Latest / Then and Now with Coach Z / Ep. 016 | Ron Zetcher | Then & Now

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Ep. 016 | Ron Zetcher | Then & Now · Then and Now with Coach Z

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Well, it's a nice Wednesday afternoon here in Creve Coeur,
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MO. And once again, your word there
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with the then and the now. And I want to say something
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before we get started today. I was going to have the Hall of
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Fame, Jackie Smith, in her today.
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And something came up at the last minute that Jackie had some
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family responsibilities, but he was still the kind of man he is.
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He was still going to come here anyway and leave all that behind
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that I said, no, Sir Jackie Smith, you do everything for
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this community. Or one of the finest men and one
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of the greatest football player to come out of this community.
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And we'll just catch up next week or the week after and we'll
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have a great session. So Jackie's not going to be here
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today, but he will be here in the near future.
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I have some shout outs. I want to shout out to three
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women who, and I'm doing this now solo and this is a see if
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Coach Z can put this together. I think I will have a good show.
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I want to talk about three women.
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We haven't done much about women athletes.
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I want to talk about Charmin Smith.
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First of all, Charmin was a kindergarten student of mine a
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long, long time ago at the Spady Elementary School.
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And Charmin today is the head basketball coach at the
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University of California. She's an outstanding young lady
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and Charmin, she's everything that you would want your
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daughters to be a growing up. And at a later date, Charmin
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will also be on the show. Another young lady that I want
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to shout out to maybe the greatest athlete or one of the
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greatest female athletes in the city of Saint Louis is Kristen
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Focal, a graduate of Saint Joe Academy Christian Focal.
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In her four years at the Saint Joe she played on 4 state
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championship volleyball teams and four state championship
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basketball teams. 8 state championships from this young
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girl and then NIA Ivy. NIA is now the head basketball
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coach at Notre Dame and NIA Ivy. I used to go into this little
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sandwich shop on Clayton Rd. I used to have a little sandwich
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there when I could sneak away from the junior high school and
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get out of there when I wasn't supposed to.
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And there was a lady who worked in there and lovely lady.
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And we started talking and one day she said to me, she said,
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Sir, you're a, a coach over at would do.
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I said, yes, ma'am. And so she said, well, I have a
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daughter. She's a sophomore in high
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school. And all these colleges keep
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calling me about my daughter, and I don't know what to do or
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what's the rules or what to say. But I said your daughter must be
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pretty good if they're calling her you.
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And she's only a sophomore. So I told her, I said what you
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ought to do is I gave her the phone number.
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Call the NCAA office and ask them just what your daughter's
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allowed to do and not allowed to do as far as visits or talking
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to coaches. All the things that the NCAA has
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a bunch of very, very, in my opinion, very silly rules, but
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you have to follow them. So her daughter Ania, she now is
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the head basketball coach at Notre Dame.
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So those are three outstanding women, Charmin Smith, Kristen
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Focal and NIA Ivy. On my way into the studio today,
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all of a sudden I had some 50s music on and I was hearing a lot
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of songs from the 50s. And you know, we always talk
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about all our buddies and all the guys that we played with and
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this and that and whatever. This could be more of a woman
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show today for a while anyway. So all of a sudden I started
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thinking about those wonderful cheerleaders who used to come
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out every Tuesday and every Friday night and cheer for us
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and support us. And they were just, they were
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outstanding. I'm 1 of this.
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There's only one of them who's still living, which is very,
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very sad to me. But the girls that were just
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outstanding girls, there was Susie Sachs and Dottie
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Gershenson, Pat Sherman, Joan Frank, Sally and Ann Hopkins,
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twins. And Sally Hopkins was my
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girlfriend in high school and her twin couldn't stand me.
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So that tells you something about whatever.
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And then there was a Joan Becker and and Charlene Sherman and the
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the the one living, one living cheerleader.
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And I still see her on New Year's Eve.
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She comes with us is, is Sharon. Her maiden name was Broderson.
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Sharon Spiegelglass. Sharon's one of the she's the
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last of those great cheerleaders, and I think about
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them often. They were wonderful girls and
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they really represented University City High School very
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well. Now let's talk a little bit
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about University City High School.
