As a teenager, Bill Wennington’s formative basketball days in Canada were spent mostly in drafty YMCA gyms in the early darkness of cold, winter mornings. “Everything took a back seat to hockey,” he said. “You had to be dedicated.”
Wennington always had an adult to encourage him, whether it was his father driving to workouts, coaches teaching fundamentals, or the local sportswriter who encouraged him to give the sport a try at age 12. Now that he’s retired from the pro ranks, the ex-Chicago Bull is putting those early lessons to good use.
His day job is with the Bulls, mentoring their precocious teenagers, Eddie Curry and Tyson Chandler. Mostly, Wennington makes long road trips and dispenses advice to the 19-year-old rookies on eating properly, getting enough sleep, the importance of punctuality, where to shop and hang out, handling their finances, and, above all, what to avoid.
At 7 feet tall, there’s a lot of Wennington to go around and, for fun, he’s also coaching the 8th-grade boys team this season at St. Mary’s grammar school in Lake Forest. There, in addition to fundamentals, he advises these 13- and 14-year-olds on eating properly, getting enough sleep, the importance of punctuality, studying hard, and, above all, what to avoid.
“With Eddie and Tyson, you can demand certain things on the court because they’re professionals and being paid to play,” he said. “But they’re still young and people forget that. To get tossed into the NBA at their age is no easy thing.”
Help for rookies
Tim Hallam, director of communications for the Bulls, says the role for the ex-player is a first for the franchise and represents an extension of a league-wide effort to educate its rookies on life in the league.
“Obviously, with two teenagers like we have, our situation is different than the other teams,” he said. “This is something Bill would’ve appreciated when he broke into the league. I know Eddie and Tyson do because they have a lot of respect for him.
“Let’s face it,” Hallam added. “This has been a stressful season for us. Any rookies have trouble making adjustments, considering they’ve all been the main guy somewhere else before becoming a pro. It’s got to be tougher when you were a high school player, and Bill’s helped them deal with things a lot better.”
Wennington, 38, a thoughtful veteran of 13 NBA seasons who, like his two prized pupils, is a conspicuously tall person, has much wisdom to impart to the rookies. As a late bloomer in basketball who grew up where it was easy to keep the sport in perspective, he’s not exactly dispensing chopped liver to his younger players either.
“For a lot of my 8th-graders, this, quite frankly, is going to be their last experience in organized basketball,” he said. “I just want to make it a positive one.”
There’s little question the 20 or so members of the St. Mary’s Crusaders are ever going to forget having for a coach an ex-Bull who actually played with MJ and has three championship rings!
Rise and shine
For Ann Burke, a parent of one of the players and someone who has had two older boys go through the St. Mary’s program, the glow has yet to wear off with the season reaching the halfway point. The true litmus test, she said, was the once-a-week practice he scheduled for — surprise! surprise! — 6:45 a.m. on Tuesdays.
“I thought [her son] Tommy might balk a little at that,” Burke said. “Not many kids I know like to get up earlier than they have to before school. But he didn’t mind at all. In fact, he’s still just as anxious to get to practice.”
No one could ever recall anyone at St. Mary’s holding a practice session that early, but, according to Kathleen Peth, St. Mary’s athletic director, the move has been successful enough to consider continuing it for other teams at the school.
Though the Lakers he faces on St. Mary’s schedule are from Lakeshore Catholic Academy and not Los Angeles, Wennington says he’s having “a blast.” He doesn’t consider this job — strictly voluntary — beneath him, and never mind that some of the players barely come up to his waist.
“I have to say this is a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” he said. “I used to think when I retired that I’d like to get into the media, like a lot of athletes do, and I had no interest in coaching. I’m changing my mind.”
All-out effort
This is no drop-in, token effort by an ex-pro athlete trying to enhance his, or her, image. He doesn’t even have a kid on the team, though that may happen in the future. He never misses practices or games, unless there’s an absolute conflict with his Bulls duties. He’s occasionally said no to lucrative TV appearances that interfere with the Crusaders’ schedule. He even chipped in with his assistant coaches, who do have sons on the team, to buy new warmup jackets.
