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Editor's note – this is the second story in a four-part series chronicling the coaching legacy in boys basketball at Warsaw Community High School.
Al Rhodes knew he had big shoes to fill in replacing Jim Miller as the Warsaw boys head basketball coach.
He also knew he could only fill them his way.
“I’m not the same person as Jim Miller,” he said. “A coach has to stay with his own personality to be successful.”
While his system was very similar to Miller’s, Rhodes added his own touches from another influence: East Coast basketball.
From 1983-2002, Rhodes coached at the Five-Star basketball camp at Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh, Pa.
The camp has been home to NBA greats such as Michael Jordan and Grant Hill, and was a mainstay for coaches like Kentucky’s Jim Calipari and numerous Big East Conference coaches.
Rhodes used the experience to combine Miller’s brilliant schemes with East Coast basketball’s punishing physicality.
“They have a lot more big guys than what we have in Indiana,” Rhodes said. “The way they taught their big men to play is kind of the way I like, when I have a big man, to play.”
Rhodes had immediate success; the Tigers captured a semi-state championship in 1981, and three-peated as sectional champions in 1982.
In 1983, another legend was added to the mix when Pete Smith arrived in Warsaw.
Smith already knew Rhodes from when Smith was a tennis player at Rochester High School and Rhodes was the boys tennis head coach at Warsaw.
Smith graduated from Bethel College in 1983, and spent his last year there as an assistant basketball coach at South Bend Adams.
Warsaw faced Adams that season, and Smith seized his chance to pitch himself to Rhodes.
“I had told coach Rhodes I was graduating with a business education and physical education degree, and if (he) needed someone next year, I’d be looking for a teaching and coaching job,” Smith said.
As it happened, Rhodes soon after had a vacancy on his staff, and dialed up Smith to fill the void.
“Al had the biggest influence in my life when it came to how to run a high school basketball program,” Smith said.
Their four years together included an 83-19 record, three sectional titles, two regional trophies, one semistate title and the 1984 state championship.
“Whether you were a player or a coach during that time, the only goal was winning a state championship,” Rhodes said. “So, we were very proud to have accomplished that.”
Sweet Carolina
The following year, Rick Fox came to Warsaw. Fox went on to excel at the University of North Carolina and win three NBA Finals with the Los Angeles Lakers.
But before Fox ever donned the Tar Heel blue, Rhodes and Smith were coaching “Carolina.”
In addition to the Pittsburgh camp, both Rhodes and Smith worked the UNC camp. Rhodes, ever the sponge for knowledge, soaked up UNC coach Dean Smith’s structured offensive schemes.
“(Rhodes) and I run multiple offenses,” said Pete Smith. “We’re not motion-type coaches. We try to take decisions out of our players’ hands and put them in positions to score without having to think.”
“Carolina” also promoted a team-first style of play.
“It goes back to really preaching unselfishness, and a good coach clearly defines the roles he wants his players to follow,” Rhodes said.
Implementing the system took time and painstaking detail.
“That’s what (Rhodes) showed me, was how much work you have to put in to prepare in your practice plans and your practices,” Smith said. “Truthfully, we would practice sometimes three hours if guys weren’t getting things right. He never finished a segment until guys got it right.”
Players were expected to buy into the culture Rhodes had cultivated. Their hair was to be cut at a reasonable length, and facial hair was prohibited.
They were either all in, or they didn’t wear the orange and black.
“There were kids that were walking the hallways in Warsaw that could have been pretty good basketball players, but just didn’t want to make the commitment,” Smith said.
Those who did understood the reasoning behind Rhodes’ approach.
“He had the ability to get us to trust him and implement, to do it out on the floor,” said Jeff Grose, who was a junior on the 1984 state championship team.
Grose wholly bought into Rhodes’ team-first emphasis. The result had an inverse individual effect: Grose was named the 1985 Indiana Mr. Basketball and he went on to play in the Big Ten at Northwestern University.
“I was an overachiever that was surrounded by some really, really good coaching and some really good basketball players,” Grose said.
High school players weren’t the only athletes on which Rhodes focused. He and Miller had shared a top-down philosophy when it came to developing a feeder program. By the time Smith got there, it was in full bloom.
“A lot of coaches try to come to a new school and work with the fifth graders,” Rhodes said. “The only problem is they’d get fired, because they didn’t do enough with the 10th, 11th, and 12th graders.”
Rhodes’ view, like Miller’s before him, was that the younger kids would be spurred to excel by the success of their older counterparts.
He was right. The 1981 semistate champion Tigers inspired younger players, including Grose.
“The belief for my group was that we can do it, because they’ve broken through that glass ceiling,” Grose said.
The Warsaw elementary and middle school programs were already established, but Rhodes made sure to run a camp for the elementary school kids, and ensured middle school coaches preached his philosophy.
Rhodes had total control of the feeder program with the backing of Warsaw’s athletic department.
“Al had a good way of talking to his administrators,” Smith said.
Rhodes’ assistants, too, took on active roles that required his trust.
“He would constantly have those guys doing so many different things to help the team,” Grose said.
“Right down to, who can handle Jeff better in this situation? Who can work this post player? He was just really good at that.”
One of those assistants was Hal Gunter, who has been a mainstay in the Tiger Den since Rhodes hired him in 1980. Gunter specialized in working with guards, but had a jack-of-all-trades quality.
“He certainly was capable of doing everything,” Rhodes said. “Tiger basketball has been very fortunate to have him stick around as long as he has.”
Another coach would become used to heavy responsibility at Warsaw. Doug Ogle, Rhodes’ eventual successor, was about to join the Tigers.
