There Will Never Be Another Jerry West
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Yesterday began like any typical sunny, lazy day in the summertime.
West Virginia University Athletics
13/06/2024
Get up around 9 a.m, check your social media profiles to keep tabs on your acquaintances and then start thinking about a quick exit to take your dog for a walk. It was at least the thought that was running through my head at the time my boss Michael Fragale, walked into the office to inform my boss the news that Jerry West had just died.
“Better get to work,” he added.
It’s like the possibility of having a basketball fly by your front door!
As a person who is responsible for writing funeral obituaries for the department typically, you have a list of things in mind should any of your school’s legendary legends dies. This was the case for Hot Rod Hundley and Sam Huff Both of them were in decline prior to their passing.
What about Jerry West, the man who was always full of energy and vitality?
Peter Pans aren’t going to die until they do.
How do you begin with a man who has accomplished many things? What should you include? And what can you leave out?
It’s not possible in a small timeframe to recount the achievements of Jerry West in his 86 long and fulfilling days on Earth.
How do you sum up everything he has done to the people of this wonderful state as well as all those who love and cherish West Virginia University?
Who are you talking to if he meant all the world to him?
If you’re unsure of the direction you’re headed the most effective place to begin is always the first step and for me, the starting point is a filing cabinet that contains interviews I’ve kept over many years. This includes calls with West. The conversations I’ve had with him total to roughly a half-dozen transcriptions of phone conversations that range between 20 minutes and an hour.
A few people will offer you a few minutes before their attention is waning and they’re looking to conclude the conversation and move onto other things within their lives. I’ve had people who are further down the pecking line give me that kind of attention.
But not Jerry.
He was always ready to devote as much time as it took for me to address any concerns I asked especially regarding West Virginia, West Virginia University and his Mountaineer basketball teammates. I quickly realized that the best way to receive interesting answers of Jerry was to have him talk about his beloved buddy Willie Akers or his fellow classmates.
I can remember once asking him about the reason the state had so many great basketball players in the state during the mid-1950s while I was at East Bank High.
I told him the tale that the legendary Eddie Barrett had told me about Virginia Tech coach Chuck Noe taking a look at the box scores from the high school football games in Virginia and seeing the scores in the 50s and 40s, and then looking over the West Virginia box scores and getting scores from the 90s and 80s, and Noe was able to decide that he would like those West Virginia players.
Naturally, this led to Jerry to go.
“We played the Kentucky all-star team, and they were supposed to have the best players in America,” the player recalled. “Well it turned out, we were the best players. We defeated them twice, and we defeated their team two times. It was an elite group of people that we were able to find at the time in West Virginia at that time.
“Style of play was a big part of it,” West explained. “I think coaches were a little bit restrictive than some coaches in certain areas. Most coaches probably inherit their coaching philosophy from coaches that they played for. In that point in time, when I was being recruited for college, Maryland played a very slowed-down game, and I kind of liked that school a little bit, but I just couldn’t go there and play that way. It just didn’t look like it would have been fun for me to play like that.”
The time was when West Virginia coach Fred Schaus had just retired from the professional ranks and along with the first assistant coach George King, they were still young and athletic enough to step onto the court and offer the players tips and tricks that other coaches were unable to provide.
King was on an NBA champion team, his team the Syracuse Nationals and West recalled playing against him numerous times in the former Field House.
“Maybe where I developed a little bit of confidence was because George King was there, and I used to play against him,” he said. “He was very knowledgeable and extremely clever, and I found the ability to play him with ease, and it wouldn’t cause me to be embarrassed.
“It was a great environment for any of us who wanted to learn, and more importantly, to engage two people that had played basketball at a different level than any of us had ever played.”
Teamwork was the key to Schaus and King’s success in coaching, a lesson Jerry evidently learned throughout his time as a coach.
The amazing things West achieved later on through those teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers as an executive all had their origins in the solidly-rounded West Virginia basketball teams of the latter half of 1950s.
Schaus was successful in convincing Akers that he would be better off as a support player for Jerry West at West Virginia University instead of being the top scoring player in Virginia Tech or Wake Forest in Wake Forest, where other leading players from the state were heading.
Willie had a simple goal when he opted to sign at WVU and play basketball alongside his friend Jerry West.
“I wanted to win,” said the man.
Then, he went to WVU and joined Lloyd Sharrar and Bobby Joe Smith to take rebound and defend while guards Joedy Garrison, Don Vincent, Bucky Bolyard, Ronnie Retton and Lee Patrone played basketball. The player who was most successful, however, was Jerry who was the one to make the difficult shots and stepped up to the occasion whenever it was necessary.
Each player on the team would throw a ball over their grandfather in order to grab an unintentional basketball because that’s how determined they were.
“We were very, very competitive kids,” West remembered. “Just because some of them were fun-loving doesn’t mean they weren’t competitive. They were great people and for someone as quiet and shy and backward as me, it made for a completely different situation in terms of kind of getting out of my shell and making me laugh a little bit because I wasn’t going to change my demeanor. I was much more serious.”
I experienced the Jerry West seriousness first-hand when I was once invited to participate in an event that featured West at Lewisburg, West Virginia.
Jerry promoted his latest book and I’d just finished writing “Roll Out the Carpet,” therefore the plan was to have me go to the stage beforehand and warm the crowd for half an hour prior to when West started his performance.
After sharing some hilarious Hot Rod Hundley, Wil Robinson, and Levi Phillips stories, it was time to go back into the Green Room. This was the place where I ran into West and shaken his hand, and then said hello in a jolly manner.
He looked me in the eye then shook my hand, and smiled however his focus was focused on the job to be completed. He was the center of attention for an aspiring champion ready to compete, in part because his book was intimate and personal, and he was preparing to answer some extremely uncomfortable questions. This was the moment that I realized humans are not all alike and humans who are elite.
Jerry West was an elite human being. He was the only who we West Virginians were hoping to be. He was aware of the immense responsibilities were entrusted to him.
For anyone within the Mountain State (and beyond) that read this article do yourself a favor and research Jerry West’s personal life. Learn how he treated his fellow citizens with dignity, compassion and respect. Examine how he was always faithful to his vows and behaved professionally.
The recipe for a prosperous life is in Jerry West’s story of his own – – the triumphs and failures, the joys and heartbreaks all rolled up into one.
He embodied all the values that West Virginians are so devoted to our hearts. This is the reason it’s so hard for us to say goodbye.
Meanwhile, you can lower you West Virginia flags until after West Virginia Day on June 20th to honor West’s memory. There is no Jerry West – ever.
