They worship at his Temple!

A coach's coach, a player's coach, a man who came up the hard way and has never forgotten it, and who has learned from it - both as a technician and a warm, caring person.

COACH: How did the magnificent obsession begin for you?

CHANEY: I was brought up in Jacksonville, FL, but we had no basketball courts in our part of town. I had to wait until my family moved up to Philadelphia to pick up the game. But it was love at first sight, and I learned fast. By the 10th grade I was good enough to make the varsity at Benjamin Franklin High School.

COACH: We know that you were named Public School League Player of the Year in 1951. How would you describe yourself as a player at that time? And don't be modest.

CHANEY: I was great! I was a Gary Payton-type point guard who loved to score. And because I was considered the best, I'd run around the city playing everyone one on one, and I don't remember anyone beating me. Not even Wilt Chamberlain!

When I was the Public School League's MVP in 1951, Tom Gola was the MVP of the Catholic League. He would become a four-time All-America at LaSalle and then a top pro.

At that time, the Big Five colleges in Philly would rarely accept black students. Most of them were commuter schools that only offered partial scholarships. I was so poor that I had to find an out-of-state all-black school that would help me.

COACH: Who was the major influence in your career at that time?

CHANEY: Sam Brown, my high school coach at Benjamin Franklin, was without doubt the biggest influence.

Sam was responsible for me playing basketball. He made sure I had tokens everyday for my long commute from South Philadelphia almost 20 miles away.

Like most youngsters in my neighborhood, the only thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life was play basketball.

Sam was more a mentor than a coach to me. He was a teacher at Ben Franklin, who happened to coach the basketball team, but knew little of the game's nuances. He also coached a national soccer team that traveled around Europe and South America 

He would take us away to summer camps in the country where we'd work and play ball. For all of us coming out of poor neighborhoods, the camps opened up a whole new world.

COACH: Were there any players you modeled yourself after as a youngster?

CHANEY: Not really. The only players I looked up to were on the periphery, like Joe Fulks and Paul Arizin.

The guys who made basketball popular in Philadelphia were my contemporaries like Wilt Chamberlain and Guy Rodgers. They were from my neighborhood, but I didn't copy from them, they copied from me! I was a junior in high school when Guy was a freshman and Wilt was still in junior high school.

All the great players staked a claim to their own schoolyard. Ernie Beck and Tom Gola played at La Salle H.S, and I "owned" the Barret schoolyard.

Kids in our neighborhood never identified with the NBA because the league had only six or seven teams at the time, and the Philadelphia Warriors had no black players.

The Warriors' first black player was Jackie Moore in 1954-55. But there was no real identity at that level for any of us. The first black player in the whole NBA, Chuck Cooper, broke the barrier in 1950 with the Boston Celtics, and the Knicks quickly followed with Sweetwater Clifton. But playing in the NBA was not much of an option for blacks in the '50s and so we gave it little thought.

COACH: How did you finally make it to college?

CHANEY: As I said, even after I was voted MVP in my high school league I didn't get any scholarship offers from the big colleges in Philly.

Bighouse Gaines from Winston-Salem came looking for me, but he was one-day late. I had already left to attend Bethune-Cookman College (an all-black school) in Daytona Beach, FL.

COACH: You made the NAIA All-American team at Bethune-Cookman. Did you get any offers from the NBA?

CHANEY: The Syracuse Nationals, who later became the Warriors, made me an offer, but I chose to play with the Harlem Globetrotters for $350 a month. That lasted about three months.

I then spent the next 10 years playing in the Eastern Pro League for Stan Novak, a former scout for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Jack Ramsay, who played and coached in the Eastern League before launching a Hall of Fame coaching career in the NCAA and then NBA.

Playing in the Eastern League allowed me to play on weekends and teach school during the week.

COACH: What was it like playing pro ball in the old Eastern League in the mid '60s?

CHANEY: Traveling during the winters months through Pennsylvania's mountain towns like Tamaqua and Williamsport was very dangerous.

The talent was tremendous. Sherman White, Andy Johnson, Sonny Hill, Bob Davies, Bill Spivey, the 7-2 center who was thrown out of college for cheating, and Jack Scott, the NBA's first black coach, all played. There were plenty of top-notch players because the Eastern League was the NBA's only other alternative.

As tough as it was I was happy to be playing. Old age or sickness never crosses your mind when you're young and playing basketball. Remember, I had no other aspirations. You never think it's going to end until someone kicks you in the butt and reminds you there's a future to think about.

I recognize in hindsight that the greatest thing that basketball did for me was get me a free education. I don't know where I'd be today without that education.

COACH: When did coaching enter your mind and how high was your ambition when you launched your school coaching career at Sayre Junior H.S. in 1964?

CHANEY: I never thought about coaching until I began teaching physical education at Sayre. Phys Ed teachers were given a sport to coach and I could choose from baseball, soccer, basketball, and gymnastics.

My zeal and zest, not necessarily my great mind, made me a successful basketball coach. I put in the energy and the effort and I ended up with a great record.

A teaching and coaching opportunity then opened up at Simon Gratz H.S and I was honored to accept it.

