On the boulevard that bears his name, Bernie Bickerstaff first learned how racism and segregation can destroy lives.
"You always knew where you stood," he said of his hometown of Benham, Ky., a tiny Appalachian coal-mining community set in the mountainsides of eastern Kentucky that was decimated by the Depression.
He was a teenager during the racially charged 1960s and believed he'd spend the rest of his days working in the mines like his father and grandfather. Or maybe he'd join the Army and fight in a war that was brewing in Vietnam.
Basketball was never a serious option, even though he was the best player at his high school and had a penchant for leading. Something inside him pulled him toward coaching, but back then there were no NBA coaches that looked like him.
Still, Bickerstaff followed his heart.
At 24, he was an assistant at the University of San Diego and a year later in 1969, he took over the program.
At the same time, the Seattle Sonics hired Lenny Wilkens, making him the second African-American coach in the NBA after Bill Russell, who made the transition from star player to coach in 1966 with the Boston Celtics.
While the color barrier had been broken, an unspoken criterion had also been established: African-Americans could coach in the NBA, but unlike their white counterparts, their résumés needed to include numerous All-Star appearances as a player.
They had to have household names like Al Attles, Elgin Baylor or Willis Reed.
Or they had to have won a slew of championships like K.C. Jones, Satch Sanders and Paul Silas.
It wasn't good enough to be a good coach. The burden of proof was much higher for blacks.
They had to be future Hall of Fame players — until Bickerstaff and the Sonics changed all of that in 1985.
"My break came from Lenny Wilkens," said Bickerstaff, who is 60. "Lenny hired me. Barry [Ackerley], who owned the team, approved it, but Lenny gave me a chance."
The NBA took a major step that day and stated loud and clear that race would not be a deterrent for advancement in their league.
The message went unnoticed 12 years earlier when Draff Young became the first African-American who didn't play in the NBA to coach a team. His achievement went largely ignored because he took over as an interim coach for three games and lost every one.
The "diversity" message was delivered once again last week when Mike Brown joined a small fraternity of seven African-American coaches who never played in the NBA.
The Cleveland Cavaliers hired the 35-year-old Brown, a Bickerstaff disciple who began his NBA career as an intern and video coordinator at Denver — where Bickerstaff was president and general manager.
Brown is considered a smart and defensive-minded coach who spent time working with Gregg Popovich and Rick Carlisle. Still, no matter how highly he's regarded by peers throughout the league, people in Brown's position rarely get a chance to lead their own team.
Consider Sonics associate head coach Dwane Casey as Exhibit A. For the third straight year, he has drawn interest from teams seeking to fill their coaching vacancies and may have to sever an 11-year relationship with the Sonics — his only NBA team — if he wishes to bolster his résumé.
"I thought I had to take jobs that maybe others wouldn't take and work that much harder because of the no-name recognition thing," said Alvin Gentry, a long-time assistant who never played in the pros. "I couldn't say, 'back when I played for the Celtics or played for the Lakers or the San Antonio Spurs... ' "
Gentry eventually became a head coach for Miami, Detroit and the Los Angeles Clippers.
"Obviously there's a bond between the guys that have played in the league that helps in hiring and coaching," he said. "Guys can say, 'Oh, he knows what I'm going through because he's been there.' But if guys believe in you or have confidence in you, they don't care if you played in the league or not."
The numbers, however, suggest that general managers and owners give considerable credence to prior playing experience. Of the 52 black coaches in the history of the NBA, only seven did not play in the league. Conversely, the NBA currently has eight white coaches who didn't play in the league.
The NBA does a far better job at hiring and promoting coaches of color than any other professional sports league, but it's far from perfect.
Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that over the last 10 years, a new white coach lasted an average of 2.4 seasons before being fired, while a new black hire was fired after 1.6 seasons.
The veracity of the newspaper's claims has been disputed, but perhaps the report helps to explain why Leonard Hamilton and Randy Ayers, a pair of black coaches who came from successful collegiate programs, didn't last very long in their only NBA coaching stints.
Maybe they fell to the wayside like so many ex-college coaches because they couldn't adjust to the pro game. Or maybe the color of their skin and their lack of NBA playing experience made them easier to fire.
Unlike his mentor Bickerstaff, Brown had never been a head coach at any level. Stu Jackson and Gentry, who also were never head coaches at any level before joining the NBA, received their first jobs as interim coaches.
Brown is symbolically walking through the front door. Because he is a trailblazer, many will watch his career with keen interest.
The sad reality is that should he not succeed, then his failure will likely make it more difficult for others such as Casey.
"There's no pressure on him just like there was no pressure on me," Bickerstaff said. "Pressure is growing up in segregation and surviving that. Where you go to the back of the bus and drink at separate water fountains. That's pressure. All of this stuff is really simple compared to how it used to be."
he will become the most underrated coach
