basketball coach
Personal Information
Born Leonard Randolph Wilkens, October 28, 1937, in Brooklyn, NY; son of a chauffeur and a candy factory worker; married Marilyn; children: Leesha, Randy, Jamee.
Education: Providence College, B.A., 1960. Military service: U.S. Army, 1961-62, became second lieutenant.
Career
Athlete, coach. St. Louis Hawks, basketball player, 1960-68; Seattle SuperSonics, player-coach, 1968-72, head coach, 1978-85, general manager, 1985-86; Cleveland Cavaliers, basketball player, 1972-74, head coach, 1986-93; Portland Trail Blazers, player-coach, 1974-76. U.S. Olympic basketball team, assistant coach, 1992, head coach, 1996; Atlanta Hawks, head coach, 1993--.
Life's Work
On January 6, 1995, Lenny Wilkens became the National Basketball Association's (NBA) all-time leader in coaching victories. Wilkens's milestone--a phenomenal 939 wins in 22 seasons as an NBA coach--places him at the top of a list that includes such basketball luminaries as Red Auerbach, Dick Motta, and Jack Ramsay. What is most remarkable about Wilkens, however, is the fact that he has achieved in such spectacular fashion while never quite becoming a national superstar. As Newsday reporter Shaun Powell put it, Wilkens "is not larger than life; he is grounded to earth.... He wins quietly. He loses quietly. Whenever he moved from one team to another, he tip-toed.... There is very little about Wilkens that screams. Not his tone. Not his gestures. Not even his neckties."
Indeed, Wilkens has only one NBA championship to his credit, having spent his career coaching such second-tier teams as the Cleveland Cavaliers, Seattle SuperSonics, and Atlanta Hawks. Few underestimate his abilities, though, especially since he has crafted playoff-caliber teams from franchises that were expected to crash and burn. "I used to kid that I was the NBA's best-kept secret," Wilkens told Newsweek. "But I'm in control. I know what the hell I want to do."
"Dignified" is the word most often associated with Wilkens. In a league that too often values flash over substance, the impeccably attired coach who drills his players incessantly on their assignments is "a genuine role model," remarked Mark Starr in Newsweek. This ability to maintain a professional demeanor in a volatile sport is part of the secret to Wilkens's longevity as a coach. His other major strength is empathy--he himself was a professional basketball player who made the Hall of Fame at the end of his 15-year playing career. "I relate to people," Wilkens told Newsday. "I know what young players are going through. I understand their backgrounds. I didn't come from anything either, so I've been there."
Leonard Randolph Wilkens was born October 28, 1937, in the Bedford- Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. Almost from birth he faced extreme difficulties, the kind of character tests that force children to grow up quickly. Wilkens's father was black; his mother was white. He often faced the taunts of other children and--even more disturbing--the rude stares and insolent remarks of racist adults. Wilkens was still a preschooler when his father, a chauffeur, died suddenly. Leonard, as the oldest of four children, was called upon at the tender age of five to be the "man of the family."
The Wilkens children grew up in a Brooklyn tenement, supported only by the wages their mother earned by working in a candy factory. Whatever emotions the young Leonard felt, he kept them to himself while working hard in school and staying out of trouble. "I couldn't have sympathy," Wilkens told Sports Illustrated. "I couldn't trust. I couldn't get involved with people because then I'd have to feel. What scared me so much was seeing no one going out of their way to help my mother and family after my father died. Seeing people look down their noses at us. You realize that no one really cares. So how do you get through? You start building the wall. You never let anyone know what's inside. It sounds awful now to say I'd never cry."
Wilkens took his first job, delivering groceries, at the age of seven. In his spare time he played basketball with various youth leagues in the Brooklyn area. Once Wilkens learned the mechanics of the game, he became a star player. A priest named Tom Mannion, a longtime family friend, persuaded Wilkens to play for the Boys High School team as a senior. There Wilkens made enough of a mark to win an athletic scholarship to Providence College, a Catholic university in Rhode Island.
