<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">It wasn't good enough to be a good coach. The burden of proof was much higher for blacks. They had to be future Hall of Fame players ? until Bickerstaff and the Sonics changed all of that in 1985. "My break came from Lenny Wilkens," said Bickerstaff, who is 60. "Lenny hired me. Barry [Ackerley], who owned the team, approved it, but Lenny gave me a chance." The NBA took a major step that day and stated loud and clear that race would not be a deterrent for advancement in their league. The message went unnoticed 12 years earlier when Draff Young became the first African-American who didn't play in the NBA to coach a team. His achievement went largely ignored because he took over as an interim coach for three games and lost every one. The "diversity" message was delivered once again last week when Mike Brown joined a small fraternity of seven African-American coaches who never played in the NBA. </div> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/soni...79_allen06.html Probably one of Percy's better articles. Outside of Jerry Sloan there is no current coach that I respect more than Bernie Bickerstaff. Bernie understands that the margin for error is slimmer with black coaches, but he never uses that as an excuse/crutch for failure. He has paved the way for Nate in particular and I hope he does the same for Mike Brown. His no nonsense, workmanlike attitude has always garnered respect from the players that he's coached, even if they didn't like the method in which he got their attention. Robert Johnson and the Bobcats made a wise decision allowing for Bernie Bickerstaff to put his stamp on that franchise. All old school Seattle fans need to really appreciate what his lasting influence has meant to this organization.
Haven't the Supes had more black coaches than any other franchise? Lenny, Russell, Bob Hopkins, Bernie and Nate. And on a side note, my least favorite coach in recent memory for no good reason was Paul Westphal - although I did see him play an entire game one-on-one against a college player using nothing but his left hand and win handily.
Westphal was a joke - his short time in Seattle pretty much underlined the fact that it doesn't matter what you've achieved in the past, if you haven't got the trust and respect of your players, you're not going to get anywhere.
