PHILADELPHIA– The Gallagher Center, on the leafy campus of Philadelphia University will never rival the Garden with its bigger than life moments in college basketball.
When Duke defeated St. John’s Jan. 25 before a sellout crowd of 18,500 and 67-year old Mike Krzyzewski became the first men’s NCAA coach to achieve his 1,000th career victory, it became headline news on ESPN SportsCenter.
Two weeks later, 73-year old Herb Magee became the second NCAA coach to reach that mountainous milestone when he won his 1,000th career victory when the Rams defeated Post of Connecticut, 80-60, last Saturday in a Division II game at the sold out, 1,250 seat gymnasium on Henry Ave. in the East Falls section of the city.
Other than the local TV stations and newspapers who understand that Magee, a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, is a local treasure, it may have gone unnoticed throughout most of the country. But when the school unveiled the brown and white banner that celebrated 1,000 and paralled the one honoring Magee’s Aug. 11, 2011 induction into Naismith, it was a moment that was just as cherished to Magee’s wife Geri, his brother Chaz, his two daughters and his grand daughters.
Some 50 of Magee’s former players were also in attendance, making the pilgrimage to the shrine Magee created as a two-time small college All America, an assistant to Bucky Harris and and a head coach at his alma mater for 48 years.
“Three years ago, any part of my ego that wasn’t satisfied was satisfied when I was inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Magee said. “Nothing can touch that as far as you are concerned as an individual. But this is a tremendous team goal. Not that I set out trying to make the Hall of Fame and win 1,000 games but there are two things right there I’m very proud of.”
Gallagher was packed and dignities sitting in the front row included former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who lives in the neighborhood, and Phillies’ executive David Montgomery. Two sets of students painted their chests “#MAGEE1K!,” the other “HERB.”
“We Are The Champions” blared from the loudspeaker in celebration, and students rushed the court.
Magee didn’t really celebrate, going right over to shake hands with the Post coach and players. He was then swarmed by TV cameras and did a live shot with ESPN. Then he took the mike and thanked the students for their support.
Philly U. will never be mistaken for Duke, where Krzyzewski’s annual salary is $9 million. Magee doesn’t even have a fjull time assistant and his recruiting budget is just $2,500. His daughter Kay, the team’s unpaid director of basketball operations, does the team laundry.
Both the men’s and women’s teams travel on the same bus to road games. After one game in the region, the teams ordered pizza for trip home, but forget soft drinks. Magee had the bus pull over. He jumped off, hopped over a median, ran across several lanes of traffic and popped into a convenience store. He came back with enough sodas for both teams. When he walked back into the bus, he turned to the women’s coach and said, “I betcha Coach K doesn’t do this (crap)!”
Magee, for the record has never met coach K.
But if his daughter Kay had her way, the two 1,000 win coaches would meet in an exhibition game next year in Durham.
“That’d be tremendous,” Magee told Fox Sports. Then he paused. “As long as that guy Okafor leaves for the draft. I don’t want to play against him.”
Both K and the King belong to the same exclusive club.There are only five NCAA or NAIA men’s and women’s coaches who have won 1,000 games– Danny Miles of Oregon Tech, Pat Summitt of Tennessee, Harry Statham of McKendree University, Krzyzewski and Magee. In the junior college ranks, Gene Bess of Three Rivers Community College has over 1,200 wins.
“Pat Summitt, Mike Krzyzewski. That’s a lot of good names there. There is a tremendous team goal, not that I set out to make the Hall of Fame or win 1,000 games.
Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, the 69-year old Hall of Fame coach who has 963 wins in 39 years, is likely to join the club as is UNC women;’s coach Sylvia Hatchell (954), C.Vivian Stringer of Rutgers (952), Tara Vanderveer of Stanford (941), Andy landers of Georgia (940), Barb Stevens of Bentley (926) and UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma (902). All of the woman’s coaches, with the exception of Auriemma, have coached for at least 34 years. This is Auriemma’s 29th season at UConn.
Rick Pitino of Louisville has 714 wins in 30 years and might have had a chance if he hasn’t spent six years in the NBA.
John Calipari of Kentucky, who has 578 wins in 23 years, might have had a chance too, if he hadn’t spent four years in the NBA and had 42 wins and 2 losses vacated by the NCAA. His career record would be 620–177 with the vacated games.
