Late Father's Example Inspires Yakima Coach

YAKIMA - Paul Woolpert has had basketball in his blood since he grew up watching his father coach at the University of San Diego.

"Every day I was at the gym hanging out with the team and dad. My brother and I were ballboys. We were little gym rats," he said.

But it wasn't until he was in college that he decided he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, Phil Woolpert.

"It was a slow progression," said Woolpert, 34, now an assistant coach for the Yakima Sun Kings of the Continental Basketball Association. "It was always in the back of my mind but it was something I never really wanted to do until I went to the University of Portland."

Phil Woolpert was a coaching legend in the 1950s whose University of San Francisco teams set records by winning 60 straight games.

"He's been called one of the greatest defensive coaches," Woolpert said of his father, who died in 1987. "He was the first coach to have five blacks on the court at the same time (at San Francisco). An article a couple of years ago said he did more for black athletes than any other coach."

During a four-year span, Phil Woolpert's Dons had a 101-4 record and won back-to-back NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. He was named college coach of the year three times.

After finishing high school in Sequim, where his father moved after retiring, Paul Woolpert played two years at Peninsula Community College before transferring to Portland, where he intended to play.

But when he got a chance to take a student assistant coaching job, he decided his playing days were over.

"I love coaching," Woolpert said. "I love working firsthand with the players. Any coach wants to be around coachable athletes, guys who want to improve their game. In the CBA, you have a lot of players like that."

He got his shot at pro basketball through two of his father's former players, Bernie Bickerstaff and K.C. Jones, both former Seattle SuperSonic coaches. Bickerstaff hired Woolpert as a scout and video coordinator in 1986; Jones decided to "loan" him to the Sun Kings to give him a more active courtside role.

Sun Kings Coach Mo McHone said getting Woolpert on loan from the Sonics has been a "pretty good deal."

"He really wants to work with our guys on an individual basis. He has a lot of energy," McHone said.