Leading off today: I don't have any children of my own, but that hasn't stopped me from joining discussions with friends and colleagues over which coaches I would or wouldn't want my kids playing for.
In Section 5 alone I could probably assemble a list of 20 boys basketball coaches from the past three decades who would easily make the "A list" based on their coaching ability, the way they deal with young people individually and in groups, their personal values and so forth.
Of those, perhaps three would stand out above all others.
And on Tuesday we learned that no one from this point forward will have the honor of seeing their sons play for one of those best of the best. That's because Bill O'Rourke Jr., 65, announced his retirement after posting a mark of 468-272 since 1979 for the Webster schools. Add in what Bill O'Rourke Sr. accomplished, and father and son won 811 games in Webster from 1950 to 2013.
O'Rourke was an all-star player for his father at Webster, then went on to a stellar college career at St. John Fisher College and was drafted by the NBA's New York Knicks. But teaching and coaching, first at the combined district school and then at Webster Thomas, soon became his profession.
“The first year after my father retired we won the league championship,” O’Rourke told the Democrat and Chronicle. “I like the fact that we did this together. Those were some of the best years of my life. I would’ve been happy to be his JV coach for 30 years.”
Said Webster Thomas AD Scott Morrison said. “I don’t think you will find more of a gentleman in basketball.”
Morrison is absolutely on the mark. You're more likely to see Halley's Comet than you are a flash of anger in public from O'Rourke. Whatever issues he may have had with players were dealt with one-on-one and in private, and he never put winning ahead of integrity -- which isn't always the case with successful coaches.
One of the more telling O'Rourke stories involves the 1986 Section 5 Class AAA semifinals at the Rochester War Memorial. Aquinas, an upstart with little history of success in the basketball tournament but fresh off an upset of East High, misunderstood the procedure for assigning home and visiting teams in each round and showed up for the game against Webster wearing the wrong uniforms.
By rule, Webster was entitled to a pair of technical free throws for every Aquinas player who entered the game -- including the five starters. That could have put Webster ahead by eight or 10 points before the opening tip, but O'Rourke would have none of it. He declined the opportunity to shoot the free throws.
Webster lost that night, 63-60.
But sportsmanship and gentlemanly behavior won.
CN-S football decision: Nearly every section of the state has a large school that looks on paper to be a great destination for a coach but in reality turns out more often than not to be somewhere between a perpetual headache and a career killer.
While some coaches and programs at Cicero-North Syracuse get along just fine, others languish -- and whispers frequently point to the environment rather than failings of the coaches. That's why I wouldn't give Northstars football much of a chance over the next five years -- except for the fact that Joe Sindoni has arguably already been through worse. C-NS might look like Disney World to him after having had to pick up the pieces at his last stop.
Sindoni was formally hired as football coach at C-NS on Monday, The Post-Standard reported. He comes over from Skaneateles, where he was head coach last year in the first season following the recruiting mess that got the Lakers thrown out of the Section 3 playoffs in mid-tournament.
He led the Lakers to the sectional Class C title and the
