Pitchin with Pritch: Could I ever really pick a favorite?

After talking about the 1966 State Championship team, I was asked a few times this past week which team did you have that you would consider the best team of my career. I have thought about that before, and I have realized that I was pretty lucky in my coaching career.

I have also told numerous people that have talked to me about the various teams that we have had that I was pretty lucky but not too smart. Because I did have a number of years here as a head coach, some people just assume that I had the Jackman, Young and others to coach. 

I point out to them that not being the smartest guy around, I chose to be gone during all those guys playing careers here. 

Five Jackman boys and all of them but one played on a state championship team and Ryan Young, the leading scorer in the history here, were not my players. There were a lot of games won here during that time I spent in Cozad, Imperial and owning the local hardware store. 

I did get to coach Jim Jackman in an All-Star game one year but that was my only contact with the Jackman boys in regards to basketball. 

I did, however, have good players and the ones that were on state championship squads had a lot of good qualities that make teams successful.  

The 1966 group and again I was the Assistant Coach to Bill Ramsay on that team was a hard-working group of guys that had talent but played well together and were smart and they played hard. 

My first team as a head coach was the 1968 team and I have always felt they possessed some of the same qualities as the ‘66 team. We were not the tallest team around, we were not the fastest team around, but again we played together, played smart and played hard. 

I don’t know if I would say they were my favorite team or not but I think most coaches feel that if they get a state championship team, there is always a spot in your heart thinking that the first time is maybe the best. 

But I will add very quickly, it felt pretty good the second time and the third time also. 

The 1989 and 1990 teams were special because we won back-to-back state- championships and the 1990 team went through the whole year rated number one in the World-Herald and Lincoln papers. 

Those two teams had some of the best athletes that I was lucky enough to have in my career. 

They also played smart, played hard and played together. You might have guessed that those three things were preached a lot with every team we had. 

Play Hard, Play Smart and Play Together. 

I think I got that from a clinic I had gone to and one of the speakers was Dean Smith the long- time coach at North Carolina and he preached that those were the keys to success. 

We had other teams that were skilled that didn’t win it all and that especially on the day of the tournament finals was a big disappointment, but after thinking about it later in my life, it should not have been a disappointment. 

Our 1991 team was undefeated and lost in the state finals to Lincoln Christian. 

That was one of the toughest losses that I had as a coach. It has taken a long time for me to get over that because it was a really good team and it would have meant that we would have won the football state championship and the basketball state championship three years in a row. 

But we didn’t get it done. The season was a really good one but I have to admit I have only watched the tape of that game one time. 

We had another good team that was a state runner up in the late 1990s. One year we were undefeated and got beat in the districts by Hershey after we had beaten them twice during the year. 

I had a pretty talented group that year. The one thing that made it hurt just a little bit less was the fact that Hershey went to Lincoln and won a state championship. 

I haven’t watched our game with Hershey either! 

I think the original question was “Which team was your best?” and I don’t really know. 

I think any of them would have been very competitive against any other of the state champions that came from PCHS. 

All of the teams in the 60s through the 90s were competitive groups. It would have been fun to watch the games.  

On another sad note, we lost another former player this past week as we got the news that Wade Wilson passed away. 

Wade played for me in the 90s and he was one of the kids that grew up on our block when we lived back 5 blocks on Hancock. 

That was the block that had the Pritchetts, the Behrens, the Wilson and the Stritt kids. Our back basketball area was busy with those guys and anyone else that wandered in and wanted play, our grass had the bases that were grass-less where they played baseball when they were younger kids and our doors were always open for the kids and their friends. 

Wade was in his 40s and again the old coach should leave this earth before any of his former players. 

It was another sad news day. RIP young man.