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I've had a kind of an issue with some of the I'm not angry, but I
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I wonder how many people at University City from the 80s on
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do not know that University City had some pretty darn good
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athletes before 1980. We can go back to the 40s with
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Terry Fails, who was only the outstanding.
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Terry Fails was the outstanding football and basketball player
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in Saint Louis in his senior year on the Go Go Democrat.
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They had a survey, the number one guy, my good friend Sandy
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Pomeranz. 1958 is when he graduated the 1st and maybe the
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only high school all American to come out of Saint Louis.
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And we could go on and on. There's a few other guys or
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there's a doctor Don Sauer, great surgeon who was on the
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1952 University City basketball team.
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And Doctor Sauer, he's he's still living.
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He's 92 years old and he was a great surgeon.
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Washington University Medical School and a great basketball
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and a great, great football player.
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University City High School played with a couple guys that I
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know real well, Harold Glassman, who's passed, who was another
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great athlete and all. There were so many guys over
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there that were great athletes. Buddy Crystal was a great
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basketball player. A quick story about Buddy
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Crystal. When I was preparing for my bar
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mitzvah, I was doing real bad. I was missing a lot of sessions
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and I wasn't going to Hebrew school.
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And my parents were really worried.
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My boy, they sent out invitations and everything from
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my bar mitzvah, and I didn't even know my bar mitzvah lessons
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or anything. So my parents found this guy by
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the name of Zanville. Sazna was his name and Zanville
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taught, he taught Hebrew and he taught you your lessons.
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And so my parents, I didn't know this, my parents made sure that
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the lessons were on Tuesday night.
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So Zanville, Sazna, he was related to Buddy Crystal, who
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was a great player on U City. So Zanville, he told me, he
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said, Ron, if we have a good, you know, a lesson, then I can
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drive you up to U City and we can watch U City basketball
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game. Well, that's all I needed.
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I did real good and I and by the way, I was bar misfit and I did
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pretty good. My mom and dad told me that
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parents always tell you you're good even if you're not doing
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good. Anyway, I want to talk a little
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bit more about another. Oh, I have a shout out to Gwen
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Westbrooks, my friend, Billy Westbrooks, his wife.
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I'm not going to tell you the number of years, but she's got a
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big, big birthday and they're going to celebrate it this
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Saturday night. And Billy Westbrooks, he called
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me and invited me, and it's about time he invited me to
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something. I've been taking that guy
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everywhere. I I don't know how many
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basketball games I gave him over the years, probably enough to
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put a down payment on his house. But what a great gal Gwen is.
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She's a farmer, school administrator and and Billy, of
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course, was a school administrator, coach and a very,
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very good basketball referee. So anyway, let's move on.
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Let's talk a little bit about today.
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We've talked about the then, now let's talk about the now.
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I have been going to a lot of my my wife Sue Davis's grandkids
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games and I'm having a real good time going to those games
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because I'm not as emotionally involved as I used to be when my
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own grandkids were playing and I'm behaving a lot better than I
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used to. I learned, I learned my lessons.
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I got ejected from a few games and it was I embarrassed my
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family, my family members who were at the game, they were very
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embarrassed by my behavior. But anyway, every parent that I
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see at these games, they love their kids.
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They're there with their kids. I never hear them ever when the
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game's over and I kind of hang around you and I hear them
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talking. They never really tell their
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kids what they really saw that night.
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Everything. Oh, you were great, honey.
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You did great. And I don't think you're ever
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going to get better unless you have a real just an honest
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conversation. You can talk to your son or
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daughter. You can talk to them with
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respect, but you have to tell them if they're doing something
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out there that's just not like last night I saw a game.
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And, you know, this is a pretty good, I think these kids are 12
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years old. There were a couple plays.
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There was a play at home plate where there was a wild throw.
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The pitcher should have been behind the catcher backing them
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up. And the pitcher was just
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standing on the mound watching everything.
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Somebody has to tell him that, you know, don't get angry, but I
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say, you know, when there's a play at home plate and they're
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going to throw from the outfield, you have to be behind
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the catcher to back it up in case the throat gets by him,
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which it did, by the way. Twice there was another play at
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third base where the pitcher should have been behind third
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base. OK.