COACH: After three great years at Sayre and then six outstanding years at Simon Gratz H.S., you finally got your first major break as head college coach at Cheyney State. You put Cheyney way up at the top of the NCAA Division II basketball chart and won a national championship in 1978. What kind of offense and defense did you use in those big years between 1973 and 19827

CHANEY: I've always used the same offense and defense. Of course, the press made a lot of noise about my zone defense. But a lot of the great Philadelphia coaches had been playing zone for years. Harry Litwack played the 3-2 zone at Temple, Villanova's Al Severance and Jack Kraft played a great combination man-to-man/zone, and Jack Ramsay used the 2-2-1 full-court press zone at St. Joe's. Then you had LaSalle's Ken Loeffler, who used a more freewheeling, up-and-down style of play.

Frank McGuire, who had a major impact on me, used the 2-3 zone at South Carolina.

Coaches who were successful using the zone influenced me. I incorporated some of their philosophies and I believe mine has become the best.

COACH: You built a fabulous reputation as a tough, totally organized, strategic genius - or at least semi-genius - at Cheyney - and you never missed a step when Temple reached out for you in 1983. Is it true that you were the handpicked choice of the president of the University?

CHANEY: I know that a lot of people recommended me. I was 50 years old when I came to Temple but I wasn't looking for a job. Had Cheyney State offered me a full professorship- I wasn't looking for more money - I would have stayed.

I was very satisfied there. So was Vivian Stringer, the women's coach, who was also seeking a full professorship. She eventually moved to Iowa and then Rutgers.

Vivian and I were both named coaches of the year at least three times, named Pennsylvania Teachers of the Year, and made academic contributions on a national scale. We also taught in places like Argentina and Mexico. All we wanted was for the "assistant" to be removed from our professorship title, which they could have done.

COACH: You have had Temple up among the top ten practically every year since 1984 and everyone knows it has been with pure coaching - tough, hard-nosed intelligent coaching. And everyone is scared to death of your strangling zone defense. Can you tell us why you are still so totally sold on it - when the conventional wisdom is that you win with man-to-man and use the zone just as a change-up?

CHANEY: Man-to-man does not stop anybody. People get the idea that we slow the ball down. Wrong, we slow the opposition down.

When we get a chance to run, we will run. We will then get back in our zone defense and make it very difficult for the other guys to score. My philosophy is to stop you, and if you happen to have a door that's open, I will go through the door.

COACH: When did you start having 6:00 a.m. workouts during the season? What has been your thinking on this?

CHANEY: My early-morning practices began many years ago at Cheyney because the school's curriculum changed. Students used to have classes at the same time, which made scheduling an afternoon practice easy. Schools were smaller, classes ended at 3:00, and we could practice afterwards.

Temple, which has 35,000 students, and a medical, law and dental center, schedules classes morning, noon, and night. How can you have practice when classes are ending at all different times?

The best time for me is 5:008:00 a.m. so nobody misses their 8:30 class. My job is to get my kids through school. We provide tutors for two hours a night, four days a week, to help with their class load. Early morning practices also means getting to bed early, which means no chasing girls around.

COACH: What do you look for when you go out recruiting for your team?

CHANEY: Identifying youngsters with an attitude about pursuing goals and achieving success in life is a good first step. You don't want to recruit an athlete who has no aspirations.

Also, is the youngster willing to put in the extra hours to be successful and talented enough or has the potential to contribute four years to the program? That's very difficult. If the athlete does not want to become successful, he is going to hurt our program.

Identifying such kids is still difficult after all these years. You have to remember that youngsters are most influenced by their peers. The Columbine H.S. tragedy is the perfect example.

Educators talk about the parents' influence on their children. The easiest kind of youngster to mold is one with caring parents. Once that youngster turns 16 or 17, the greatest influence becomes his peers.

The greatest influence on me was bringing my friends into the house to meet my parents. My parents encouraged me to do this. They wanted to see the kind of company I was keeping. If I was keeping company with bad people, I could wind up like them.

COACH: Over the years, were there any particular coaches you looked up to, maybe borrowed from?

CHANEY: There are several coaches I look up to and feel real good about. John Thompson, Bighouse Gaines, Bob Knight, and Al McGuire are special to me. And I feel good knowing coaches like Pete Carril, John Wooden, and Nolan Richardson. They are very impressive in the ways they teach and deal with young adults.

COACH: How do you feel about the professional game? How much of it do you watch? Do you encourage your players to watch the pros as a learning experience - assuming there is anything left to learn after you are done coaching them?

CHANEY: I've had 15 players in the NBA. Still playing are the Hornets' Eddie Jones, the Sixers' Aaron McKie, the Knicks' Rick Brunson, and the Heat's Duane Causwell and Mark Strickland. I feel real good about them in more ways then one.

I am also a big Sixers fan because I love their coach, Larry Brown.

COACH: We've heard that for all the pleasures you take in shopping, you never wear the clothes you buy?

CHANEY: I have great ties, shoes and clothes, but I just look like a dog in them.

COACH: Is there any specific rule you'd like the NCAA to adopt for college basketball?

CHANEY: The NCAA needs to offer more access to youngsters who need an education. Closing the door and placing restrictions on them is a bad idea.

When you close a door on somebody, you destroy aspirations. It's better for a youngster to pursue goals and fail at it than it is never to be given a chance to try.

I don't miss teaching in the classroom because I still do so much teaching with my players every day. I think the best teaching is done on the elementary school level.