These came in by e-mail after the page went up in April, and a few came to Trudy by regular mail and she let me
type them in. They're in order by class year, oldest first. Every one of them is from somebody who played for him
or worked with him. Keep them coming. — Bobby Macmillan, '72
RONALD BRABHAM, CLASS OF 1953
Forward, his first two teams · Merrillville
We went 9 and 12 his first year, and after every loss he stood at the door of the bus and shook our hands as we got
on, like we'd won. One night after a bad one I asked him why. He said, "Because you'll remember how I acted tonight
longer than you'll remember the score." I'm sixty-four. I don't remember the score.
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PHILIP PARTINGTON, CLASS OF 1955
Center, first sectional champions · Tucson, Arizona
The night we won the first sectional in 1955 the whole town came out, and somebody set off the mill whistle. Coach
cut down the net and gave a piece of it to every one of us, and kept none for himself. I still have mine in my
billfold, forty-four years later. My wife thinks it's a piece of string. It is not a piece of string.
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RONALD WU, CLASS OF 1955
Guard · Chicago
My family ran the laundry on the corner across from the high school. I was five foot six. Every other coach in the
county would have cut me. Coach V put me in the starting lineup my senior year because, he said, I never once lost
the ball in practice. He took his shirts to my father every Monday for thirty years. My father would not take his
money, and Coach would leave it on the counter anyway, and this went on until my father retired.
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CHARLES DEHAVEN, CLASS OF 1961
Center, 1961 regional champions · Hobart
1961 was our year and we came close. I was six foot four and slow and he spent two years teaching me to use my
elbows without the officials noticing. After we lost at the semistate he told us that one bad afternoon didn't
change what we'd done all winter. I went into the mill that summer and stayed thirty-four years. On every bad shift
I had, I thought about that.
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GEORGE RATHBUN, CLASS OF 1967
Guard · Indianapolis
We were the 10 and 11 team. One of his three losing seasons, and he never once let us feel like it was our fault. He
said a coach finds out who his boys really are in the losing years. At the banquet he said we'd been the hardest-working
team he ever had. I've told people that for thirty years. I hope it was true. It doesn't matter.
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SCOTT ROSEN, CLASS OF 1968
Forward · Ann Arbor, Michigan
Nobody in my family had gone to college. Coach V drove me to the campus for my interview himself, on a Saturday, in his
own car, and waited in the parking lot for two hours reading the paper. On the way home he said I was going to be a
lawyer someday. I am a lawyer. I have never told him I did it partly to prove him right. I wish I had.
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DANIEL CROMER, CLASS OF 1969
Forward, 1969 sectional champions · Crown Point
I went into the Marines the summer after graduation. Coach wrote me a letter every month I was gone, two pages, always
about basketball, the new team, who was playing well, who was loafing. He never asked me about where I was or what it was
like. I figured out later that was on purpose. Those letters were the best part of my month.
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JERALD GEISSLER, CLASS OF 1972
Forward, 1972 regional champions · Portage
Bobby already told the semistate story, so I'll tell the other one. The night we won the regional, the bus got back to
Calhaven at about one in the morning and there were cars lined up along the road with their headlights on for the last
mile into town. Coach stood at the front of the bus the whole way, holding on to the pole, and when I looked up at him he
was crying. He saw me looking and said, "Allergies." In March.
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RALPH SPENCER, CLASS OF 1974
Guard · Gary
I was not a good student. In January of my junior year I had two F's and he sat me for three games. Then he sat in the
library with me after practice every night for a month, a man with thirty other things to do, until I got them up. I
graduated. My son graduated from Purdue in May. I sent Coach the announcement and he called me on the phone just to say
"two F's." He was laughing.
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MICHAEL SAXTON, CLASS OF 1976
Guard, 1976 sectional champions · Kankakee, Illinois
I've coached high school basketball myself for eighteen years now, in Illinois. I have Coach's nine rules taped inside
my clipboard. My players laugh at number 7. Then we get on the bus after the first away game and every one of them
thanks the driver, because they've seen me do it.
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ROBERT SAUCEDO, CLASS OF 1978
Forward · East Chicago
My grandmother spoke no English. Coach V came to our house after the blizzard to bring my uniform, because the school was
closed and we had a game coming, and he sat in our kitchen for an hour and talked with her in Spanish about Michoacán,
where both their families came from. She talked about that visit for the rest of her life. I think it meant more to her
than anything I ever did on a basketball court.
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REGINALD ELLENDER, CLASS OF 1982
Center · Merrillville
He was sixty years old when I played for him and he still got down in a defensive stance in practice to show us how. I
teach seventh-grade social studies now. When my class gets loud I say "shirts tucked in," and they have no idea what I'm
talking about, and they get quiet anyway.
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CLARENCE CASTILLO, CLASS OF 1984
Guard, 1984 sectional champions · Hammond
His last sectional. After we cut down the nets he climbed the ladder himself, at sixty-one, and the whole gym held its
breath. He took one strand and came down and said that was enough for an old man. I was standing on the floor at the
bottom of the ladder with my hands up, just in case.
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TOM OLIVEIRA, CLASS OF 1987
Guard, his last team · Valparaiso
We lost his last game in the sectional, and we all felt terrible, like we'd let him down. In the locker room he went
around and shook every hand and looked every one of us in the eye, the same way Bobby says he did in 1972. When he got
to the door he turned around and said, "Thanks for the last one, boys." Then he turned out the light on his way out,
the way he always did, even though we were all still in there.
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ROBERT RICHARDSON
Drove the team bus, 1958 - 1987 · Calhaven
Twenty-nine years. I'm told I am the only one on this page who didn't play, but I figure I saw more games than any of
them. He sat in the first seat on the right every trip, and every trip, coming and going, he said "Thank you, Mr.
Richardson." Thirty years we knew each other and he never once called me Bob. On the morning of the funeral I parked
the old bus in front of the church. Trudy asked me to. It seemed like the right thing.
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If you played for Coach V, managed for him, kept stats, drove him, or got sat down by him for bad grades, please write.
Tell me your class year and what you want said. [email protected]
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