Monday, Aug. 31, 2009

Arena named in honor of legendary coach

Whenever his basketball players were interviewed on TV, coach George Glymph always told them to mention Eau Claire.

“He never said to mention his name,” Danny Pearson, who played for Glymph, said at Sunday’s dedication ceremony for the George Glymph Arena at Eau Claire High School. “But today, coach, your name speaks for itself.”

Glymph coached the Eau Claire Shamrocks from 1974 to 1996, winning five state titles and compiling a record of 471 wins and 135 losses.

But he did more than that for the Eau Claire community — he gave them pride.

“When Eau Claire (High School) won, the entire community won,” said Ernest Robinson, co-host of Sports Hotline on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM. “It was something special to be on that basketball team.”

So it’s fitting that Eau Claire High School would name its new 2,000-seat arena after the man who named the school’s last arena.

Glymph invented the Rock Pit, a raucous, stifling gymnasium in North Columbia where, during halftime, Glymph would sneak away from the locker room and turn the thermostat past 90 degrees.

“If anyone on the opposing team had some kind of game, Coach Glymph was sure to smoke it right out of you,” said Felicia Jenkins, a former Eau Claire basketball player and now coach of the Benedict College women’s team.

Glymph was named Coach of the Year 25 times for basketball, track and field and cross country. But it was his devotion to his players that established his legacy.

“He wanted the best for us. Sometimes players get lost in the system because coaches care about the player and not the person,” said Jermaine O’Neal, Glymph’s most famous athlete, who is an NBA All-Star now playing with the Miami Heat. “I still get the same phone calls. He’s still coaching me. He’s still mentoring me.”

Glymph graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1961. He wanted to be an architect, but Clemson University wouldn’t take him because he was black, he said.

Instead, he enrolled at Benedict College, where he graduated in 1965 with honors and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

At Eau Claire, Glymph’s practices were fast-paced and demanding. He made players do five finger-tip pushups every time they made a mistake, once telling Pearson, “Boy, you’re going to be smart or you’re going to be strong.”

Glymph left Eau Claire in 1996 to follow a then 18-year-old O’Neal to the Portland Trail Blazers. He later followed O’Neal to the Indiana Pacers and later became an assistant coach for the New York Knicks under Isaiah Thomas.

But Sunday, after Glymph spoke to the hundreds of people who packed the Eau Claire Auditorium, he reflected on what he said was his proudest achievement — giving the Eau Claire community something to cheer about.

“Look at the crowd here today,” he said. “I think today speaks for itself.”

Reach Beam at (803) 771-8405.

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