Bennett speaks at Lions’ anniversary

Former Clintonville stand out athlete, head coach of New London basketball (1969-1973) and legendary college basketball coach Dick Bennett was keynote speaker at the New London Lions Club 100th anniversary celebration Oct. 2.

Bennett was born in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. After his family moved, he attended high school in Clintonville, before heading to Ripon College for his bachelor’s degree in education.

He eventually earned his master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.

At Clintonville, Bennett was a three-sport athlete in basketball, football and baseball.

After graduation from college in 1965, he taught at West Bend High School and coached freshmen basketball.

From 1966-68 he taught and coached at Mineral Point High School and in 1968-69 he returned to the area taking a job at Marion High School.

In 1969, he went to New London where he accepted a job teaching vocational English, American literature and speech.

He also coached the Bulldog varsity basketball team from 1969-72.

“There are so many former players here and friends that I hesitate to start mentioning names,” said Bennett.

Relocated 15 times

From the start of his career, he and his wife Ann moved 15 times.

“There were nine schools, but a number of cities where we had to move twice and one or two that we had to escape,” said Bennett, drawing a laugh from the crowd.

From New London, his career as a program rebuilder shifted to Eau Claire Memorial High School, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Green Bay, Madison and Washington State.

He said of all the places he and his wife have lived they both agree that New London and Green Bay were their favorites.

Jokingly he recalled that in New London the teaching pay was so good, he had a summer job delivering milk for Terry McPeak at Hawthorn Melody.

“I’ll not forget that experience,” he said. “I mostly remember the coaching.”

“I loved rebuilding programs. I just thrived on the opportunity to do something that I could do on my own way. I didn’t have to live up to some kind of tradition or special way of doing it. So I felt my call in each of the places that I did coach,” he said.

It didn’t start off that great in New London.

“My first year here was just a wonderful example of poor coaching,” said Bennett.

“We went 3-16.

“I remember our superintendent H.J Ramsdell came into my classroom and suggested I go down and watch the wrestling coach to pick up a few ways of coaching. That memory stuck with me,” said Bennett.

He also recalls the game with four overtimes in his final year coaching at New London in March of 1972.

The Bulldogs defeated Shawano 86-83 in the regional championship to advance in the Marshfield sectional to play against Sparta.

“That was one of the most memorable times I’ve ever had coaching.

“Any of our guys that are here will remember that. I thought about this specifically five years ago almost to the date,” said Bennett.

That was a year when his son Tony’s team made a run to win the national championship at Virginia with a season’s end of miraculous turnarounds.

“I was thinking that was comparable to that New London affair that year,” he said.

“Then I remember the last game of my last season. We went to the sectional final with a chance to go to state, and we were leading at halftime. I did one of my usual blow up jobs where Antigo turned a zone against us, and I forgot how to attack a zone and we ended up losing that chance.

“What did I learn there?

So everybody’s got a take off point, and this was mine,” said Bennett.

“And I learned about my profession because I came to New London, and because I had some outstanding players. Truly outstanding.”

Basketball, business ideas

He compared two basketball ideas to business ideas.

“I don’t want to bore you with a couple of basketball ideas but I’m told they fit into business,” said Bennett.

“First of all you’ve got to have good people. You can’t operate without good people. Because they are the ones you can push past their comfort level.

“Secondly, it isn’t all the great things you can do; it’s the ability to eliminate what beats you. Eliminating losing is as important to basketball as it is to business.

“There are some non-negotiable things that need to be done.

In basketball, you got to take care of the basketball. You have to bring it back, set your defense; you can’t give up offensive rebounds and be silly with the ball,” said Bennett.
“I learned that in the most magnificent way when we moved to Clintonville,” he said.

“My father and a friend used to take me over and watch the Packers practice. Vince Lombardi was coach.

“His treatment was a textbook for how one should go about coaching, perhaps anything,” said Bennett.

“Lombardi eliminated losing of course, but his approach was so simple. It was based on repetition.

“When you choose a simple way, you have time to repeat the things that need to be learned over, you have time for repetition and that’s what leads to execution.

“So I don’t think I could ever trick anybody or out-coach them, but our players could outplay people because of our simple approach that they had practiced in drills over and over and over again.”

Bennett said he learned quickly in Division I play that quality would always trump quantity. He found that in setting up each season’s schedule.

Wisdom exists in defeat

“Wisdom exists when you’re stretched when you’re beaten and you have to get back up. And that of course is what we had to learn was to get back up,” said Bennett.

“That was then this is now,” he added as if he was talking in the huddle to that 1972 team and then some.

“You see I’m still a bit of a Sisyphus,” making reference to a character in Greek mythology who was sentenced for eternity to roll a huge boulder uphill, only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top.

“I have my own boulders and as I’m getting into the twilight of my life, I’d kind of like to figure out how to get that boulder to the top,” said Bennett.
Next, he quoted the Austrian Poet and Novelist writer Rainer Maria Rilke.

“What I choose to fight often is so tiny, but what fights with me is so great. And when I win those small battles, it keeps me small. But what is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by me,” he said.

“I think you can substitute what’s extraordinary and eternal, and you can substitute what the small battles are. You have a way to grow and that is I think by being beaten by greater beings. Whether it’s a pride factor or a work of humility or whatever.

“You can’t bend honesty. You can’t bend humility, you can bend servant hood, there’s no shortcuts to that. You can’t bend passion; you can’t bend unity, which is what a great Lion’s Club is about, unity. And you can’t bend thankfulness,” said Bennett.

“Humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness was lived and taught by the greatest human we’ve had.

“Our motto was whether you’re a believer or not, Jesus Christ and the way he lived his life.”

He said it was the foundation of their basketball program.

“Most writers don’t like to talk about that but that was the source of our inspiration and the way we evaluated,” said Bennett.

“You can look at a job, you can look at people, you can look at players and say that guy isn’t very humble, he can’t take criticism or he isn’t about to serve, he wants it for himself.

If he is too cool. It’s going to be hard to get him to play hard with the compassion and passion that it takes. And if he won’t accept in a humble way he’s not going to learn because the real wisdom learns in failure.

So that’s what I carry away from my vocation and that’s all I’ve got to share for you. If I had any kind of reputation for resurrecting bad programs, they weren’t my ideas. They were things I learned and I’m still pushing my boulder up the hill and the only one who knows what it is, is my wife,” said Bennett.