Herb Magee is a lifer, arguably the greatest pure shooter in the history of Philadelphia college basketball, along with NCAA 1956 Final Four MVP Hal Lear of Temple He grew up in West Philadelphia, where he learned to shoot line drive jumpers at St. Francis De Sales CYO, in a tiny gym with its low ceiling. He would sneak into the gym at 5 in the morning and put up 500-to-1000 shots a day, charting all his misses.
Magee’s parents both died when he was young and he was raised by an uncle who was a priest. Magee was a playground legend who always wanted to play for the late Dr.Jack Ramsay at St. Joseph’s when he played for West Catholic’s 1959 Catholic League championship team, but Ramsay took his high school teammates Jimmy Lynam and the late Jimmy Boyle instead.and Magee found his way to a tiny school that was then known as Philadelphia Textile. ‘Bucky recruited my uncle.and did a good job,” he said.. “I wanted to play in the city and my uncle said to me, “Okay, Herb, this is where you’re going. You’re going to play for Mr. Harris.’ It was great. Bucky let me shoot whenever I wanted to once I came onto campus.”
Magee was a 5-10, 150-pound guard who scored 2,235 points before the introduction of the three point shot and lead his team to 75 victories. He was a two time All American who was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1963. However, he broke his fingers before training camp.
Magee he wasn’t going to crack a backcourt that included future Hall of Famers Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, KC Jones, Sam Jones, but coaching was in his blood by the time he graduated. He was all set to take a 9-to-5 job at a chemical company when Harris offered him a newly created position of assistant. coach at his alma mater. “I was also teaching phys’ ed classes, coaching tennis, coaching intramurals. Four years later, after Bucky retired in 1967, I was the head coach.”
Magee was only 25 at the time.
Three years later, in 1970, he won a Division II national championship, winning 28 straight games with local kids who were just like him, bypassed over by the Big 5..”Back then, there was no AAU and you could steal a kid that normally would be recruited by Division I schools,” Magee said. “John Pierantozzi, Jim McGilvery, Mike Lynam, Carlton Poole, Mike O’Rourke, Bruce Shivley, Carlton Poole. They were all from 10-15 miles from here.” Textile beat a Tennessee State team with future NBA players Ted McCain and Loyld Neal in the finals at Evansville.
Magee was was offered nuimerous opportunities to coach in Division I and the NBA, but he was happy on the campus he now calls home, becoming a beloved member of a local coaching fraternity that included diseased Big 5 Hall of Famers like Ramsay, Harry Litwack and John Chaney of Temple and Kenny Lefler of La Salle. “It’s my place, my school,” Magee said. “They gave me an opportunity to play here and they created a position for me to be an assistant coach. I have had no desire to ever leave. We used to play at Althouse Hall and we only had 350 students at the time and they all came to the game.”
Magee has never changed. He established Textile as a Division II power long before it changed its name to Philly U in 1999, coachng the Rams to 27 NCAA Division II tournament appearances.
He is still the king, the shot doctor who routinely made 100 straight free throws at camp and made a shot from halfcourt through the rafters at Howard Garfinkel;’s 5 Star camp in the Poconos. He has built a reputation for working with players like Charles Barkley, Jameer Nelson and Sebastian Telfair on their jump shots.
This season seemed to go in a slow motion. “At the beginning of the season, they put a banner up there with the count down– 15, 14, 13 . . . That’s a reminder,” Magee said. Time seems to drag this past week. Magee needed two tries after the Rams (15-6, 9-3 Central Athletic Collegiate Conference) lost earlier to Wilmington, 73-71, at home. The Rams looked like they might have to wait a little longer after falling behind 23-11 to Post early in the game. But then the Rams came to life, switching to zone and draining 12 of 22 threes. Forward Derrck Johnson made four and finished with 20 points. Guard Nick Schlitzer made 5 of 6 and scored 18.
“Relief. I don’t make that up,” Magee said. “That’s the way I felt. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you. It’s been a tough situation because the hype is there and everyone is pulling for us as a team but they’re really pulling for me to get 1,000 wins because they know how important it is. so it means a lot.
“It also means my mother in -law can come back. After we lost to wilmkington, she vowed that she would never come back. But she did. She actually told me she said the rosary. so I’m sure that’s a big reason why she came back.”
When Saturday’s press conference commemorating his latest milestone was coming to an end, it dawned on Magee that he probably wouldn’t see many of the media members in attendance for a while, perhaps until he reaches 1,100 victories. “See you in a few years, fellas,” he said as he walked off the stage and off into the background, where he could go back and teach the game.