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That being said, I have a problem with catchers who are
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catching on one knee because if you're on one knee, you still
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have to raise up to make a good strong throw to second base and
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especially a 12 year old, that's a hard throw.
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They should be teaching these kids to not be on one knee
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catchers. You block pitches, you slide and
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you block. Anyway, that's enough of my my
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coaching expertise, which is not very much.
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I got a phone call last night from Darcy Could do.
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She's a librarian over at Spady Elementary School and she needed
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a sub this afternoon and she wanted me to come to the library
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and be a sub. And she said it'll be a great
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job for you to coach. You only have two classes all
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afternoon and you, you know, not that much to do.
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But I had already committed to this podcast and I told her and
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I thought I was, I was really sorry because it was very nice
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for her to think about me and want me to come in there.
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And I want to talk a little bit about Spady Elementary School.
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That's a wonderful school. Don't get me wrong.
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Reed Elementary School's a terrific school.
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A Conway is a grade school. Old Bonham's a grade school.
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We have a terrific middle school.
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We have a terrific, terrific high school.
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And the 5th grade center is something else.
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It is just so, so unbelievable. The 5th grade center, they have
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two gyms. They have more outdoor
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facilities. They have turf fields, they have
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tennis courts and I hope these kids and would do understand
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just how lucky they are to be having these types of schools
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and the great teachers in the schools.
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I was asked the other day by somebody if you had a child or a
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grandchild going to Spady Elementary School, would there
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be any? Would there be any teacher that
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you did not want your child or or grandchild to have?
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And I thought, I thought, and I thought, and I looked at every
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grade and I thought, you know what?
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There might be 1 teacher who's a little better than another
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teacher in somebody'd opinion. But I would be comfortable with
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any one of my kids or grandkids going to any teacher at Spady
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Elementary School. It's it's just been a great
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school. And I go way back there and, and
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the lady that I'm married to now, she was a librarian there
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for 30 years and she had AI don't know how she did this, but
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she was a librarian. And every year you'd have 4 new
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kindergartens come to that school, about 20 kids in a
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kindergarten class. So that's 80 kids.
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And they'd all come in the library and they'd meet Miss
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Davis. And then the next class would
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come in and meet Miss Davis. And then the third kindergarten
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meet Miss Davis. And the last one meet Miss
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Davis. Here's where I'm.
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Here's where I'm going. At the end of the week.
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She knew all 80 kids names. I don't understand it.
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Jessica's here looking at me. Do you understand that, Jessica?
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No, I don't see how anybody can do that.
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My daughter Jessica's here. She's watching her father make a
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fool of himself today. And anyway, and I want to shout
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out to Matt, who's the producer here.
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He's back there. He keeps me in line and does a
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great job. OK, And let's move on.
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Next week I'm going to have the great Kelvin Leon.
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Kelvin Lee, just those of you who don't know who he is, Kelvin
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Lee was the head basketball coach in a number of schools
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here in Saint Louis, but he's well known for his great, great
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coaching job that he did at Chaminade.
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So the first player he had over there, David Lee.
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David Lee went to the NBA and then he had a kid by the name of
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Beal Bradley Beal and he went to the NBA and then Kelvin of
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course, coached the Tatum kid who's one of the best players
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right now in the NBA. Kelvin Lee is a great coach.
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He's always been a little bit, you know, maybe I'm maybe I
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should look for another job or maybe I should know.
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I've been here long enough. But so he's been at the
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Chaminade. He did a great job and then he
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went to one of the Saint Mary's. He did a great job at Saint
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Mary's. Then he went to U City and took
14:38
that program and made it into a great program.
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And then after U City that Kelvin retired and went back to,
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well, I think he might have gone out to one of the Hazelwood
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Central maybe for a couple years too.
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And then he went back to Florida.
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And right now he's back in coaching in Florida, at a high
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school in Florida. And I'm sure those players down
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there, they don't, I don't know if they realize how lucky they
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are to have a guy like Kelvin Lee coaching them.
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I met Kelvin Lee years ago when I was refereeing and he was an
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assistant coach. And when I say assistant coach,
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he was like the 3rd or 4th assistant maybe he was way down
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the line at Baylor University and Baylor was playing a game
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that I was officiating and Gene IBA was a coach of Baylor.
