The Coach Of Every Year

The most important part of Jucker's day is the practice session. While the regulars warm up, Tay Baker, who has scouted Cincinnati's next opponent, say Wichita, takes the reserves aside and drills them in Wichita's tactics, assigning to each reserve the role of a Wichita player. Through it all Jucker stands to the side, detached, arms folded, looking almost bored. Then the scrimmage begins, the reserves acting out Wichita for the regulars. Jucker's arms unfold. His eyes move swiftly around the court. Suddenly he is shouting: "O.K., Smith, if you don't want to play the game we'll get someone else." The practice continues, fast and long. The players pant, but Jucker urges them on: "C'mon, a couple of more minutes. Let's work, work."

Jucker's dedication to the job has won him the respect of the other coaches in the Missouri Valley Conference. "He's a perfectionist, an expert, a taskmaster," says Ralph Miller. "Juck's under tremendous pressure to win. One loss for him is probably equal to five or six for me here at Wichita. I hear that after Cincinnati lost to us last year they got booed when they returned home. The people in Cincinnati expect to win, and the pressure keeps mounting on Juck." In a moment of rare frivolity recently Jucker summed up his own position. "It's like being the last egg in an incubator. Everybody's standing around waiting for you to crack."

There has been grumbling among some coaches that one reason Cincinnati does keep winning is that it uses something more in its recruiting methods than friendly persuasion. In 1955 the NCAA placed all of the school's teams on probation for a year, and in 1959 Cincinnati was again censured for having too liberal a student work program, a charge the school has insistently denied. But this was in the pre-Jucker era. Such talk is familiar to any coach with a winner, and it doesn't worry Jucker. The only thing that does worry him is that winning streak. "The longer it gets, the more my poor stomach does flip-flops," Jucker moans. "The players seem to take it in stride, but I can't."

The only place where Jucker can relax is at home on Flora Avenue, and even there it is not easy. He will stretch out on the couch to read the paper, but in minutes his four children are all over Rim. Steve will want him to go out back and shoot baskets. Kenny, age one, will want to show him how high he can jump—"I'm teaching him to rebound," Jucker says proudly. The girls, Judy and Karen, will simply hang on his neck. But when the children are put to bed Ed Jucker slips his favorite record on the phonograph, returns to the couch and forgets about Wichita, the NCAA, Coaches of the Year, ticket requests, phone calls, autographs and the man-to-man defense. For about five seconds. Then the music fills the room—Cincinnati fight songs, as recorded by the university band. Once again Ed Jucker is lost in the world of basketball.