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March 21, 2010

Rick Teverbaugh: AHS great finally gets his due

Now I know that Hall of Fames in any sport are for people who accomplish great things or make a lasting impact upon that sport.

Former AHS coach Norm Held fits into both of those categories so it is no surprise that this coming week he will be inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

The lone question might be, why did it take so long?

But for me, Held’s legacy at Anderson High School has always been about more than wins and accomplishments.

He always understood that he was part of the entertainment business.

He knew that in order to put people in the seats of the very large arena he called home that the team needed to be fun to watch play.

Wins alone wouldn’t be enough.

Held admitted that he brought up that very thing when he interviewed for the job.

His teams were skilled and athletic, there can be no doubt about that.

But those teams ran up and down the floor in a style that took the best advantage of their talents.

Often there were shootouts, and nearly as often there were people filing out of the gym at game’s end still buzzing about what they had seen.

He seemed to have an innate sense of when to harness and guide the team and when to turn it loose and get out of the way.

Held also was accomplished at pacing his teams. More often than not his teams were playing better in late February than they were in mid-December.

He often talked of not wanting to have teams peak too early.

Sometimes the Indians would actually fly under the radar for much of the season only to make a strong tournament run.

There was another part of Held’s coaching persona that probably only would be appreciated by a sports writer.

He was good copy.

After a game he never talked in coaching clichés.

He also always was available after a game, win or lose.

If there was one coach over the years who never failed to return a call, it was him.

His detractors would say that was because he liked to see his name in the newspaper. I can’t honestly say that some of that might be true.

But when I asked him about it last week during a telephone interview he said, “I always just thought that was part of my job. It was part of what I did to promote the program.”

I’ll admit that Held wasn’t always the most popular coach in town, sometimes not even among his own fans.

Many people held him in disfavor because he got the team to the state championship game four times without ever winning the title.

Yet now how much would any school in the city love to get that far?

I believe that Joni Mitchell sang, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Held will return to Anderson this week, and I can’t wait to see him.

Contact Rick Teverbaugh: 640-4886, rick.teverbaugh@heraldbulletin.com.

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