Gilman's gifts

Give Wayne Gilman an hour - or, rather, steal one from him - and he will coach out of you this urge to make too much of it.

Too much of what exactly?

Well, anything. Everything.

Too much of his record, the 500 victories, the championships. Too much of his stature, his contributions, his impact on kids.

Too much of the coaching moment he still recalls as the most painful of all - the one never reflected on any scoreboard, the one that catches in his throat more than a decade later.

And, yes, too much of the cancer.

It is not so much about self-effacement as it is about equanimity and balance, two cornerstones of the Gilman persona which will be sorely tested Monday night when hundreds of his friends gather at Ferris High School for the sole purpose of making a dignified fuss over a deserving man.

At the end of the 7 p.m. program, a plaque will be unveiled to forever hang in the gym. Gilman's name will not go above the door because, well, it's become the school district's policy not to make too much of the contribution of coaches.

It would be just Wayne Gilman's style to agree; the rest of us don't necessarily have to.

In his 18th year at Ferris, Gilman has come to be the coaching standard for Spokane high school basketball in his era that Squinty Hunter and Dave Robertson were in theirs - yet in a way that transcends his gaudy record and all those banners.

To qualify as legendary, you must be larger than life. Wayne Gilman's legend has endured as more of an Everyman.

Before he grabbed his Ferris lifeline, he was in some jeopardy of being fired. In the middle of all this winning, there was a 2-18 season. Devoted beyond a doubt to his program, he'll be seen just as often at a Ferris concert, or a volleyball game, or a play.

Blessed at this point of his career with his most talented team, he is also in a desperate fight with colon cancer. And so the blessing is even more pronounced.

"It's a wonderful gift I have," he said. "The challenge will be to make sure we don't screw it up."

Among more sobering challenges, Gilman conceded.

The circumstances of Gilman's ar rival at Ferris deserve another retelling. He was the school's fifth coach in six years. A few weeks before the start of practice in 1983, Glenn Smith informed the school he would not return after guiding the Saxons to their best Greater Spokane League finish ever.

So chaotic were things at Ferris that seniors Wayne Tinkle and Scott Reid were delegated the tasks of ordering shoes for the team, and organizing the open-gym workouts.

And in Moses Lake, Wayne Gilman rolled the dice.

After playing at Eastern Washington, he had been a successful coach at Cascade Union High School outside of Salem, Ore. - winning a state championship there. But in five years at Moses Lake, Gilman's teams had won just 30 of 107 games.

"Basically, I found out they weren't that sorry to see me go," he said. "It was, `You know, Wayne, maybe that's what you ought to do.' They hadn't ever told me my job was in jeopardy, but if I'd stayed much longer, I would have been out of coaching - either by their doing or mine."

Could his new players have been thinking the same thing?

"I'm sure they were a little apprehensive," Gilman said. "The question was asked of them in the newspaper and one of their fears was that they would get a `junkie' coach - and I don't think they meant basketball junkie."

By season's end, fear had been replaced by an uncommon regret.

"He reminds me of Gene Hackman in `Hoosiers' without the ripyour- head-off side," said Tinkle, the 6-foot-9 center Gilman inherited and sent on to college at Montana and the professional leagues of Europe. "We were so upset we didn't get to state that year and it wasn't for ourselves - it was for him.

"I envy the kids after me. I'm jealous I only had one year."

That was the first of Gilman's nine GSL titles, and he can match a highlight or a turning point to all of those teams - and the ones which came up short, too.

As important as titles, though, are the teachable moments. And sometimes the best of those come when the teacher is the student.

"Sometimes," Gilman said, "we can coach to the point where we lessen what a good player can do."

His example dates back to 1988, when the Saxons were running the share-and-share-alike flex offense.

"We got to the semifinals at state and Marysville just shut us down - we couldn't score against them," he said. "We're down 19 in the second quarter and at halftime, I tell the kids we just need to start setting some screens for Chris Sheeks. He had a great second half and we won in overtime to go into the championship game. That was a turning point for me - learning that we need to allow our players to display their abilities."

Not surprisingly, the supply of players who want to display their abilities - as at many high schools - outstrips the demand.

"The hardest day of every year is cut day," Gilman acknowledged. "You know that anybody who comes out for the team is taking a risk. And if he doesn't make it, people will say he's a loser, that sort of thing. So you empathize with every kid who doesn't make it."

Sometimes, empathy doesn't cover it.

Like the time Wayne Gilman cut his son.

Jason Gilman was a sophomore who had been a fifth-quarter player as a freshman and "didn't have super-high expectations," he said, "but thought I had a chance at least. Probably my opinion of my skills was inflated."

Posting a list of the survivors is the usual protocol. Gilman, however, has a private meeting with each player cut.

Jason Gilman got the word at home.

"I went back to my room and cried," he said.

Wayne Gilman heard every sob.

Dads have coached their sons since the ball had laces, and you wonder who would have even raised an eyebrow had Gilman kept Jason on the JV roster.

The obvious answer: Gilman.

"He follows the letter of the rule," said his son, who served as the team manager for three years and now assists as a volunteer.

"I remember a game when we played a JV player five quarters and he didn't know about it until he went back and watched the tape. He called up the other coach right then and forfeited the game. Even when it's tough, you do the right thing."

For Wayne Gilman, the right thing of late has been to make sure his life wasn't being defined by the shadow which has followed him since January, when he was diagnosed with cancer - inoperable, deadly and cruelly swift.

"With treatment, the average life span is about a year, and I'll count every day after January as a bonus," he said. "There are miracles out there and people do survive longer than the average - that's what gives you an average. And while I feel like I'm ready to accept what lies ahead for me, I'm also hopeful that it won't be tomorrow."

He wants to see his daughter, Kristen, graduate from high school. He hopes to see her off to college with his wife, Sue.

But mostly, plans are made and memories are built day-by-day, not unlike a basketball team.

Ask Gilman to explain his success at Ferris and he'll deflect the credit to the talent of his players - though, curiously, that talent level rarely crested at his school until he arrived.

There must be something to that, no?

"My first college coach, Ernie McKie, didn't recruit so well for college," Gilman reasoned, with trademark self-deprecation. "I mean, he had me.

"But he was a great high school coach who went back into it after he left Eastern, at West Linn near Portland. He was always in the top five at state. They did it with a system and discipline and, yeah, a couple of unethical things along the way - like rattlesnaking. That's hitting the shooter's elbow. He told me when I was playing for him I had two weeks to learn how to rattlesnake or I could forget it. So I learned how, but I would never teach it.

"But I'd watch his teams play and think, `If he was coaching my team, they'd be doing better than they are.' I knew he was the better coach. And maybe every coach feels that way sometimes, I don't know."

What he didn't do, obviously, was make too much of that feeling. If he had, we wouldn't have the opportunity now to make too much of Wayne Gilman, which in this case is little enough.

Copyright 2000 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.