Eagles return to hardwood nest

From Jack Brandmuller to Jon Jeffreys, the former West Valley High School basketball players came. They spanned 50 years and every decade of the careers of five coaches whose names are a who’s who of Eagle success.

They came to play or watch in the first West Valley alumni basketball game.

It’s the last varsity basketball season in a gym that opened with the 1962-63 season of All-City standout Larry Winn and will end with the current team, which includes six three-year players chasing one last state dream.

For some, like Winn, Fred Sackett (class of ‘62) and Joe Pettit (‘60), it was as if time had stood still. Although in their 60s they looked scarcely different than during their playing years.

Watch Sackett and you would swear you were staring at his graduation picture. He played sterling defense (you did for coach Jud Heathcote or didn’t play) and showed off his left hand, a less common trait in today’s more talented athlete.

Pettit? On the court with springy youngsters like Mark Munns (‘92), John Focht (2000) and Craig McIntyre (‘01), the ex-Eagles scoring leader and All-City player held his own.

Pettit scored 14 points in the two games in which he played, including eight – as Jud emoted – in the 47-43 “title” win by Team 4 over McIntyre’s Team 2.

MVP! MVP!

“Fight fiercely, fine fellows,” shouted Heathcote.

Indeed, it was the beefed-up youngsters, like McIntyre, who has just completed a successful football career at Eastern Washington University, Focht and Greg Jones (1993) who had physically changed the most.

More than 30 ex-Eagles suited up Wednesday evening to play basketball and honor their coaches.

Heathcote, 1951-64, was represented on court by five players, including Brandmuller, who played on his 1956 league co-champions and made a 3-point basket, the likes of which didn’t exist in his day.

Al Snyder, 1965-74, had Neil Schillinger and Jerry Focht on board and Pete Zografos, a starter on his 1966 league champs, in the stands. Schillinger and Focht played with their sons – Andrew and Joel Schillinger and John Focht.

That Eagle connection spanned two generations and three coaches, including Joe Feist and current head man Jamie Nilles.

Duane Ranniger, 1975-82, watched as players like Chuck Estey, Scotty Smith (the pair on state-placing teams of 1978 and ‘79), Jim Bergman and Bob Finn held sway.

And this writer (class of ‘62) has been witness to them all from Pettit to the present, Jud to Jamie.

I sat with Winn, who played at Rice University after West Valley and was the best Eagle player of Heathcote’s era. He is a successful Seattle businessman and four years removed from a liver transplant following a cancer diagnosis.

“You won’t believe it,” he said. “When I went to college, it was like going two steps down in terms of coaching, in terms of preparedness and practices.”

Winn was a Heathcote protégé, filling in at pickup games and Saturday sessions beginning in fifth grade.

He related a story at Jud’s retirement from Michigan State after 19 years (and a total of 45 years as a coach beginning at West Valley) of how he was guarding Jud on an out-of-bounds play, and Jud hit him in the face with a basketball saying, “Now will you give me some room?”

Winn said Jud retorted that it couldn’t have happened because Winn never played defense in his life. Heathcote was at once, witty, caustic, entertaining and had a brilliant basketball mind.

“You took what he said as gospel, and if you did, you became a better player,” Winn said

Thirty years later Munns played for Feist, and the two-time state high jump champion is still electric. And still playing in rec league, with Jones, three Schillingers and Vinnie Pecht (‘97).

When Mark, Joel and Andrew played, it wasn’t just in season, but anywhere indoors or out they could find a game.

“We’re still gym rats,” said Munns, who works at Central Pre-Mix. “We practice two times a week and play once.”

Four alumni teams played two games each. Highest scorers were Jeffreys, who tallied 20 in one game, and a cut and tattooed Pecht, who scored 16 in another. But everybody pitched in.

Before the championship game, former Gonzaga University coach Dan Fitzgerald hosted ceremonies as the four ex-Eagles coaches were introduced, given plaques acknowledging their contributions, and they embedded their hands in concrete for a lasting memento that will become part of West Valley’s new gymnasium.

“These coaches have been responsible for enormous memories,” Fitzgerald said, calling West Valley easily the best place to come watch a basketball game.

“It didn’t just happen. It is important to know that what you (player and parents) have done is create a culture.”

He challenged current players to continue it.

Each coach spoke of their times as Eagles.

“I probably lived here,” Snyder said of his 28 years teaching physical education in the WV gym. “I know every board.”

Heathcote helped him get the job in 1954, and Snyder assisted in basketball at the old high school at Trent and Argonne before becoming head coach in the current gym.

Heathcote said that of his coaching tenures at Washington State, Montana and Michigan State, which included a 1979 NCAA national championship, it all began at West Valley.

“This is where it started right out of college,” he said. “This is where I met my wife and where our three children were born.

“When I look back, these are very, very special years.”

The same could be said of Eagles of all generations.

Five coaches with a combined 15 state tournaments and an ongoing legacy of success has kept West Valley basketball remarkable consistent for half a century.