Word: woolpert
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...Bill made no impression on the big-college coaches who control athletic scholarships. Then an alumnus brought Bill around to see the U.S.F. Dons' coach, Phil Woolpert. Phil took one look at the happy-go-lucky string bean with the outsize hands, and saw just what he was looking for. In the fall of 1952, Bill Russell began to attend classes at U.S.F., a small Jesuit school (2,500 students), and to practice basketball in the pint-sized St. Ignatius High School gym, where the Dons work out for want of a floor of their...
Russell-Made Rule. Last year he led the Dons to the N.C.A.A. title (TIME, Feb. 14). Shy and self-effacing anywhere but on a basketball court, Bill Russell played with the drive and desire of a champion. As Woolpert wanted, he specialized in defense: "If they can't shoot, they can't score," the coach told...
...takes two years for a man to learn Woolpert's meticulous defense, and not until this season were the Dons able to field a whole team that could live up to his theories. "If your opponents can't shoot, they can't score," he kept telling his players. Statistics bore him out. In their first 15 games the Dons allowed their opponents an average of 49.7 points a game. They had little trouble scoring an average of 65.9 points themselves...
...offensive wallop. Much of its muscle is hidden in the skinny (6 ft. 10 in., 210 Ibs.) frame of Bill Russell, 20, a happy-go-lucky Oakland Negro. A tireless, ambidextrous string bean, Russell is the Dons' high scorer (more than 300 points), but he still prefers Woolpert's style of defensive play. "Heck," he says, "I'd rather block a shot any day than score. It seems to do more for team morale." It also does something to the opposition's morale. Russell's breaking out of nowhere to stretch out a ham hand...
...This is a hungry team," said Coach Woolpert as he began to think about postseason tournaments. "Their appetites are such that they can do a lot of eating before they're filled...