The Uproar In Philadelphia

The next afternoon the most successful coach in the Big Five—his team is now contending for No. 1 national ranking—stood in a characteristic pose on the edge of a crowd, his head hanging down, his eyes counting the cracks in the floor, while speaker after speaker walked to a microphone in the center of the basketball court and described him as the best coach in the country. Jack Ramsay, 40, owner of a 195-and-65 record in his 10 years at St. Joseph's, was going through the agony of a Jack Ramsay Day. Finally he was released from the shackles of tribute and allowed to return to the dressing room, where he was busy getting his team "up" for its game with Boston College. In the press box a St. Joe's administrator talked about him: " Ramsay can get 10 basketball players higher than any coach in the country. It's not a Knute Rockne approach, it's kind of intellectual, a matter of personal example. He's so intense that it's almost impossible to speak to him 10, 15 minutes after a game. He's emotionally spent. He gets 'em so far up that after we beat St. John's a couple of our subs were in the dressing room crying, and they hadn't even been in the game!"

Joe Lapchick, the St. John's coach, has said that a basketball coach has to work harder against Ramsay than any other opponent. Ramsay's specialty is the zone press, a grueling technique described by one opposition player as "like running into a windmill." He orders the zone press when his team is behind or when the mood overtakes him. The mood overtook him seldom on Saturday, for Ramsay's Hawks ran Bob Cousy's Boston College Eagles right into the boards. Shooting from inside and out, fast-breaking, intercepting passes, stealing the ball and harassing the Eagles in front court and back, Ramsay's 10 sophomores and juniors took a 34-17 lead after 10 minutes, and the ball game was over: St. Joe's eventually won 93-71. The fans began another chant: "Coach of the Year, Coach of the Year...." With only one loss (to Providence) in 13 games, Ramsay certainly must be in the running. But the rest of Philadelphia was jumping to no conclusions. St. Joe's still has to play its first City Series game of the season. In the City of Brotherly Hate, everything else is prologue.