I had the pleasure of interviewing Bob McDonald on the occasion of his final regular season game back in 2012. It was a loss to Ely, coached by his son Tom. Bob was remarkably cordial and a great interview, too, as I think you'll agree. I will never forget his comment summing up his 52 years as Chisholm coach. "Losing doesn't bother me.... What I rest on (is that) we were good people." He meant his players but that of course describes Bob and all of the McDonalds as well.
The measure of a man or woman is the people around him. I met Bob 3 or 4 times and, as I said, he was as cordial as could be. I've had the pleasure to know his sons Joel and Mike and Paul and Tom, and the best tribute I can think of to Bob McDonald is just, yeah: Good people. A great coach and so much more.
Here's the interview.
Q: This is the first time I’ve seen your team (this year), so how well would you say they played tonight?
We didn’t play fluidly, we didn’t play with one another. That’s been a big item this year, they don’t play well together. They’re dysfunctional that way. They have very little in common with one another, and that’s the mark of a good team. (One day) we were sitting there in the locker room and I asked, now, who’s your friend on the team? Not one kid could point at another kid on the team and say, he’s my friend.
So this was fairly representative of how they’ve played all year?
Yes, erratically.
They had some nice runs and then some that weren’t so nice.
That’s it. How in the world can these guys…. You can’t believe they play stinko, but they’ve done that regularly. It’s an up and down situation. So it’s not unexpected. But some way or other, and I don’t know if it can be done, it can’t be done by coaches, but they have to get a feeling for one another. All good teams that we’ve had in the past were tight. But this team is going to be very difficult to bring in to the conclusion that they have to have….
As an outsider I thought, well, maybe they’re a little out of sync because they knew this was your last night, it’s a special occasion. Were they at all upset by that?
No. I think they realize…I play to win. I don’t want anybody’s sympathy. And they’re good kids. They want to do something for me. But I’ll do something for me. They should do something for themselves. And they failed in that respect tonight to a great degree. But they’re fine kids. I don’t have a dummy in the bunch. Intellectually they’re sound, and they’re good to be around. But they haven’t been able to put it together on the court.
Now, they did play an awfully good opponent tonight.
Yes, they were, Ely is good. Tom has a disciplined team. One thing about Ely is they’re isolated. They’re within themselves. Everybody knows everybody. They’re like fingers in a glove. They live in Ely. It’s for Ely’s sake that they play. So they have a feeling for each other and a closeness that we don’t have. Tom does a nice job coaching them.
Sometimes they look like Chisholm, the fast break, they push the pace….
That’s right. (Tom) played that way, see. Paul played that way. Mike played that way. The whole bunch plays that way. So I’m getting stung by the skills that I would expect our kids to have. They all do a good job coaching.
As you think beyond tonight to the whole 52 years, how do you summarize the experience?
It’s been wonderful. Losing doesn’t bother me, it’s the quality of the kids that keeps you going. I’ve had losing teams that were fine people. But I could go off the court knowing we were competitive. We were good people. Scholastically sound, no trouble makers throughout my career. That is what I rest on.
How do you think the game of basketball—boys basketball in Minnesota—has changed in 52 years?
I think the jump shooting is the big change. That is it. All other things are basically the same. You’ve got your post play. You’ve got your kids shooting the set from the three-point line. But now we can’t stop that. I used to tell my kids to get up in their face because they’re shooting the set. But now they get up on the jump shot and shoot it over you, you can’t do a thing with that. The jump shot has made the big difference in high school basketball in Minnesota. Do with strategy what you will. But it’s that shot and your ability to put it up on the fly….
Who are the people you admire that you’ve interacted with in your career?
In high school ball, that would be O.J. Belluzzo, who was my father. And Harvey Roels. They were tough as nails, those guys were tough. They would look at you cross-eyed, but Harvey would paddle your hind end. He never did that to me. But they didn’t tolerate any insolence or going half speed. It was expected, not that kids wouldn’t screw up, but….
Times have changed. We have more people that try to react with finesse in the game of basketball as young people that they can’t quite attain. The jump shot is the big item, that is it. If you have a good jump shooter… and we’ve had some good ballplayers.
As I look at the kids who played for me, I revel in the fact that they’re fine citizens, tough basketball players, athletically inclined, and we got another set of kids coming along, the little kids, to take their place. And that’s the way life is, too. Somebody will come along to take my place.
And, now, do we know who that is?
No, but I would presume that it would be Larry Pervananze, who’s been around. The only thing that might hang him up is he’s not a school (teacher). A lot of people want a school man, someone who’ll be around the kids all the time. He’s a good man. But how much time you can spend with young kids….
Who was the best player you ever coached?
(Laughs) I’m not going to say. I’ve had lots of them. I look to see what they do with the ability they had. We’ve had some tremendous ballplayers.
Ely coach Tom McDonald
I also had the pleasure of interviewing Tom that night. Here is some of what he had to say.
This is the first time I’ve seen your team, so how well would you say they played tonight? Was this a great effort, an average effort…?
I thought we played pretty well under the circumstances, all the emotion of my dad’s last game. We kept our discipline on defense pretty well. And, we like to run and gun and those minute possessions that they had kind of tested us a little bit, but I thought they played well.
You said your kids were aware of the significance of tonight’s game. Did they feel any extra pressure with that? And I’m sure you did.
Yeah, I did, too. It’s sad to see him go after so many years. I was a part of this program for so many years, and now watching it from the outside, it’s a sad day to see dad go. Even thought I think it’s time. But he’s put so much into the program here and the culture of basketball here.
A lot of times our guys are a little afraid of Chisholm because of the mystique. In 24 years of coaching at Ely, this is only the second time I’ve won here. So the wins are few and far between here, so somehow we got over that (tonight).
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