THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE, May 4, 2014

For a few years in my late teens and my early 20s, I had this crazy notion that I could coach basketball.

Blame it on Jack Ramsay, who died last week at age 89 after battling cancer for years.

The year was 1977, the year I graduated from high school, the season of Blazermania, the year the Portland Trail Blazers won their first (and only) NBA title. Led by Bill Walton, the Blazers actually played team basketball, with passing and cutting and unselfish play - a far cry from what we are subjected to today in the league.

Directing the show was Ramsay, often perched on one knee, wearing loud sports coats and even louder slacks.

How could seeing that not give you the urge to coach?

A few months after that NBA title, there was something in our church bulletin at St. Thomas More in Spokane about the school needing basketball coaches for its two boys teams, in grades 5-8.

I volunteered, and I talked my older brother Steve into helping out as well. We ended up coaching the "B" team (mostly fifth- and sixth-graders). Some guy named Jim who wore flannel shirts a lot got the gig coaching the "A" team (mostly seventh- and eighth-graders).

No one at the school bothered to ask us if we actually knew how to coach. Ramsay had just written a book, "A Coach's Art," so I was well aware of run-and-jump switches and turnouts off of fast breaks.

Coaching clinics? Never heard of 'em. Besides, we had Jack's book and memories of the Blazers' championship run. We were set.

WHEN THE "A" squad played its games, usually on Sundays at Gonzaga Prep, we joined Jim on the bench. We usually played the same school in a "B" squad game sometime during the week, once both teams could agree on a date and someone could find an available gym.

In one "A" squad game that first season, one of our players got clobbered, and he was injured.

Jim jumped up off the bench and screamed at the ref, “He’s hurt!”

The ref responded with a whistle and a “T” on Jim.

My brother jumped up and yelled, “But he’s hurt!”

Another whistle. Another “T”.

The ref looked at me, perhaps hoping to record a hat trick in technicals assessed on one possession. But I’d had enough years of Catholic school to know when to keep my mouth shut.

I looked at the ref and said nothing.

FOR CONTINUITY’s sake, we tried to run the same offenses with the “B” squad that Jim ran with the “A” squad. But in reality, we learned something that’s usually true at any level — the teams with the better players won.

Our second year there, the “A” team featured guys like Mark Machtolf, who went on to play baseball at Stanford and is now the baseball coach at Gonzaga, and Dan McCanna, who went on to play football at Idaho. Led by those guys, that team was like a high school team playing against grade-schoolers.

The “A” squad coach that year was another Jim, Jim Stinson, who wrote two books on the Washington state “B” basketball tourney. One of his sons, Mark Stinson, is the girls basketball coach at University High in Spokane. I coached Mark one year on the St. Thomas More “B” squad. I take no credit for his success since.

Jim’s daughter, Jennifer, starred in basketball at class B Davenport High outside Spokane, then played volleyball at Washington State, and now (as Jen Greeny) is the Cougars volleyball coach.

Anyway, the benefit of all those talented players on the “A” squad to us was, a lot of real good players wound up playing in “B” squad games. And that year, we went 15-0-1.

One tie?

Let me explain.

“B” squad games weren’t often played in gyms with scoreboards. Perhaps there was a chalkboard handy, or one of those scoreboards where you flipped the numbers.

The clock? Well, for our home games, it was usually kept by my sister, Julie, who kept our scorebook. She owned a watch. She sat next to me (my brother had hung up his whistle by then).

One night, our team was down big in the fourth quarter, but was mounting a comeback. We crept closer, but time was running out. I wasn’t worried so much about losing. It was more like, hey, this is turning into a pretty good game, the fans are really getting into it, and you’d hate to see it end.

“Add on a couple more minutes,” I said to Julie.

We got even closer.

“Give us a couple more minutes.”

No one seemed to notice that the fourth quarter was lasting about three times as long as the other quarters. This was turning into a great game!

Finally, we caught up, and as I recall, I gave each team one possession to score a go-ahead basket. Neither did, so I asked Julie to blow the whistle and that was game. A tie. No overtime. The other team didn’t seem to mind either.

Or wonder what had just happened.

ONE YEAR, St. Thomas More had an opening for the “A” squad coach. This was my big chance, I thought. I spent nights that summer in the backyard, sitting on an oversized innertube, drawing up plays, channeling my inner Jack Ramsay, my wiener dog Casey doing her thing nearby.

But who was I kidding? They gave it to someone more experienced, which was just as well, because by then I was a few years into this college thing and it was talking up more and more of my time. So was work, which was paying for said college. I went back to the “B” squad, which I coached for another year or two before graduating from college and getting into the journalism business.

But I never got to try the ingenious inbounds play I drew up — one where we had the ball at midcourt with a couple of seconds left. I put my two posts on either side of the lane, and figured they’d be fronted.

Sure, the play required an eighth-grader to throw a 50-foot pass off a 6-foot-wide backboard — so it would bounce right to one of the posts, who would now be in perfect position for a layup — without the ball caroming too badly off the rim, but you never know. Coaches, you can steal that one if you want.

YEARS LATER, just into my new job at the Daily Bee in Sandpoint, I got the urge to coach again.

In a parks and rec league, I had a group of well-intentioned kids, most with little experience, none who had played before with any of their teammates.

In one game my team was matched up against one coached by Duane Ward, who is an actual coach — he once guided the Sandpoint High varsity boys basketball team, and is in the Sandpoint High Athletic Hall of Fame. Even years later, he still coaches basketball at the middle school.

Duane had, I think, two of his sons and a nephew on his team that we played that day. I knew we were in trouble.

Parks and rec rules said teams couldn’t play zone defense. But I devised a sagging man-to-man that would have made Jim Boeheim proud. The kids executed it about as well as they could. We kept it close. I considered that a victory.

I’m sure Duane knew what was going on, but he said nothing. He was, and is, a kind man.

I’ve been asked to coach again since then, but respectfully declined. Too busy with work. And besides, even though I may know a little bit about basketball, or even volleyball for that matter, there are plenty of “real” coaches out there far more qualified for the job.

Ones who actually went to clinics.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.