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And this Kelvin Lee, I don't know who he is from nothing is a
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big guy. And he's sitting there and he's
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yelling at me all night about my calls and he's this and getting
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all over me. Finally I had enough of them and
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I went down to a coach IBA and I said, Coach IBA, you know,
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you're the head coach here. I'll listen to you.
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You got something you want to say to me?
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I'll be glad to talk to you. But you tell that big guy down
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at the end of the bench, he better shut the you know what up
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or I'm going to run his sorry ass right out of his gym.
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And that's How I Met Kelvin Lee and we're good friends to this
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day. And I, I will go down and say
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this unequivocally, one of the one of the best high school
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basketball coaches ever in the history of Saint Louis, the
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basketball. I want to make a shout out also
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every week I say this and I want to make a shout out to remind
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people to support mental health. It's really big.
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Support it. Support the people who are
16:36
having mental health issues. You'll feel better about it and
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you're sure make those people feel better about it.
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They're all struggling, but they're all working hard to have
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a good life just like every one of us.
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So let me talk a little bit about our future guests that are
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going to be coming in here. We're going to have Jay Blossom
16:56
in here. Jay was a head basketball coach
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at Webster Groves, won a couple state championships and now a
17:02
Jays over at Principia and wow, what he's done with that
17:06
Principia basketball team. I believe that they're one of
17:08
the top high school teams in the country.
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I don't know where all those players are coming from, but
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boy, what he's done at Principia is unbelievable.
17:16
When I refereed years and years ago high school, I refereed for
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a guy over at Principia by the name of Dick Herman.
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He was a good man and he really helped me a lot when I was
17:25
starting out. Hired me for a lot of games.
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Probably was sorry after a few of them that he hired me.
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But anyway, we had a good we had a good relationship.
17:32
Dick Herman, shout out to you. Gus Otto will be coming on the
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show in the future. Gus, Missouri University Hall of
17:43
Fame football player played for the Oakland Raiders.
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Gus Otto, eight years with the Oakland Raiders.
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Think about this, eight years with the Oakland Raiders in the
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National Football League, never missed a game, never ever missed
17:58
a game for injury or anything else.
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And we're hoping that he'll bring his buddy Johnny Rowland,
18:03
who was a great All American at Missouri with him on the show.
18:07
We're waiting to hear from Johnny Bob Button's going to be
18:11
on here. He's a legendary Parkway N
18:16
football and baseball coach and and a great guy and from a great
18:20
athletic family. And he's going to bring his dad
18:23
in, I think. But he told me he's not going to
18:26
bring it either one of his brothers in because our ratings
18:29
will go down if his brothers show up.
18:32
He's a funny guy. Dave Phillips will also be on
18:38
the show in the future. Dave Phillips is a retired Major
18:42
League Baseball umpire. And Dave Phillips, I might say,
18:45
is Dave Phillips and Johnny Overby are the two men who have
18:52
made a Coach ZA career as a basketball official.
18:57
What it was, they both hired me. They both had great confidence
19:01
in me and they gave me so many opportunities.
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I can't, I, I, I, I can't thank them enough for what they have
19:07
done for me and what they did for me.
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And Dave's going to be, I don't know if he'll come into the
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station or we'll have him on Zoom.
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I hope I can get him in here because I like to really just
19:16
talk and talked to him for a while.
19:18
He was a great friend, a great Major League umpire, umpired
19:22
World Series, was a crew chief 30 year career in Major League
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Baseball. That's pretty solid.
19:32
And Bill Hancock, who started the College Football Playoff, he
19:38
was the director of the playoffs, then he was the
19:43
director before that. He was with the Big 8
19:46
Conference. That's How I Met him.
19:48
And Bill Hancock was the number one guy in college football,
19:52
started the playoffs and the championship football game is
20:03
all a result of Mr. Bill Hancock.
20:06
And I know that Bill will come on.
20:09
Him and his wife are doing a lot of traveling now.
20:11
They're both retired. But he's a wonderful man and he
20:14
always gives a lot of his time. I might try to get the the guy a
20:21
couple guys who were on that 1976 state championship
20:26
basketball team from Kansas City Center 1976.
