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Monday, September 1, 2008
Coach Marty Donlon
Greater Louisville, KY
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By: Scott Raque
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Photo(s) By: Mike DeZarn
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After 45 years guiding St. Xavier’s basketball and golf teams, Marty Donlon has a few stories to tell…and a great perspective on sports in Kentucky.
VYPE: Tell us about your coaching and teaching career.
Donlon: After I got of the service in1963, I went to work for Underwood Olivetti selling typewriters and calculators, but every day I would end up at St X watching basketball practice. Joe Reibel was the head coach then. He said, ‘why don’t you quit screwing around and come on and try this for a year.’ At that time we had three kids and I was making about $35,000 a year, which in 1963 was a lot of money. My wife knew I was not happy and she said, “When are you going to start St X?” So I went from $35,000 a year to $3,500 a year. She was amazing. She learned to rob Peter to pay Paul. I drove a truck for 20 years in the summer to pay off the bills that I ran up teaching and coaching. I made more money driving that truck for three months than I could teaching and coaching for nine. But it was the best decision I ever made. I started as Joe’s assistant varsity basketball coach and as the golf coach. Joe and I had been through grade school, high school and college together. I owe it all to him, and when he took the Bellarmine job, I became the head coach from 1970-1979….. And 45 years later it finally ended. I only missed 3 days of work in all those years. I was so lucky with the people I worked with, all the coaches and AD’s, and especially my assistant golf coach, Jim Blandford, for the last 15 years, and in basketball with Gene Rhodes and Joe Reibel. Mostly the kids, though. They energized me. To me it was not a job. It was so much fun being around them. I tell all the kids, “You have two big decisions in your life: who you marry and what you do for a living.” I was blessed in both.
VYPE: Which did you like coaching more, basketball or golf?
Donlon: Well, during basketball season it is basketball and during golf season it is golf. I enjoy both of them very intensely. Both are totally different. Basketball season is much longer so I am into it for a longer period of time, but then the spring comes and I get to be outside.
VYPE: What is your greatest memory in coaching?
Donlon: First it was being named the head [basketball] coach of St X. Then winning the Ashland Invitational Tournament in 1977. In golf, it was winning the first State Championship.
One of my biggest thrills was the very first year I was basketball head coach and Male had an unbelievable team. They beat us by 25 during the season and we ended up loosing by only 2 during the tournament. Male went on to win the State Championship that year. I remember during practice we taped up the windows and kept everything secret as to what we were planning to do. There was not a shot clock then, and still not one now, but we slowed the game down and stalled and kept it close. Our student body got there early and they chanted the whole game “UPSET, UPSET.” It was so exciting. I remember Johnny Carrico wrote for the Courier-Journal at that time and he wrote that it was the most exciting game he had ever seen.
VYPE: How difficult was it to announce your retirement?
Donlon: Well, I turned 70 back in December and I had been thinking about it. I proposed to my wife at Halloween, and Joe Bergamini, Marty O’Toole and some of the others had gotten out. I also wanted to retire early enough that I could do some things. I wanted to travel with my new wife, Rosy. We have 18 grandkids and we want to travel and be involved in their lives. I am going to keep the KIT. I still want to run the All State program we have for golf. I want to run the regional for golf and I will probably work the State in some capacity. I have no regrets. It was a great run.
I will miss the kids I’ve coached, but I still get invited to weddings and baptisms. While I was on my honeymoon with my new wife I got a call that all of my golf teams from the past 45 years are going to get together and have a retirement party for me--all 1200 some-odd of them. When I hung up I was crying and my wife said she had never seen me speechless.
VYPE: What advice would you give a young new coach?
Donlon: You’ve got to coach to your own personality. I got that advice from Hubie Brown when I was working a clinic with him and Coach [John] Wooden. You can’t be somebody that you are not, because the kids will pick up on it right away. Also, you have to be flexible. Don’t change your principles, just figure out another way to do it. And the third piece of advice I have is to listen to your kids.
VYPE: What does golf look like for this coming year?
Donlon: It just keeps getting better. We won years ago with a team score of 653 and the last time we won in 2004 it was 584. That’s about 70 shots difference from the 80s to 2004. And the record right now, I think, is 579.
It isn’t that the kids are much better players, it is technique and technology, equipment and clothes, and now kids are weight training. You wouldn’t think that weight training was important to a golfer, but the PGA has two trailers full of equipment for the players to work out before or after they play. We also have the kids run to build up their legs. That is where your power comes from when you are swinging.
Kentucky is ranked 3rd in the country for high school golf behind California and Arizona because of the way we run the state tournament. That is awfully good for a state that can’t play golf all year round.
VYPE: What do you think the Ryder Cup means to golf in Kentucky?
Donlon: The mystique is unreal, but I don’t think many of the high school kids will be able to see it because the tickets are hard to come by and they will be in school. But there is a Junior Ryder Cup in Bowling Green that should be great as well. It will without a doubt be tremendous boost for golf. You cannot find a better ambassador than Kenny Perry for the game of golf.
Scott Raque was a member of the St. Xavier basketball team from 1978-1980
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