Sporting Chance

Not too many fans know that basketball coaches Tim Cone and Jeff Van Gundy share a common background. They both played under the fearsome Bud Presley at Menlo Junior College in the Bay Area and learned the basics of pressure defense from the chair-kicking, irascible Bobby Knight coach-alike.

Cone, 42, played for the Menlo varsity in 1976-77 and 1977-78 then enrolled at George Washington University.

Van Gundy, 38, saw action for Menlo before moving to Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, in 1983. The New York Knicks coach played two years at Nazareth where he earned a history degree, magna cum laude, in 1985.

Curiously, Van Gundy's resume in the Knicks media guidebook doesn't even mention Menlo, where Alaska team owner Fred Uytengsu also studied. Shame on Jeff.

In the book "Just Ballin'," authors Mike Wise and Frank Isola detailed Van Gundy's basketball odyssey. He was cut from varsity basketball at Yale University -- a classmate was actress Jodie Foster -- and in exasperation, decided to transfer to Menlo.

"From Yale to Menlo Junior College -- are you sure?" Van Gundy's mother asked the scrawny point guard. Van Gundy replied, "I'll have a better chance to play ball." His girlfriend, now wife, Kim said: "I thought he was nuts. But I did know that he needed to play."

The comments were hardly complimentary to Presley and Menlo's basketball program.

But Cone swore it was Presley who taught him how to coach man-to-man defense -- something he now applies with a passion at Alaska in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). Van Gundy may not admit it but he owes a lot to Presley, too, in running the Knicks show in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

"Presley didn't like relating to players --he was all business," said Cone. "He had absolutely no interpersonal relations with his players. He was a coach who literally kicked your butt. He was that tough. But I learned a lot from him, especially defense."

Will Presley remember him?

"Maybe," said Cone. "A former teammate Kevin Smith once visited Manila and told me he mentioned to Presley that I was coaching in the Philippines. So I guess he knows he produced a coach in the NBA and a coach in the PBA."

Presley also molded a highly-regarded assistant coach at the University of Michigan, an NCAA Division I powerhouse. He was in fact Cone's teammate at Menlo -- Fil-Am Kurtis Townsend whose brother Raymond played for Golden State and Indiana in the NBA. The Townsend brothers came for a sentimental homecoming nearly 20 years ago to visit their Filipina mother's relative in Batangas.

Kurtis played at Western Kentucky after an All-American career at Menlo.

Cone said Presley was ex-Warriors coach Al Attles' defensive coaching consultant for several years. The close friends worked together in the Golden State organization.

Presley, 77, is now retired in Palo Alto, California. Van Gundy, who was 19 when he played for Presley, is clearly his most famous protege. "He was not the fastest guy who ever lived," said Presley, quoted by writer Steve Adamek. "He pumped his 5-5 legs as hard as he could and he hardly got anywhere."

When Van Gundy was 12, Presley coached against his father Bill who called the shots for California State at Hayward's freshmen squad. During the game, Presley scared the wits of the impressionable scorekeeper by stomping down the sideline and launching into a profane tirade at his father for the audacity to use a zone defense.

"I don't know if I had anything to do with it," said Presley of Van Gundy's development as a coach. "But he still uses some of my theories. He's one of my favorite all-time guys. He's a great little guy, awfully bright, terribly bright. I didn't realize, didn't think he'd ever get this far."

Who would've imagined the nerd-looking Van Gundy to lead the Knicks to the NBA Finals last year or coach the East squad in the All-Star Game this season? And Van Gundy might just bring the Knicks back to the Finals in June.

Presley must be credited for influencing Van Gundy's career. Cone's, too.