Rich Claverie was a great friend and a terrific mentor. He taught me everything I know about coaching. We had many great years coaching basketball together from the Big Game (LeyVa vs. Quimby) at Silver Creek to the Mayor’s Cup. I would just like to share a few experiences with Rich that help shape my career in Education and Coaching.
For a few years I taught P.E. with Rich, one day we were going to have the boy’s run the mile. On the way out to the track Rich called out to a young man that was very over weight and asked, “hey, Tommy, would you help me out and fill the long jump pit with sand. I have the wheel barrow out and there’s a shovel by the shed.” Each time we were running the mile, Rich had some job for Tommy to do as a “favor to Rich.” Obviously, Rich avoided Tommy being embarrassed and he taught me how important kindness is in dealing with the vulnerable. A few years later, Tommy went on and started on the Silver Creek football team.
Another lesson I learned from Rich was we had a student aide that we had taught and coached for several years. Jose’s responsibility was to fill the soda machine. One afternoon we walked into the locker room and saw Jose pass a soda to another student without paying for it. Rich called Jose into the office and reamed him about how we had trusted him with the keys to the machine that had the money as well as the sodas in it. Jose’s eyes welled up and admitted his mistake. When Jose left the office Rich turned to me and said, “Do you know what we do next?” I wasn’t sure and Rich said, “We tore him down and now we need to build him back up, first thing we do tomorrow is give him the keys and have him fill the machines.” At the beginning of class the following day, Rich called Jose over so everyone could hear and said, “here’s the key go fill the machine, please.” Jose’s face went from sullen to relief that he still had Coach Claverie's confidence. The message was clear that everyone screws up, now that’s over move on and do better.
The first year I coached with Rich he told me lesson number one is that after a game, “if we loose never talk to the team about the game. Nothing constructive comes out of it. The team already feels bad and they know what mistakes they made. Too many Coaches use that time to vent their frustration with them. Only say, "we’ll work on things next practice." The next practice ask them what we need to do better on and work on it.” Lesson number two was set attainable goals for the team, first we want to win the Section, then if we don’t make that then our goal is to win the league, if we can’t do that we need to win the big game against our rival. Some years when we were not very strong, our main goal, which Rich would hype to the team, was have a winning record. Every year our team achieved “our number one goal, whatever that was.
Everyone knows that Rich loved to win and was a fierce competitor. One year Rich said he wasn’t going to coach for that year. I knew why, because Todd was playing for our rival and he didn’t want to coach against his son again. The previous year when asked by a student who he wanted to win the “Big Game?” Rich responded with “I want LeyVa to win 49-48 and my son to score all 48 Quimby points.” We happened to have a dynamite team and won it all. I know Rich never regretted not coaching that year, his family always came first. I followed every step of Kindra’s acro-gymnastics and activities to every one of Todd’s sports accomplishments through Rich. Rich, myself and my son Chris, who was 11 at the time, went to one of Todd’s football games. Rich made sure Todd came over and said hi to Chris. All decked out in his uniform Chris was in awe. By the way Chris followed Todd to Mitty several years later.
Without a doubt Merilee was the world to Rich. He was so proud of all the love and support she provided. Merilee was a regular at the games Rich coached. I also had the privilege to get to know them both. You have all my love. I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts about what Rich meant to me. If you find any grammatical errors don’t blame me. Whenever I had something important to write, Rich would proof it for me. Being an English Major, many times his red ink was more than I had originally written.
Thanks Rich, for twenty great years. Your students, athletes and this coach will never forget you.
Marty McKeown
(by the way I changed the names of the students)
