By Kenny Berkowitz
At the start of 2007, Bernard Griffith was handling player development for the Dallas Mavericks, where his former high school player Avery Johnson has become one of the most successful coaches in the NBA. For two years, following Hurricane Katrina and the closing of the all-boys St. Augustine High School where he’d coached for 28 seasons, Griffith worked with the pros, reinforcing lessons about life and basketball fundamentals.
In August, he returned to New Orleans, where he coaches boy’s basketball and teaches economics at the newly re-opened Sarah Towles Reed High School. In this interview, Griffith talks about his adjustment to public school, the challenges of working in New Orleans, and his goals for the upcoming basketball season.
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What’s the mood like at Reed?
Well, we’ve only been open since late last year, but we’ve got a school and we’re up and running. I’m guessing about 50 percent of the teachers and 50 percent of the students are new this year, so we’re still making adjustments, trying to get students into classes, and getting settled.
How is it different from teaching at St. Augustine?
First, St. Aug was all-boys. Second, it was more disciplined. At a Catholic school, if students don’t do what they’re supposed to do, you can put them out. Here, if they get that bad, you’ve got to live with them for a little while until the school goes through the process, or until they weed themselves out. Third, I lost all my teaching materials in the storm, so I’m working every evening, putting together lesson plans and outlines. I’ve been in this profession for a long time, and in the past, I would have just pulled out a lesson plan and started teaching, but now I have to do everything from scratch, creating all the things I need in the classroom. If I want them to really concentrate on their schoolwork, I have to put in time every evening to prepare for the next day’s classes.
How’s basketball going?
Well, basketball is basketball. I’ve got the same problem as every other coach in New Orleans. The talent pool is down, so we’re all pretty much starting from step one. We don’t really have a foundation of recreational programs right now, so for the last two years, most of these kids haven’t played a lot of basketball—basically, they’ve been trying to survive. The season starts in another two weeks, which is two weeks too soon, and every day between now and then, we’re going to get better than we are today. It’s a progression. We’ll learn to crawl before we can walk and we’ll walk before we can run.
Why did the team go 2-15 last year?
We didn’t have any real talent. I hope we do better this year. I’d like to win four games, which would be 100 percent improvement, but I’m not sure we will. A lot of these kids have come back from last year, when they didn’t experience a lot of success. So we’re doing a whole lot of teaching right now, taking things one step at a time. Anybody who thought I was going to walk in here and make this team great overnight was fooling themselves. We’re going to be who we are, work hard, and keep building.
How do you address their self-confidence?
You show them you know what you’re talking about. Along with the confidence, they’ve got to have some discipline and some desire. They have to get over the fear of working hard. They’re not going to win basketball games unless they work hard and minimize mistakes, things they’re not accustomed to doing right now. I hope if we can teach that this year, next year we’ll be respectable. It’s not like in the pros, where you can go out and sign somebody—you’ve got to play the hand you’ve been dealt. So I’ll play this hand, bluff as well as I can, and wait for the next deal.
What goals have you set for them?
Our first goal is to get ten or 12 guys to practice every day. But even before they come to the court, our goal is to get them to exercise that muscle between their ears. They have to understand the importance of education, even the ones who don’t want to be bothered with it. If they use their brains every day in class, we might be able to get some work done on the court. But if they’re undisciplined, unruly, sleeping all day long, they’re not going to be ready to learn the game.
I tell them, “You’ve got to practice being disciplined in the classroom in order to come to the gym and be able to run plays. Your mind has to be open to following directions before you can execute a play, and if you can’t keep from being distracted, then the other team is going to backdoor you to death. If you want to accomplish something, whether in basketball or anywhere else, you’ve got to work at it. You’ve got to stay with a task, even when you get frustrated. Because the person who’s going to be successful is the one who outworks everybody else.”
How can you make a difference in their lives?
By helping them achieve their goals, which is what we’re doing now. You don’t give them impossible goals—you give them stepping stone goals. You let them know, “If we’re going to move in this direction, this is what we’ve got to accomplish by Friday. And this is what we’ve got to accomplish by next Friday.” We work, we condition, and we stretch. We do block-out drills, passing drills, dribble drills, pick-and-rolls. We do a lot of drills people who think they already know basketball don’t want to do. We’ve run some full-court lay-up drills, but we still we haven’t had a scrimmage. They keep asking, “When are we going to play five on five?” So I tell them, “Y’all know what to do five-on-five. That’s why we need to get this drill done, then the next drill and the next.” Every now and then I hear one of the players talking in the hallway and I know we’re making something happen. Somebody says to a friend, “Man, y’all don’t know nothing about what we’re going through. We’re working hard.” It may be slow, but I know we’re making progress.
What’s the biggest challenge for you this season?
Having enough energy to finish the season. I enjoy working with the kids, and for the most part, they’re not bad kids, they just don’t want to do any work in the classroom. But if they don’t get an education, they won’t be able to become responsible and viable members of the community.
Do people ask about your experience in the NBA?
Only a few folks here know I worked in the NBA. I still talk to the Mavs pretty regularly, and I hope they’ll visit when they come to town. But I don’t wear anything with the team name on it. Every now and then, someone here will ask, “You coached in the pros?” More often, I’ve got friends who ask, “Why the heck did you give that up to go back to high school?”
What do you tell them?
The NBA is like Fantasy Island. It was a great experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. But right now, I’m taking care of things on the home front. I’m with my two daughters and my grandson, giving them some attention.
Are you working harder now than you were in the NBA?
Absolutely. Before, I was just working. The heat was on Avery Johnson, and I was just one piece in the puzzle. Now I’m in charge and everybody’s looking at me to succeed.
How will you know if you’ve been successful?
If I see these kids graduate, I’ll be happy. We don’t have to win a single ballgame—the bottom line is always education. If I can lay the groundwork for these students, show them what it takes to be successful, and teach them to focus, I will have done my job. If I can get these three seniors to move on to college, that’s the number that really matters.
For more on Bernard Griffith, see “Back to New Orleans” in the October/November issue of Athletic Management.
Kenny Berkowitz is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.
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