One of six blacks in a school with 1,200 students, Wilkens often felt the slights of racism. He learned to get even by perfecting his basketball game, honing his skills until he became an effective point guard and a brilliant defender. "There were people looking at me like I was some kind of insect," Wilkens recalled of his college years. "People who assumed that because I was from Bed-Stuy, I was carrying a knife or gun. One drop of black blood in this country ... and you're tainted. If I let that hurt me, who has the anxiety? Me. I was not going to let anyone hurt me or make me feel anxious. I'd learned something by then. If I could control myself, I could make them feel anxious." Majoring in economics, Wilkens earned his bachelor's degree in 1960. In his senior season at Providence, his basketball team reached the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) finals, and he was named tournament Most Valuable Player. Even so, he was passed over for the U.S. Olympic basketball team.
Wilkens received several offers after graduation, including more than one to play professional basketball. He chose to join the NBA after the St. Louis Hawks picked him sixth in the first round of the 1960 draft. Though being drafted that highly in the 1990s guaranteed multimillion dollar contracts, the Hawks' won his services with a salary of $8,000 and a signing bonus of $1,500.
Wilkens became a starter as a rookie and threw his energy into his basketball game. Off the court he was considered aloof by teammates and fans alike. His natural reticence was heightened by the abundant racism he and his new wife, Marilyn, encountered in the suburb of St. Louis to which they had moved shortly after he joined the team. Asked about those days by Sports Illustrated, Wilkens said: "I was learning to watch people, to read eyes and body language. I never let anyone know what I was thinking or feeling. I worked at that. I really didn't care if people misread me. If I read them and they misread me, it's to my advantage."
Within two years Wilkens had established himself as a perennial all-star, one whose considerable reputation rested upon his ability as a team player rather than a star in his own right. In ten years between 1963 and 1973 he was voted to nine All-Star teams, and in 1968 he finished second in the NBA's Most Valuable Player voting to Wilt Chamberlain. That same year the Hawks moved to Atlanta. When the new team owner could not negotiate a satisfactory contract with Wilkens, the enigmatic player was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics, a second-year expansion team with little chance of becoming a playoff contender. What seemed like an outright banishment became a golden opportunity for Wilkens. As the 1969-70 season began, Wilkens was asked to be player-coach for the struggling SuperSonics.
Wilkens had never coached a game before, but he began to implement the fundamentals that had made his own playing career so successful--emphasis on defense, passing, and executing assignments correctly. Under his guidance, the SuperSonics turned in a 47-35 record in the 1971-72 season, their first-ever winning year. The following season found Wilkens with the Cleveland Cavaliers as a player only, but in 1974 he moved to the Portland Trail Blazers, again as a player-coach. He was released in 1976, and for some time contemplated finding another line of work altogether. Instead, he returned to Seattle as head coach midway through the 1977-78 season.
The SuperSonics were 5-17 when Wilkens took over in 1977. By season's end the team had compiled a 47-35 record and made it all the way to the NBA championship finals where they lost to the Washington Bullets in seven games. Despite leading the team through its dramatic turnaround, Wilkens was overlooked in Coach of the Year balloting. The following season, the SuperSonics not only reached the NBA finals, but also won the championship by beating the Bullets in only five games. Again, for reasons that more than one observer considered racist, Wilkens was not honored with the Coach of the Year award. Sports Illustrated contributor Gary Smith wrote of Wilkens: "He's a man fated to exist in the NBA's outback.... And some will wonder if it's Lenny who's drawn to obscurity, or obscurity to Lenny."
The dedicated coach was not quite as unfamiliar as all that. After coaching the SuperSonics for eight years and serving as general manager for another season, he joined the Cleveland Cavaliers as head coach in June of 1986. He spent seven seasons with Cleveland, transforming the franchise from one that won only 29 games in 1985-86 to a playoff qualifier with more than 50 victories in five of his last six seasons. Wilkens's misfortune in Cleveland can be summed up with one name: superstar player Michael Jordan. The Cavaliers met Jordan and his Chicago Bulls four times in the Eastern Conference playoffs and were eliminated each time.
