Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo talks about his Basketball Hall of Fame induction and Jud Heathcote on April 4, 2016. By Joe Rexrode, DFP.
I don’t know that I’ve had a bigger thrill in my professional life than getting handwritten letters from Jud Heathcote.
“Keep up the good work,” he wrote in closing in the first of them, or something to that effect. I’ll find the letter as soon as I file this column. No way I’d throw it away. I felt 10 years old again as I read it.
Jud Heathcote — the Michigan State basketball coach of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, of Scott Skiles, Steve Smith, Shawn Respert and Tom Izzo — died Monday at the age of 90 in Spokane, Washington, where he’d lived since retiring from MSU in 1995.
Getting to know Jud through conversation, knowing he respected my work — just learning he actually read my work and apparently knew my home address — that was good stuff for a kid who grew up in Lansing in the 1980s.
You see, Jud Heathcote was the coach of my childhood.
Others had a deeper connection and have more stories to share. Others today are mourning a friend, a coach, a mentor.
I’m just grateful that I got to experience an icon of my youth on a personal level. And that he was everything he appeared to be from afar. I can’t imagine that happens very often.
11 Photos
Michigan State's Jud Heathcote through the years
When I called Jud two years ago to tell him Weber State was at the same NCAA tournament site as Michigan State, wondering if he thought that might be an ominous sign heading into the Spartans’ game against 15-seeded Middle Tennessee State, Jud sensed my snarky glee on the other end of the line. Weber State, a 14-seed in 1995, had upset MSU to unceremoniously end his coaching career.
“(Expletive) you, Graham,” he said. “Don’t mention Weber State!”
Then he started talking about Weber State, with all the wit and self-loathing that he did so well.
I had planned to call Jud this summer to tell him I was writing his obituary, that I needed to interview him for it.
He would have responded similarly, I think. Maybe asked why I wanted him dead. And then he’d have said, “What do you want to know?” And gone along with it. I didn’t think anyone else could do Jud’s humor justice. I knew I couldn’t without his voice. I had planned to have his obit filed away, just in case, hoping not to use it for a long while. But hoping it would be a work of art, full of Jud-isms.
Iconic MSU basketball coach Jud Heathcote has died at age 90. Read some of his memorable quotes. Wochit
My favorite came during an season-opening press conference in the 1980s. “There’s good news and bad news,” he said, straight-faced. “The good news is we have everyone back from last year. The bad news is we have everyone back from last year.”
I shared that just last week during a game of pickup hoops.
I don’t think Heathcote was always easy to work for — that’s the impression I get from Izzo, who claims to have been fired by Heathcote almost daily when he was a young assistant.
Jud wasn’t the world’s greatest recruiter. He struggled to kiss the ass of hotshot 17-year-olds. I respected him for that.
I don’t think he was always easy to play for. But ask anyone who did, they’ll tell you the man could teach the game like few others.
His legacy at Michigan State runs from Magic to Izzo. He had to re-recruit Magic after Gus Ganakas was let go in 1976. He never wavered in his belief in Izzo — not when he re-hired him as a full-time assistant in 1986 or when he pushed for him to be his successor in the early 1990s. Without Heathcote, there is no Izzo at MSU.
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If Heathcote had reached a second Final Four, he’d probably be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He should have in 1990. If there had been replay back then to nix Kenny Anderson’s after-the-buzzer shot in the Sweet 16, MSU probably would have gotten there.
That was another finish he didn’t love being reminded of.
When I’ve written about the Jud Heathcote era, I often refer to MSU as a middling Big Ten program. Because the Spartans were middling, with as many missed postseasons and NIT appearances as NCAA tournament runs. But I always hated that he had to read that from me. I usually don’t care what the people I cover think about what I write as long as I believe what I’ve written to be honest and fair. But Jud was different. I had never covered him. I’d only known him as a 13-year-old fan and 30-something writer, interviewing a charming old curmudgeon of a man, both sweet and biting.
No matter what I’d written or how I’d portrayed his tenure, he’d end every conversation by saying some variance of “Keep up the good work” and telling me never to get old.
He hated getting old. More than Weber State.
Graham Couch can be reached at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at gcouch@lsj.com.
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