(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part piece about former St. Bonaventure basketball coach Jim O’Brien. It was written three years ago for a booklet celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Bonnies’ appearance in the 1970 NCAA Final Four. However, due to an unexpected response from advertisers, there was no room for this story in that publication and was never printed.)
The precedent commenced 28 years earlier.
First it was Eddie Donovan, then Larry Weise and finally Jim Satalin … nearly three decades of St. Bonaventure alums consecutively coaching their alma mater’s men’s basketball team.
So when Satalin, after nine seasons, took the job at Duquesne, based on history alone, the list of candidates seemed reduced to one obvious choice.
Jim Baron, co-captain of the Bonnies’ 1977 NIT Championship team and former SBU assistant, was a 28-year old, fast-track aide to Digger Phelps at Notre Dame.
The hire was a no-brainer.
Except, of course, to Fr. James Toal, St. Bonaventure’s executive vice president.
In 1982, the Very Reverend Mathias Doyle was the school’s president, a popular, easy-going, public relations specialist who was the perfect face for the university. Fr. Toal was his tough appendage who made the difficult decisions and wasn’t afraid to say, “No.”
James Toal was a Brooklyn guy and had his own coaching candidate in mind.
As Jim O’Brien recalled of his pre-high school days, “Back then, there was some quasi-recruiting and I knew him then as Friar Fabian. He was athletic moderator at Bishop Ford. I eventually chose St. Francis Prep, in the same league, but they were both Franciscan schools so we had a history together.”
O’Brien went on to be a High School All-America and signed with Boston College where he played for two legends, Bob Cousy and Chuck Daly. As a senior, he set the BC record for assists in a game (18),which still stands, and was named New England Player of the Year.
Tabbed in the fourth round of the 1971 NBA draft by the then-Buffalo Braves, he instead pursued a career in the ABA where he played for Pittsburgh, Kentucky and San Diego, the latter coached by Wilt Chamberlain.
As O’Brien remembered, “We had a young team … Travis Grant, Bo Lamar, Caldwell Jones and others were younger than I was. When Wilt wasn’t getting his money, he started skipping practices, so when he didn’t come, I would just kind of assume some responsibility.
“But I never really thought I was going to be a coach … the thing that made me get into it is that, after I stopped playing, I took a job selling computer paper. I did that for 14 months and hated every minute of it. I thought, maybe I should think about getting back into basketball somehow.”
He admitted, “ I got the job (as an assistant) at UConn without ever having coached a day in my life at any level. Coaching wasn’t even on my radar, it just became something I looked into after I didn’t like doing what I was doing.”
Five years later, O’Brien felt he was ready to be a Division I head coach and that launches him into one of his favorite stories..
“UConn had a Connecticut Mutual Classic Tournament that they ran every year in the Hartford Civic Center,” he recollected. “That year Bona was in the tournament, so as an assistant I had to go scout St. Bonaventure. It was mid-December, there’s no students and there’s a blizzard snowstorm coming down from Buffalo. It took me forever to get to Olean. I scout the game — we were playing them in the first game of the tournament — I get stuck in the storm, there was nobody at the game … it was an horrendous trip.”
O’Brien got back to Storrs and was asked, “‘How was it?’ And I’m like, ‘Boy, oh boy, I don’t know how those coaches get anybody to go to that school … there was nobody at the game, the weather was pathetic and it takes forever to get there from Buffalo. What a really hard job that must be.’
“I’m telling all they guys at Connecticut, ‘I don’t know if that’s a place you’re going to want to coach because it’s really hard.’”
But that view changed within months.
“That was December,” O’Brien said. “The (Bona) job opens in April and I am begging for it. So I’m talking to Fr. Toal and I told him ‘You know I’ve always loved the Franciscans … I’ve always had high regard for St. Bonaventure…’ I go from December scratching my head how anybody could go to school there … to, four months later, begging for the job ‘I’ve always wanted’ and ‘a great place to coach.’ It’s crazy what you will do and say to get a head-coaching job.”
JIM ENGELHARDT, St. Bonaventure’s sports information director at the time, remembered, “Those of us on campus who knew Fr. Toal had heard the name Jim O’Brien.
“Locally, that name didn’t resonate much, but nationally Jimmy was considered one of the top up-and-coming coaches in the country at that time … one of the Top 10 assistants.”
In Engelhardt’s view, “I think Jim was the front-runner from the word go for Fr. Toal … when Jimmy (Satalin) left there was probably a list of one. It seemed to work out in fairly short order and it was an extremely good hire.”
As O’Brien remembered, “It was a very simple process (Fr. Toal) had that kind of control. I met Larry Ford (director of personnel) and John Watson (dean of the business school) and I got to be very close to those guys, but it was Jim Toal who made the decision.”
IN ANY CASE, Engelhardt was dead-on about the hire as, that first season, O’Brien took the Bonnies to a 20-10 record and an NIT game at Iona.
Norman Clarke, a guard from Canada whom O’Brien inherited, recalled, “When (Jim Satalin) left it was like a quandary for me because I was like ‘Now what?’ Who’s gonna be brought in … what’s it going to be like … is he going to mix it up … are we going to be a different team? So that was a big question mark for us.
“But coach O’Brien was positive and encouraging and I think he was surprised our team had more ability, as a unit, than he first thought … he was pleasantly pleased with our performance, that we got to the NIT and that we did so with a team that was undersized.”
However, facing his first year, O’Brien conceded he had no preconceived expectations.
“When I took the job, I really had no set notions of the talent or if we were going to be any good,” he admitted. “It became apparent, once we started, that we had some pretty good players but that also had no bearing on my decision to take the job. I wasn’t really sure how good the players at St. Bonaventure were supposed to be, but I knew once we started having some success, we had a pretty good team and a team that was not easy to play against.”
He pointed out, “When you’re in a position as an assistant coach and trying to be a head coach I don’t think you pay all that much attention to who’s there or how good anybody is. It was an opportunity for me to become a head coach. I didn’t know the talent, but it was clear we had some guys that were fun to coach and a group of kids that I really did enjoy coaching … that was a pretty good year.”
As Engelhardt noted, “A lot of new jobs are in the gutter, but Jimmy Satalin left a pretty good team with Mark Jones as the leader. Jimmy O’Brien won 20 games and made the most with it. He made the NIT and did a great job coaching.
“In fact, he and Jimmy Satalin (in his initial campaign at Duquesne) were co-coaches of the year that first season.”
(TOMORROW: Part II on former St. Bonaventure coach Jim O’Brien)
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