In 1993 Wilkens decided to retire from the Cavaliers even though he had another year remaining on his contract. He was not idle long. The Atlanta Hawks signed him to a five-year, $6.5 million contract as head coach, thus extending his career into a third decade. In Atlanta he continued his largely-unheralded winning ways, taking a franchise that was expected to have a mediocre year at best and transforming it into a playoff contender with a 57-25 record and the Central Division championship. Finally, as the 1993-94 season came to an end, Wilkens gained the honor that had eluded him for so long--he was named Coach of the Year.
Another major milestone occurred early in 1995 when the Hawks brought Wilkens his 939th career victory, surpassing by one game the legendary Red Auerbach, who led the Boston Celtics in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Wilkens now holds records for having participated in more games as a player and/or head coach than anyone else in league history as well as contributing to more victories than anyone in NBA history. The coach says he wants to win 1,000 games before he quits. At the end of the 1995 season, he was only 32 games away from that goal with several years remaining on his contract. "The satisfaction is that only one person can be number one at a time," Wilkens told the Washington Post after breaking Auerbach's record. "It's a great thing to win a championship, and I hope to do that again. But it's great to be on top of an individual thing. I may not be there very long, but I got there."
Other honors have helped to elevate Wilkens's visibility as well. In 1990 he was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for his exploits as a player. In 1992 he travelled to Barcelona, Spain as assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team. The "Dream Team," as it was popularly known, marched unscathed to the gold medal.
Shortly after the Olympics Wilkens had a brush with serious illness. Wilkens ripped an Achilles tendon during a pickup basketball game in Barcelona. As the injury healed, blood clots from his leg found their way into his lungs, forcing him into the hospital and seriously jeopardizing his life. "I think that was the first time I realized my own mortality," Wilkens told the Akron Beacon Journal. "I was always healthy. Now I see how fragile it is. I felt vulnerable."
Since his recovery Wilkens has tried to relax more and has taken an immense enjoyment in his career and the achievements of his various teams. The most recent team under his direction will be the 1996 U.S. Olympic team that will play in the games in Atlanta. Wilkens was named Olympic head coach at the end of the 1995 NBA season. His longevity as a coach is all the more remarkable considering the obstacles presented by his race. Wilkens was only the second black man hired to coach an NBA team, he has outlasted numerous competitors, both black and white. Wilkens finds it amusing that some of the players he coaches are not even familiar with his career as a player. For Wilkens, however, recognition has never been as important as winning. According to Mark Starr in Newsweek, the winningest NBA coach in history "has earned the respect of two decades' worth of NBA players by being patient, by being demanding and by asking no more of his players than he asked of himself.... Nothing can detract from Wilkens's historic accomplishment. He has proved himself a man for all seasons, not just any one."
Awards
Inducted into Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, 1990; named 1994 coach of the year by Basketball Weekly, The Sporting News, Basketball Digest, and National Basketball Association (NBA). Participated in nine NBA All-Star games as player, four as coach.
Further Reading
Sources
- Akron Beacon Journal, February 17, 1993, p. 1C.
- Black Enterprise, April 1995, p. 20.
- Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1994, p. 3.
- Detroit Free Press, January 7, 1995, p. 4B.
- Jet, May 15, 1995, p. 47.
- Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1995, p. 6C.
- Newsday, October 30, 1994, p. 28.
- Newsweek, November 21, 1994, p. 103.
- Sports Illustrated, December 5, 1994, p. 68-78.
- Upscale, June/July, 1995, p. 94.
- Washington Post, May 17, 1993, p. 6C; January 21, 1994, p. 8C; January 7, 1995, p. 1H.
— Mark Kram
