ALAMEDA — A number of years in the past, when Don Lippi reached one in all his many boys basketball teaching milestones, he made one factor clear a couple of profession that started in 1980.
He by no means made a basket or defended anybody.
“Good gamers make good coaches,” Lippi stated.
It additionally has been stated that good coaches make good gamers and few had been higher at getting a staff ready than Lippi.
For greater than 4 many years, he piled up tons of of victories at 4 Bay Space excessive faculties, ending his legendary run the place it started, St. Joseph Notre Dame in Alameda.
Lippi, 75, introduced his retirement Thursday, ending a profession that shall be remembered for 914 wins and a lot extra.
“I've nothing however reward and admiration for coach Lippi, and the years and years and years he’s spent serving to our group,” Bishop O’Dowd coach Lou Richie stated. “That’s what teaching is all about.”
Lippi has spent the previous twenty years at SJND, main the small Catholic faculty to 4 state championships, three in Division V and one in Division IV.
Earlier than that, Lippi coached at St. Ignatius, Skyline, St. Patrick-St. Vincent and the college the place he began and ended his 43-year run.
In SJND’s information launch, Lippi mirrored on his teaching journey.
“I attempt to stay every single day to make every single day nice for some pupil, participant, coach, guardian or stranger,” he stated. “God gave me an enormous coronary heart and I wish to share that with others.”
Based on Cal-Hello Sports activities, Lippi’s document of 914-319 ranks fourth amongst California boys basketball coaches in wins. Solely Mater Dei-Santa Ana’s Gary McKnight (1,243), Damien-La Verne’s Mike LeDuc (1,044) and Westchester-Los Angeles’ Ed Azzam (932) have gained extra video games than Lippi.
“Lippi is a legend,” Moreau Catholic coach Frank Knight stated. “I’m 46, so for me, Lippi is form of just like the final of the outdated nice coaches. Like Frank LaPorte and Mike Phelps and my coach up at Fremont (Oakland), Clint Williams. A bunch of these guys who had been teaching after I was in highschool. Lippi, for me, represented the final of that group.”
Richie remembered Lippi’s Skyline groups within the late Eighties and the connection he had together with his gamers. At the moment, Richie was a participant himself, at O’Dowd.
“To see him teaching at Skyline, to see him teaching my associates, he would go and play video video games with them at their home,” Richie stated Thursday. “Don Lippi, to be not a person of colour, to enter these East Oakland properties, and sit and play with these children of colour to earn their belief, it’s simply unbelievable.
“That’s part of him that I take with me every single day. How do you get that belief and that love, and he did that together with his 1989 Skyline Excessive Faculty staff.”