Tomjanovich moves off court and on course for Maine visit

You could do worse than spending a day on a golf course in Bar Harbor listening to Charles Barkley stories from someone who intimately knows the Round Mound of Rebound.

That’s how former University of Maine men’s basketball coach Skip Chappelle spent last Friday – at Kebo Valley, playing 18 with Houston Rockets head coach Rudy Tomjanovich.

“Just incredible,” Chappelle said, describing his day. “Just a great day.”

How Rudy T. got from Houston to here is easily enough explained. He simply climbed the UMaine hoop-family tree.

“When Jimmy Boylen graduated from Maine, he went back to [his home in] Michigan and started looking around for a coaching job,” Chappelle explained.

Chappelle said that after getting over the surprise that Boylen, who played basketball at UMaine from 1983 to 1987, wanted to get into coaching, he picked up the phone and called his former high school coach at Old Town, John Killilea. Chappelle’s former coach was an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets.

Boylen was hired as a video assistant and has since become a full-time assistant to Tomjanovich. He has often talked about his love for the state of Maine to the coach.

So Boylen arranged for Tomjanovich and his friend Dick Hite, who owns a chain of clothing stores in the Houston area, to meet up with Chappelle and Phil Norton, a Bar Harbor dentist, at Kebo Valley.

“Rudy T loves Bar Harbor. The whole thing was so positive,” Chappelle said. “He had us laughing with some Charles Barkley stories. And he said that despite what you may think, Charles Barkley is a class guy.”

After golf, the group had a meal at The Quarterdeck in Bar Harbor where the inevitable subject for Tomjanovich finally came up. Kermit Washington. The video of Washington slugging Tomjanovich during a pro basketball game in 1977 is shown often on TV. The punch shattered Tomjanovich’s jaw.

“Somebody in the restaurant brought it up and Rudy T just said, ‘Oh, yeah. That was a very trying time.’ He’s a real gentleman,” Chappelle said.

Chappelle and Norton have been invited to visit Houston and also plan to travel to Boston when the Rockets are there to play the Celtics.

“It was a special day. [Tomjanovich] is a great guy and I won a little money off him,” Chappelle said with a laugh.

So you want to be a star

Many young boys and men have had the dream of throwing their cleats, glove and bat into the trunk of their car, driving to Sanford and being discovered at a major league baseball tryout camp.

The reality is that it’s not likely going to happen, according to John Brickley, who recently ran a Cincinnati Reds’ tryout camp at Sanford.

“It’s very rare that you would sign a player at a tryout camp,” Brickley said. “The purpose is to identify potential players and follow their progress in high school and college.”

Brickley is the Reds’ scouting supervisor for northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

He said approximately 40 players from Maine and New Hampshire attended the Sanford tryout.

“We didn’t sign anyone, but there is a pitcher from Maine who we are following,” Brickley said.

The pitcher is former Brunswick star Gabe Ribas who is entering his junior year at Northwestern University. Ribas was 7-4 with a 3.40 era his sophomore season.

“I’d had some reports on him from a part-time scout in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. It was fortuitous that I had a chance to see him [in Sanford]. We’ll follow his progress.”

A big part of the tryout for Brickley is a player’s passion.

“Does he really want to play? Does he have desire and hustle? There are a lot of guys who have the physical tools and ability but don’t have the mental part, the passion,” Brickley said.

As for having the dream, Brickley said that’s good, too.

“Everyone has a dream. This is as good a dream as any.”

Don Perryman’s Local Spotlight column is published each Wednesday. He can be reached at 990-8045 or by e-mail at dperryman@bangordailynews.net