herb livsey tribute

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SoCalHoops Coaching News

Coaching News: Daily Pilot Pays
Tribute To Herb Livsey--(April 30, 1999)

Monday's edition of the Daily Pilot (the LA Times' Huntington Beach based local paper), featured a very nice article about Herb Livsey, who is currently a scout for the Portland Trailblazers, a former coach at Orange Coast College, and one of four current directors (along with Charlie Sands, Wayne Carlson and Jeff Bishop) of the Snow Valley Basketball Camps. The Daily Pilot is starting their "Millenium Hall of Fame" and the article was their way of inducting Herb into the Hall of Fame. Here's the story, but Daily Pilot writer Richard Dunn:

Orange Coast Basketball Guru Still Blazing a Trail.
By RICHARD DUNN

As the Portland Trail Blazers storm through the NBA's Western Conference this season, some of the success no doubt can be attributed to their dedicated force behind the scenes. While Brian Grant and Damon Stoudamire grab headlines for their on-court prowess, Herb Livsey quietly covers the basketball circuit as a Blazers scout, traveling the country and probing every corner of the hardwood to give his team an edge. Livsey, a passionate teacher on the court and in the classroom, is in his first year with the Trail Blazers, but by no means is the former Orange Coast College professor a rookie. In fact, the young Blazers could learn plenty of lessons from the longtime basketball connoisseur who is considered an expert in development and instruction.

But Livsey, a former OCC and Costa Mesa High head coach, was also never afraid to challenge students in the classroom, while teaching discipline and life's practical principles. Once, in a Sports Literature class filled with OCC jocks, Livsey asked everyone in the room who believed they were destined for the glamour of professional sports to raise their hand. Everyone did. "The reality is," Livsey told the wide-eyed freshmen and sophomores, "maybe one of you will make it. But most of you won't. So take advantage of your education and learn something."

No textbook has ever been as devoted and forthright as Livsey, who retired as an OCC English instructor in the spring of 1997 with a legacy as grand as his current employer's 1977 NBA Championship. Livsey, inducted into the California Community College Hall of Fame last March, was OCC's head coach from 1969 to 1976, and, later, an assistant for nine years. He was also an assistant coach at UCI from 1980 to '85 under Bill Mulligan and at Arizona State from 1985 to '87.

Known throughout California's hoops circles as the 39-year director of the Snow Valley Basketball School, Livsey served as an NBA scout for three other franchises -- the Minnesota Timberwolves, Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs -- before landing his first full-time tour of duty in October, when he was hired by Mark Warkentien, Portland's assistant general manager. "Herb's a throwback," Warkentein said. "Most guys get into the game now for extrinsic reasons, with ESPN and all that. A lot of guys get into coaching for the money, or for the exposure, or for their egos, or for recognition and things like that.

"But Herb's absolutely a guy who's into it for intrinsic reasons. He has an absolute passion for what he does, whether it's teaching, scouting or advance preparation. When he puts his name on a report, it's like a self-portrait. It's his being. He goes to sleep at night consumed with it. There's nothing he can't do. He can teach, coach, and he's the most organized guy I've been around." Prior to his hiring with the Blazers, Livsey served as Director of Player Development for the Continental Basketball Association, a feeder to the NBA, for two years. "I think the best way to evaluate a player is to do it in practice," Livsey once said, "or evaluate a player, not in the big game, but in the game after the big game. That's when you find out how he responds.

"In the NBA, you have to come night after night. You can't lose to teams below you." Livsey, whose primary responsibility with the Blazers is to cover the western part of the country for potential draft picks, also travels throughout the U.S. and Europe as a grassroots teacher for the Nike All-American Camps, serving as the shoe company's senior instructor. "Herb is professional in everything he does," said Warkentien, who once served on Mulligan's UCI staff with Livsey. "If he's teaching English, he's ready every day and he walks into the classroom excited, just like he walks into a gym excited. You can't find any old school guy in the game nationally who doesn't hold Herb in the highest reverence.

"We've got things going pretty good right now (as an organization), and I think the key to administration and hiring is to hire people better than you. The stuff Herb does, nobody does what he does better, because he works so hard at it. "It was a no brainer for us to hire him. When he became available and we had something open, it wasn't like there was an interview process." Livsey, 62, was honored for his longtime service to the profession by the National Association of Collegiate Coaches at the 1990 NCAA Final Four. He also served as a keynote speaker on occasion to educate college presidents and athletic directors on the ramifications of Prop. 48.