20:34
I was honored to referee that game and Kansas City Center
20:39
played Saint Louis Central State finals Hearn Center, Missouri
20:44
University. One team was all minority from
20:50
Saint Louis. The other team had one African
20:54
American on the team and so this was a big time game.
20:58
Both teams were undefeated. They were 32 and O and the team
21:03
from Kansas City, KS City Center won that game.
21:06
And those 10 kids who competed that night on the floor, they
21:11
showed what it's like where you can get along, you can compete,
21:15
you can go out there and just fight for every oz in every
21:18
basket. But they the the the just the
21:21
behavior of those players in that game was exemplary.
21:26
The coaches were unbelievable. And what a great game.
21:30
And they are doing a an honor of that 76 championship.
21:36
It's 50 years since they won it and they've done all kind of
21:40
podcast in Kansas City to honor the team.
21:45
And they were, they, they called me and they came to Saint Louis.
21:49
And I'm going to shout out to Tully's, my favorite little
21:53
stop. And we had a podcast at Tully's
21:57
and we talked about that game. And I was with one of the
22:00
Allison twins and a young man by the name of Dwayne Lewis.
22:04
They were both on that team. And what, what a great team.
22:08
And all those guys on that team, I've listened to most of those
22:12
podcasts. They've all become highly
22:14
successful adult men and they represent their community really
22:18
well. I like, I couldn't say more
22:22
about them and the Saint Louis Central team.
22:24
They were coached by a guy by the name of Jim Gantt.
22:27
We called him Gentleman Jim Gantt and Gentleman Jim was
22:32
quite a guy. And I, I'm going to sign off
22:34
with this last story about Gentleman Jim Gantt.
22:37
So I had a big game, high school game years ago and it was at the
22:42
Southwest High School on Kings Highway and Kansas St.
22:45
Louis Central. I believe they were playing
22:50
Vashon. It's a big time game.
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So it's a cold, cold night I'm talking about.
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So I go down there early. I'm supposed to be there about
22:58
an hour before the game and I'm there's no place to park and I
23:01
keep driving down Kings Highway farther and farther and farther.
23:05
Finally I found a parking place a good 2 1/2 blocks away from
23:09
that school. I got my little bag and I'm
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walking up there. I am freezing my ass off.
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I am so cold. I don't.
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I mean, it is brutal. And I finally get up to
23:20
Southwest High School and on the sidewalk in front of the high
23:27
school is his Cadillac. It's parked on the sidewalk.
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The guy who's driving his Cadillac gets out of the car and
23:38
he just walks into the gym and leaves his car on the sidewalk.
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No ticket, no nothing. You know who was driving that
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Cadillac, don't you, gentleman Jim Gant, the coach.
23:50
Coach Central. What a guy.
23:52
I loved him all. They had some great coaches in
23:55
that public high league. I mean, all was at a tough
23:58
league. If you could referee in the
24:00
Saint Louis Public High League high school, you were you were
24:04
ready to give it a shot anyway. At college basketball.
24:09
Anyway, it's been a great day. I look forward to Mr. Jackie
24:15
Smith coming in here in the near future because I had a great
24:19
show. A lot of questions for Jackie
24:21
that I wanted to talk to him about, about his great career
24:25
and how he grew up in a little small town and he only played 5
24:30
football games. And I'll leave you with this, he
24:32
only played 5 football games his entire high school career.
24:36
He was hurt as sophomore year, as junior year, and halfway
24:40
through his senior year went on listen to his parents listen to
24:47
this. He only played 5 high school
24:50
football games and guess what, he's in the National Football
24:55
League Hall of Fame. If you're good, you're good and
25:00
good things will happen with hard work and he worked hard to
25:04
get to where he was. So anyway, thank you.
25:06
It's been a great day. I've been talking and talking
25:10
and if your guys get sick and tired of hearing me, you one
25:13
good thing about a podcast, you can just turn it off.
25:16
But anyway, if you like our show today, you can subscribe and and
25:23
then you can like and then if you like it enough, you can
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share it with your friends. And I want to remind you of
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something that I remind people of every week.
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Today is the youngest you'll ever be.
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Have a great, great day.