact me at anytime with more stories about my friend Charlie at the email address above.
I will see for sure him next summer in Italy
Ciao
Oskar said
Hi Malachy,
were you present at the game when he did his protest? Charlie told me the story decades go…
I know it was completely different times and almost nobody could afford video cameras in those days, but in your opinion do you think it could be possible that anyone (from the public, relatives of players, someone of the team, local Oregon TV’s) could have filmed and still have footage of the protest?
Please let me know
Paul Marshall said
I knew Charlie as I was a ball boy for the Blazers. He and Sidney Wicks were room mates in an apartment in SW Portland. I was invited over there a couple of times. They were livin the good life. What amazed me about Charlie was how tall he played. He and Charles Barkley are the smallest big guys I’ve ever seen play.
That year Charlie always brought a boom box into the locker room, much to the disapproval of many of the older players. One day he gave it to me and I cherished that box for years. Charlie was always friendly to me and the other ball boys as opposed to some of the other players to whom we were invisible. It sounds like he’s doing OK.
Oskar said
Paul,
thanks so much for sharing this, this is exactly how Charlie has always been with people in the town where I grew up in Italy, even if it was a small snobby city in a foreign country.
To Paul, Malachy, James and everybody else, does anyone have an idea if it could be possible to find some footage of Charlie’s protest in Portland? If we can find some images from that day we may start to work on a documentary film.
Please let me know.
Ciao
Oskar
oskarlandi@hotmail.com