How long a seed takes to yield a crop really depends on the seeds. And the soil. And the weather. Harvest could take a month. It could take a full season. It just varies.
But how long does the seed of character take to grow? Or the seed of work ethic? Of integrity? Of self-love? Of community pride?
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For two dozen years at Temple, that’s what John Chaney was planting. The Owls’ basketball program was his garden. The young men he coached, supported and loved through the years — their hearts and mindsets were his soil. Chaney faithfully tended to his garden, planting seeds, patiently waiting. He couldn’t see the germination process beneath the surface. But he did see them sprout.
“I’m the fruit,” Aaron McKie said.
McKie is the perfect example of the toiling Chaney did as a coach. McKie was raised by an aunt after his father died when he was young and his mother left him. Chaney wasn’t scared off by McKie’s struggles. He was drawn to them, especially with how McKie had enough sense not to let hardship send him down the wrong path. Some coaches steered clear of McKie. His childhood traumas were a deterrent. But not for Chaney. He didn’t care because he’d walked in McKie’s shoes. They weren’t identical pairs, but they were the same brand — struggle. Chaney, too, grew up in Philadelphia, after his family moved from Jacksonville, Fla., when he was in eighth grade. He knew what it’s like to wake up to rats in the house. As a kid, he hid under his bed while the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross nearby. He knew what hardship looks like.
He recognized that McKie was fertile ground. Chaney saw potential in his players, where others saw potential trouble, and he went about nurturing.
Chaney, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001, died Friday at the age of 89. In 24 years at Temple, he guided the Owls to 23 winning seasons, 17 NCAA Tournament appearances and five Elite Eights. But perhaps his greatest contributions, his most significant accomplishments, were the lives he impacted, the players he groomed.
Men such as McKie, who now patrols the same sideline Chaney used to roam. Men such as Mike Vreeswyk and Mark Macon. They, among many others, are the crop.
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When you see McKie and Macon coaching at Temple today, you see a man’s life work. When you see Vreeswyk, an Owls 3-point legend, thriving with his family in life after basketball, you see the harvest of a lifetime spent in a garden. You see the legacy of Chaney, their spiritual gardener.
“He planted the seeds for not just myself, but for a lot of guys, a lot of young men.” McKie said. “He gave me an incredible opportunity and I’m here now because of him — because of how he fought for so many inner-city kids. I’m here because of him. I have a heavy heart now, but I can smile because he’s in a better place.”
McKie will never forget the first time he watched Chaney coach. Growing up in Philadelphia made McKie a disciple of hoops early on. A regular at Big 5 games, he had obviously heard of Chaney. But it’s different to see him. McKie still remembers climbing into the stands at the Palestra to witness the legendary Temple coach on the sideline. The experience altered the trajectory of his life.
Chaney commanded his attention. He felt a powerful, engulfing pull toward the cranky man with the loud, raspy voice. It was inexplicable. Extraordinary. McKie watched in awe as Chaney’s fire fueled his famous on-court antics. Seeing that passion up close was fascinating. It was the personification of toughness, of fight. And McKie could see with his own eyes how the team had adopted the spirit of its coach. The Owls identity clearly reflected the coach.
McKie fell in love with Temple basketball on the spot. Hindsight has taught him just how much that moment meant to him. At the time, he couldn’t imagine the impact of watching his soon-to-be coach, mentor and friend.
“He was one of few Black men that I could look at in our society and say, ‘I want to be just like him,’” McKie said. “I enjoyed watching him coach. I enjoyed watching his teams play. And it was always something as a kid I always wanted to be a part of.”
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McKie harnessed that inspiration and grew his game. He adopted that spirit of relentlessness. He became a standout player at Simon Gratz High. Guess who showed up to recruit him?
Now imagine how that felt.
McKie can’t even recall his first conversation with Chaney. He was paralyzed by awe. It didn’t take much convincing for McKie to commit to Temple. Having Chaney come to watch him play? Having Chaney in his home on a recruiting visit? They were dreams coming true, goals being accomplished. A young hooper from North Philly getting to play for Temple? Chaney had him at hello.
After McKie signed his national letter of intent, Chaney gave him a piece of advice that essentially summarized what the coach was all about. If McKie thought he had worked hard as a high school player, he’d have another thing coming at Temple. The coach told him he’d have to work even harder in the summer — in the classroom and on the court.
After redshirting as a freshman, McKie played three seasons for the Owls and finished his career tied for sixth on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,650 points. He averaged 17.9 points and never missed a start in 92 games. He was the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year as a redshirt sophomore in 1993. As a redshirt junior, he earned first-team all-conference honors and was named to the A-10 all-tournament team.
McKie was selected 17th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1994 NBA Draft. He played 11 seasons in the NBA, including eight with his hometown Philadelphia 76ers, with whom he reached the 2001 NBA Finals as Allen Iverson’s sidekick. McKie retired in 2008 after being released by the Memphis Grizzlies. It was time to figure out his next step in life.
He could hear Chaney’s booming voice.
McKie initially had no interest in coaching. But as retirement inched closer, and gave him perspective on his journey, he couldn’t help but think about Chaney’s impact on him as a player. As a person. He couldn’t shake the difference Chaney had made in inner-city Philadelphia and the Temple University community.
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Chaney was a fierce advocate for people, especially the less fortunate. He fought against the NCAA’s discriminatory Proposition 42 in the late 1980s, a rule that kept first-year scholarship athletes from receiving financial aid if they were below a certain GPA and SAT score. Chaney took kids who weren’t seen as marquee players into his program and molded them into marquee men. They left his stewardship understanding not only the game, but also life lessons, and the importance of who they would choose to be once the ball stopped bouncing. It was always about more than basketball with Chaney.
