Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 5, 1993 TAG: 9306050247
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
He hasn't been forgotten at VMI.
Blair, an NBA assistant for most of the past 12 seasons, returned to Lexington on Friday and was greeted by the entire starting lineup and many of the reserves from his VMI team that reached the final eight of the NCAA Tournament in 1976.
"The man was like a father to me," said Ron Carter, a two-time Southern Conference player of the year, who came from Los Angeles for the reunion. "I'd go to the ends of the earth for him."
Blair didn't have as far to travel - he just completed his seventh full season with the Washington Bullets - but it was his first trip to Lexington "since a football game seven or eight years ago," he said.
Blair, looking fit after December angioplasty to clear a blocked artery, was the featured speaker Friday night at the annual Keydet Club Leadership Outing. He planned to talk about his NBA experiences, but he had plenty of VMI stories with which to regale the contributors.
"It was a special time for me and a special team," said Blair, who played on the first VMI team to win a Southern Conference basketball championship, in 1964, and coached the second. "I'd compare it to what happened at Navy with David Robinson.
"I would have enjoyed coaching them [the sophomore class that included Ron Carter and Dave Montgomery] for their last two years."
Blair left VMI after the 1976 season for the University of Colorado, where he was the head coach for five seasons. It was during his Colorado tenure that Blair got to know Larry Brown, then the coach of the Denver Nuggets.
"I really liked what I saw of pro ball - the [24-second] clock and all that stuff," Blair said. "Jumping ahead a few years, when Larry left UCLA, we were still very close. He said, `I'm going to the pros. Would you like to go?' It wasn't a situation where I had to go or I was being pushed out of Colorado."
Blair spent two years with the New Jersey Nets, serving as interim head coach for two weeks following Brown's departure for the University of Kansas in 1983, then worked under Kevin Loughery for two years in Chicago.
"My only regret about pro ball is that I would have liked to be a head coach [for a full season]," Blair said. "I just haven't had the opportunity. I haven't gotten a raw deal; it's just that you have to be with a winner. Had we stayed with Michael [Jordan], I think I would have been a head coach real quick."
Blair's last season in Chicago was Jordan's first. Loughery and Blair surfaced one year later in Washington when Gene Shue was fired, with Blair remaining on the staff when Wes Unseld replaced Loughery.
"Not many coaches have been around that long," said Blair, who has outlasted every NBA head coach who started the 1985-86 season, "but if we don't start winning, I'll be around maybe one more year. If Wes weren't so close to the owner [Abe Pollin], it would be tough."
The Bullets posted the third-worst record (22-60) in the NBA during the 1992-93 season; however, improvement may be slow because they were assigned the sixth position in the NBA draft lottery.
"It's incredible," Blair said. "We were supposed to be third [based on probability]. Last year, we were supposed to be fourth and we drafted sixth. The thing that's wrong is the three worst teams should be in the lottery and that's it."
Blair said the Bullets are looking at Wake Forest forward Rodney Rogers and perimeter players Calbert Cheaney from Indiana and J.R. Rider from Nevada-Las Vegas, because it is unlikely there will be any centers available who can take the pressure off Pervis Ellison.
"You can't win without people," Blair said. "We've had people hurt - I don't want to go through it all - but you can't just coach a team to 50 victories."
Blair said he does not second-guess any of the career moves he has made, but he realizes that VMI's success came in an age when college basketball wasn't on TV constantly.
"Dick Vitale would have made me into a genius," he said, "but I was so wrapped up in [the coaching] that I didn't realize what had happened until afterward. I didn't appreciate it at the time."
One of the fruits of Blair's labors was Cameron Hall, which opened in 1981. Before then, VMI played in 2,800-seat Memorial Field House, fondly known as "the Pit."
"I might ride by it on the way out of town," Blair said. "That was a great place, a great place to have teams to come in and play against you. Especially when you've got a good team. Especially that."
by CNB