At Mass General in January 2007, Dr. Loeffler's team attached a ring-shaped metal frame to my head with four pins. Then I went to the radiation center, where they strapped me to the treatment table and secured the head frame so that I couldn't move.
I got interested in coaching while I played at St. Joseph's. Because we played a national schedule, we played teams coached by Nat Holman, Joe Lapchick, Hank Iba, and others. I could see the impact the coach had on their teams, and I thought, 'That's a pretty good thing to do.'
In 1955-56, Saint Joseph's won the first Big Five championship, compiled a 23-6 overall record, and entered its first postseason competition ever - the National Invitation Tournament - finishing third. That season's success seemed to vault St. Joe's into the national collegiate basketball scene, and it has been there since.
I was playing sports all the time, and my parents, Anne and John, encouraged me to play in grade school and high school.
Teams that play together beat those teams with superior players who play more as individuals.
I wanted to become a college coach. I got game films of all the good college coaches - Pete Newell at California, Eddie Donovan with St. Bonaventure, Ken Loeffler at LaSalle.
If you make a wrong move with explosives, it could be deadly. If you're there when they blow up the beach, you get blown up, too. So you need to get your job done correctly... then pull the fuse with enough lag time for you to clear the area completely and get picked up by the small boats.
Just as an athlete must exercise his body to be a winner, a leader must exercise his position of authority. If he doesn't, he loses that authority.
My favorite moment was in Game 6 when Bill Walton tapped a missed Sixers shot toward the backcourt and Johnny Davis ran it down as the clock expired. We were NBA champions!
I will miss the association with the players and coaches. It has been a great ride.
I don't think there's ever been a team that ever scored more layups than that Blazers team.
I've been blessed. I've had a great life and am continuing to have one.
I had a sense when I took the job that the 1976-77 Trail Blazers could be very good. We had made a lot of positive roster changes, but it wasn't until I had the team in training camp that I realized that this team could be special. Midway through that season, I felt we had a chance to win it all.
There was great comraderie among players and coaches. We enjoyed the time we were together... road trips were fun. I don't know that there was one moment that stood out among all the good times we had.
I'm very fortunate to have gotten past the cancer problem.
It made the most sense for us to select Sam Bowie. It was almost a no-brainer.
My mother was very strong on me to go to college. No one had ever been to college, including my parents.
I want to stay alive. Yeah, I want to stay alive. I think that's the main thing. If there's a chance I can live longer, I want to do it.
I learned how important physical conditioning is. I learned how to focus on an objective in spite of all kinds of hazards. I learned how to deal with stress, too.
The Big Five is a competition played in the University of Pennsylvania's Palestra among five Philadelphia-area Division I schools: Saint Joseph's, La Salle, Penn, Temple, and Villanova. 'The Big Five' was immensely popular, and rivalries quickly grew to intense proportions.
