Two winters ago Dick Bennett was sitting behind a desk in his Wisconsin basketball office. Classical music played softly in the background, but Bennett, then in the middle of his fourth season as the Badgers’ coach, looked drawn and spoke in tones that recalled a funeral dirge.
One of his players, Sean Mason, said that day: “Really, he’s a perfectionist. He expects more out of you than you may expect of yourself.”
Mike Kelley, still a Badger, had echoed: “He strives for perfection.”
Bennett resigned as the Badgers’ coach Thursday, eight months after the signature achievement of a distinguished coaching career: a trip to the Final Four. His perfectionist nature, he acknowledged, was partly to blame.
“I think perhaps that’s a weakness,” he said. “I don’t wish to be a perfectionist in matters that are unimportant. But I wish to call people to excellence in areas that are important. In those areas that matter, I’m rather insistent.”
Playing the game properly, unselfishly, in an old-fashioned way always mattered to Bennett. His insistence on that drove the Badgers on their unlikely run to last spring’s Final Four. But this continual quest for perfection is also a withering standard, and at the conclusion of recent seasons, it left Bennett feeling empty and contemplating retirement. Finally, he succumbed, and his shocking resignation takes effect immediately.
“I got caught up like everyone else in the euphoria of the Final Four and thought maybe I could just roll along,” said Bennett, 57. “But I just simply was drained. I just simply could not keep up and it began to bother me. I don’t want to go out cynical.”
Brad Soderberg, a 38-year-old Badgers assistant who played for Bennett at Wisconsin-Stevens Point in the mid-’80s, was named his interim successor. But all the attention was centered on Bennett, whose wife, Anne, was at his side at a tearful press conference.
“This is a tough day for me because I’m so close to Coach,” Soderberg said. “It’s a sad day for basketball in Wisconsin.”
Bennett’s family moved to Wisconsin from Pittsburgh when he was a child and it was there that he developed into one of his game’s finest and most respected coaches.
He preached defense and his teams played it with a tenacity that bordered on mania. He preached ball movement and his teams passed as deftly as a politician passes the buck. He preached unselfishness and his teams were always greater than any of their parts.
Fresno State coach Jerry Tarkanian oncesuggested his staff “go spend a week with Dick Bennett and learn about the game. His Wisconsin team executes better than any team I’ve ever seen.”
That was the way Bennett had been since he began extolling it when he took over the West Bend (Wis.) High School freshman team in 1965.
There was a full decade in Wisconsin high schools, where he took one of his teams to a runner-up finish in the state tournament. There were nine seasons at Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where he ran up a 173-80 record, took one team to a runner-up finish in the NAIA tournament and developed future NBA All-Star Terry Porter.
Then came 10 seasons at Wisconsin-Green Bay, where his record was 187-109 and his reputation expanded. One spring his Phoenix defeated California and Jason Kidd in the NCAA tournament. Another spring his Phoenix led Purdue late and fell to the Boilermakers by one point in the NCAA tournament. Every spring his Phoenix was one of those teams no one wanted to face in the NCAA tournament, but every spring he was ignored by his state’s biggest university.
He wanted to work in Madison, but when the Badgers’ job opened in 1992, it went to Stu Jackson. Two years later, after Jackson bolted for Vancouver, the position went to Jackson assistant Stan Van Gundy.
But after Van Gundy failed with a team that featured Michael Finley and Rashard Griffith, Bennett could be ignored no longer.
Finally his dream job was his and immediately he began preaching the philosophy he first taught at West Bend. He would be criticized for his old-fashioned ways, ridiculed for his slowdown style. . But he was not going to change, and eventually his beliefs took hold, producing results that mirrored his past successes.
Each of his last two teams won 22 games, which made them the winningest in school history. No other UW team ever had won as many as 20. Three of his five Badgers teams went to the NCAA tournament. Only three other Badgers teams in school history had gone.
And his last Wisconsin team made its miraculous run to the Final Four, where it lost to eventual champion Michigan State in the semifinals. Only the Badgers’ 1941 national championship team did better.
Bennett spent a week after that loss contemplating retirement. But as before he decided to return and continue his quest for perfection. He suffered as Tennessee throttled this year’s Badgers in their season opener. There was more anguish when they struggled past Northern Illinois.
On Wednesday night, just hours before he announced his retirement, the Badgers reflected their coach’s beliefs while defeating Maryland in overtime.
But his frustration was evident in the days leading up to that game when he declared: “There’s a tad more grumbling on the bench from guys who are playing. If you get on them, it’s almost like, `You don’t have a right to get on me.'”
That, more than his final victory at Wisconsin, was the prelude to his surprise announcement and an indicator that he was weary at last of chasing perfection. But there would be no talk of that Thursday.
Instead, an emotional Dick Bennett simply said, “I have been blessed to be able to do the thing I’ve always wanted to do in the state I wanted to do it, and I ended up at the place I always wanted to be.”
BENNETT’S RECORD
Season, team W L Pct.
1976-77 Wis.-Stevens Point 9 17 .346
1977-78 Wis.-Stevens Point 12 14 .462
1978-79 Wis.-Stevens Point 14 12 .538
1979-80 Wis.-Stevens Point 18 10 .643
1980-81 Wis.-Stevens Point 19 8 .704
1981-82 Wis.-Stevens Point 22 6 .786
1982-83 Wis.-Stevens Point 26 4 .867
1983-84 Wis.-Stevens Point 28 4 .875
1984-85 Wis.-Stevens Point 25 5 .833
1985-86 Wis.-Green Bay 5 23 .179
1986-87 Wis.-Green Bay 15 14 .517
1987-88 Wis.-Green Bay 18 9 .667
1988-89 Wis.-Green Bay 14 14 .500
1989-90 Wis.-Green Bay 24 8 .750
1990-91 Wis.-Green Bay 24 7 .774
1991-92 Wis.-Green Bay 25 5 .833
1992-93 Wis.-Green Bay 13 14 .481
1993-94 Wis.-Green Bay 27 7 .794
1994-95 Wis.-Green Bay 22 8 .733
1995-96 Wisconsin 17 15 .531
1996-97 Wisconsin 18 10 .643
1997-98 Wisconsin 12 19 .387
1998-99 Wisconsin 22 10 .688
1999-00 Wisconsin 22 14 .611
2000-01 Wisconsin 2 1 .667
Totals 453 258 .637
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