“He brings a real professionalism to this,” said Patrick Browne, St. Mary’s principal. “We get a lot of volunteers, but this is a whole new standard. The world needs role models like him.”
With a clipboard full of plays and drills and a whistle in his mouth, Wennington’s practices are efficient and organized. He squeezes as much work out of every session as he can with his young players.
“All right, I want the big guys over here, the rest of you behind them, and everyone going all-out,” he called out — in a surprisingly soft voice — to set up a court-long running exercise during a recent session. “Then, I want you touching all the lines. It’s important to always touch the lines. No shortcuts, now. Go, go, go!”
The spirited running drill concluded a full, two-hour session on a weeknight. Wennington was the last person to leave the gym, making sure it was locked before pulling out of the driveway.
Comfortable in role
“What you really have to admire about Bill,” said Bill Rees, whose son, Dan, is on the squad, “is that he’s so comfortable with himself doing this. So many times, pro athletes are afraid to do things like this, to commit themselves and be out in the public. They might like to do it, but they don’t know how to handle the common, everyday kinds of communication we take for granted. The fact he’s 7 feet tall makes it even more amazing to me.”
Rees, former college scouting director for the Bears who’s now with the San Francisco 49ers (he has kept his home in Lake Forest), is an admirer of Wennington’s coaching touch too.
“I was at a game the other night against our big rival [Libertyville] St. Joseph, who’d beaten us earlier,” he said. “We fell behind late and, in the past years, you could’ve figured it was all over. But Bill kept the kids composed, we rallied and won.”
Wennington had to miss that earlier loss to St. Joseph. Though the ex-Bull occasionally gets asked for his autograph by the opposition, it is also obvious to those in his school’s program that beating a team coached by a former NBA starter is an inspiring thought.
“You can detect a bit of a buzz when we go into visiting gyms and everyone sees Bill,” said John Gorman, an assistant coach with Angelo Bufalino, John Pohl, and Brett Moore. “He handles it really well. He’s friendly to everyone.”
Learning process
Gorman, a former basketball star at Loyola Academy and Xavier University, said Wennington never gives his players too much to process. He started the season with only a few plays, and gradually has added concepts that include parts of the triangle offense used by Phil Jackson when he coached the Bulls and Bill.
“He’s never overly critical either,” Gorman said. “If a kid messes up, he doesn’t shout. He almost always praises them about something and then tells them what they might’ve done wrong.”
This is the second season out of pro basketball for Wennington, who spent his final 1999-2000 campaign playing for Sacramento while his wife, Ann, and son, Robbie, remained in their Lake Forest home. He had been with the Bulls since 1993, but also spent two seasons in the middle of his pro career playing in Italy.
“I know I probably could’ve hung on for another season or two with somebody, but after that season playing with Sacramento and commuting, I just told my agent: I’m through. It’s time to retire. I had a good run, better than I could’ve expected, and it’s time to be with my family.”
In fact, his 8th-grade coaching is really an extension of his parenting — Robbie is in 4th grade. Wennington has done his duty as an assistant youth soccer coach, served as a Cub Scout den leader, and occasionally has been a lunchroom monitor and substitute gym teacher at St. Mary’s. He also can be found playing pickup games with adults in the St. Mary’s gym on Sunday nights.
Influence shows
Last spring, he approached Peth about the possibility of coaching his son’s team when Robbie finally became eligible to compete in the 2002-03 season as a 5th-grader.
“I asked him what about coaching our 8th-grade team next year,” she said. “He agreed to think about it over the summer and, when the new school year started, he said yes. You can imagine how excited everyone was over this — a Bull for a coach. It’s been a very positive experience all the way around.”
The Crusaders, for the first time, now wear jackets and ties on game days. Honor roll students get cited at practices and are excused from some drills.
Wennington said lessons he imparts to his 8th-grade team really aren’t that different from what he discusses with Bulls rookies Curry and Chandler, who, come to think of it, aren’t that much older.
“It’s all about getting off to good starts, no matter what the level, and building a foundation,” he said. “You do that by repeating and making simple, basic things become routine. You keep taking baby steps, on and off the court.”
