RIP Charlie Coles

Pretty good coach and an even better guy. Great interview and press conferences.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9352870/long-miami-ohio-basketball-coach-charlie-coles-dies-71

 

Great guy. RIP.

 

He was an awesome individual... one of the funniest guys I've ever met.
Someone once asked him how one of his CMU teams could have lost to a Big Ten team (don't remember which one).
Charlie looks at the reporter and drawls... "That team had ath-a-letes on it..."

 

Charlie was so funny. He was a great interview, in a crowd or alone. Coached some of the MAC's great players. RIP to a hell of a guy.

 

This one stings. Great coach. Better man. Coaches like this don't come around very often. His blast after the last-second loss to Kentucky remains one of the funniest press conferences I have ever seen.

 

I loved when he would point at the opposing team's student section and waive his finger at them in the middle of an offensive set. The man understood what was great about college basketball and embraced it.

Even if his style of basketball was like watching paint dry. He won games, though.

 

He brought some amazing talent to Oxford...he could recruit with the best that have ever been in the Mid-American Conference. Wally Szczerbiak, Ira Newble, Devin Davis...his teams in the early 90's were fun to watch...not boring at all.

 

Coles's teams were not boring at Saginaw HS in Michigan in the 1970s. Those teams were like UNLV at the high school level.

In fact, the senior year of Ben Poquette (the real one) in high school, his team had gone 18-1 in one of the top conferences in the state and was ranked No. 4 going into the regionals.

There they met Saginaw, which was 22-0 and ranked No. 2 after roaring through its league. In pregame warmups, every single Saginaw player did the faux-dunks fashionable in the 1970s -- reach your hands WAY up over the rim, as if you are going to dunk, then drop it in.

Standing there bug-eyed, Poquette and the boys never had a chance. It was 79-54 and could have been 99-54 real easy. I believe 9 guys off that Saginaw HS team played at D-1 schools.

 

Perhaps an RIP thread ain't the best place for correcting, but nonetheless I might point out that Coles did not become the Miami HC until the 96-97 season (after the above players had already been recruited, btw). So I'm not certain as to what "early 90s" teams you're talking about.

 

Not trying to be a jerk but in the first line you said Coles was at Saginaw and team was ranked fourth in the state. Then his team played second ranked Saginaw in the state tournament. I think you have the same high school playing each other.

 

OK, I should have made it more clear: it was Ben Poquette (the real one) 's HS team, ranked No. 4 with an 18-1 record, facing No. 2, 22-0, Saginaw.

That's what I get for posting at 3:12 a.m. : :

 

Actually, Ben Poquette (the message board one) isn't wrong. Charlie first returned to Oxford as an assistant to Herb Sendek -- the other assistants were Thad Matta and Sean Miller -- and was instrumental in recruiting Szczerbiak and Newble, and Davis was very close to him.