McKie couldn’t see what was germinating beneath the surface. But what sprouted was a desire to coach, to emulate Chaney. He spent five seasons as a Sixers assistant and five more as a Temple assistant before taking over for Fran Dunphy as head coach in 2019.
Chaney paved the way for McKie’s first head coaching opportunity. And, like Chaney, he wants to use his influence to help young men better their lives.
“John Chaney impacted all of these players that he had,” Dunphy said, “and then he became their friend, and they see him in a totally different light and appreciate him even more than when they played for him.”
The sleeves of his button-up shirt would be rolled up, his fists clenched. His tie would be loosened, his collar sprawling. That intense look in his eyes could light a pilot. That scowl could make a crooked line straight.
Chaney was an antic. He screamed at refs, gave opposing coaches a piece of his mind when necessary, barked at his players. Chaney could come off as unpolished for an elite college basketball coach. His methods were different. He was more an agent of chaos than CEO of the program. The same fire that made him special got the better of him on occasion.
Like in 1994, when he burst into UMass coach John Calipari’s postgame press conference and threatened to kill him. Like during the 2004-05 season, when he ordered one of his players to play like a “goon,” which resulted in an opposing player breaking an arm.
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Although he typically spoke to his players with humor, they have stories of times when he leaned on anger and fear-mongering. His post-practice speeches were often filled with profanity. He would grab or elbow his players during practice. His tactics were not universally embraced, especially as college coaches came under scrutiny for taking their dictatorship too far with student-athletes.
But it would be a mistake to define Chaney by his rough edges and callous ways. He wasn’t just an angry Black coach. To see only one side of Chaney, and make a judgment, is to miss the nuance in his greatness. To not consider the value he brought is to disregard his context and miss why he is a legend.
Chaney was a dichotomy. He wasn’t an ideal role model, but in some ways, he was perfect for the task. Through all of his fire, he found a way to provide warmth. His love was tough, his reinforcement was sometimes negative, but players knew they had an advocate in Chaney. They understood him, that the conviction behind the wrath came from a genuine place and with their best interest at heart.
“We knew deep down that he loved us,” said Vreeswyk, who played under Chaney from 1985 to 1989, “and at the end of practice or at the end of the game, it was right back to that love. We all think we’re going to be NBA players, but Coach makes sure all of his players realize that nothing really can be attained without an education. And the life stories and the life lessons he taught us have stayed with me. He taught us that everybody deserves an opportunity, everybody deserves a chance. I think that everything I have in life, I can pretty much trace back in some form or fashion to Coach. I wouldn’t be where I am without him.”
Temple was locked in a classic Big 5 battle with the La Salle before a hostile, sold-out McGonigle Hall crowd in 1990. Lionel Simmons, the Explorers’ All-American forward known as the L-Train, found himself at the free-throw line with 11 seconds remaining and the score tied at 61. Simmons had yet to beat the Owls in his career. This was his chance.
Chaney couldn’t believe the petty off-ball foul call that had landed Simmons at the charity stripe in the first place. He was apoplectic. But all Chaney could do was shake his head, take a seat on the bench and stew as Simmons stepped to the line and calmly knocked down both shots.
The Explorers immediately jumped into full-court pressure to speed up Temple and burn some clock. There were eight seconds remaining when the Owls crossed half court. Dare they go for a game-winning 3-pointer, or would they be satisfied with a tie and overtime at home?
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Chaney rose to his feet and called a timeout to set up the offense, all the while giving the ref the evil eye across the court.
Normally, this situation would call for the ball in the hands of Macon, Temple’s All-American. But Macon was tightly defended when play resumed so it ended up with Michael Harden, who averaged 8.1 points per game that season, well shy of Macon’s 21.9. Eventually, Harden got it to Macon and, with one second left, he was fouled on the perimeter by La Salle’s Randy Woods.
Makeup call? Chaney’s death stare was vicious.
Macon, a 79 percent free-throw shooter, made the first from the line. The second missed off the back iron. Temple couldn’t get a tip-in. La Salle won.
One could imagine Macon’s devastation as the star guard who cost his team the game in the clutch. But where there was doubt growing, wherever the feelings of failure might have been trying to take root, Chaney yanked it right on up like weeds. Macon half-expected his coach, who yelled at his team all game long, to join him in beating himself up. But in the locker room afterward, Chaney didn’t do any tearing down. He took to building the Owls back up. He went to Macon and fertilized his spirits with wisdom.
“He said to me, ‘Son, if you play long enough, you’re going to have the opportunity to do that again,’” said Macon, who’s now an assistant on McKie’s coaching staff. “And that was important to me because that was some of the same information I’ve given to other players and other people. If you do it long enough, you get another chance to do it again. Basketball is just that. There’s always another game, and you’re only as good as your last one.”
Lessons like that are why Macon will always call Chaney the wise old owl. When Macon left Temple for the NBA after his senior season in 1991, Chaney’s teachings stayed with him. And as he transitioned into a coaching career in 2003, he imparted those lessons to young players, so they, too, could have success in life and understand what it means to be a man.
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That’s the magic of John Chaney. That’s the seed he planted.
The gardener is gone now, or so it seems. But the work remains.
“He’ll surely be missed, but he’s not gone, because energy doesn’t die,” Macon said. “It just expands and transforms. And Coach just transformed into all of his players and all of the lives he’s touched. He lives within us.”
(Top photo of John Chaney and Aaron McKie: Ted Mathias / Associated Press)