View full sizeBob GaillardWhen Bob Gaillard thinks back on the hundreds of players who have passed through Lewis & Clark in his 22 years as head basketball coach he often finds himself wondering where they would be if he hadn't recruited them and they hadn't come to play for him.
This week, as he prepares for his final games as the Pioneers head coach, a better question might be where Lewis & Clark's basketball program would be without him.
Gaillard used the same skills he showed in molding the University of San Francisco into a powerhouse in the late 1970s to revitalize a Lewis & Clark program that had fallen on hard times and turn it into a perennial contender. He led the Pioneers to five consecutive trips to the NAIA Division II National Championship Tournament, and then after a year of transition to NCAA Division III, quickly re-established his team as a national contender.
When he steps down at the end of this season Gaillard, 70, will do so as the winningest coach in school history and one of only a handful of coaches with more than 500 career wins. Sitting in his office, surrounded by mementos of his coaching career, Gaillard declared his time on Palatine Hill a "total success."
"How many people can say they got up every morning and went to a place that was paying you to do exactly what you love to do?" he asked. "Lewis & Clark afforded me an opportunity to max that out. I can't imagine a better scenario."
Dinari Foreman played on Gaillard's 1993-94 team that reached the NAIA Final Four and will take over head coaching responsibilities next year after spending the past nine years as an assistant. He called Gaillard a father figure and "probably the smartest person I've ever known."
"People don't quite understand what they have or had here in Coach Gaillard," he said. "He can make a call and get just about anything you or anyone else would need because everyone lines up to try to help (him). He doesn't ask but people offer just because of the person he is."
Since running one of the first basketball clinics held in Europe, in Italy in 1976, Gaillard has coached in Japan, China, the Philippines and almost every European country. Photos with luminaries from John Wooden to Arvydas Sabonis to U.S. diplomats are testament to the goodwill he has earned and the connections he has developed.
View full sizeDinari Foreman Those connections helped players like Foreman and Brooks Meek land jobs playing professionally overseas. Meek repaid the favor by including Gaillard in a series of foreign clinics he organized after his playing career.
Meek, now the NBA's Vice President of Basketball Operations International, didn't hesitate in identifying what made Gaillard so successful.
"Coach Gaillard is one of the most competitive people I've ever met," he said. "His competiveness, his drive, his passion to win is what has made him the coach he is and has given him the ability to coach for so long."
The death of former Trail Blazer Maurice Lucas last October served as a cold reminder to Gaillard of exactly how long he has been coaching. Lucas was the first player Gaillard recruited.
"It's ridiculous how long I've been doing this," he said.
When he considered just how long he has been coaching and the fact that his wife, Sally, has been battling cancer for the past two years, Gaillard decided it was time to turn it in.
After this season, Gaillard will move to Peoria, Ariz. Sally has been living there and receiving treatment at the Mayo Center in Scottsdale. He reports that she is doing well. His iPhone is already set to give him updates on the Arizona weather and he is looking forward to playing tennis with his son, Tim.
Gaillard is as serious about his tennis as he is basketball. Despite nine knee surgeries and a torn elbow tendon he hits thousands of balls each week and travels to play in tournaments with Tim. The father-son team is ranked fourth in the nation among Super Senior-Father-Son teams.
It's that competitiveness that has many around Gaillard wondering how long he'll be able to remain retired.
"I know one thing," Foreman said. "People are going to want him to get back in to coaching. If he makes it more than two years (without coaching) then I'll be pretty surprised and pretty impressed."
Even Gaillard admitted he wasn't sure what his future holds.
"I've never not worked," he said. "Without being immodest, if you're good at something it's hard not to want to continue to impart knowledge. I'm a teacher. I want to impart knowledge."
-- Ian Ruder, Special to The Oregonian