[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 89 (Wednesday, July 8, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S7698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IOWA'S BILL FITCH

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, our former colleague, Senator John 
Culver of Iowa, brought to my attention an article, which recently 
appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, about Bill Fitch. Mr. Fitch was 
an outstanding athlete when he attended Cedar Rapids' Wilson High 
School and, also, during his college years at Coe College in Cedar 
Rapids. Later on, Mr. Fitch coached at Coe College, Creighton 
University (where he coached Bob Gibson, the famous baseball pitcher), 
and North Dakota (where he coached Phil Jackson, now coach of the 
Chicago Bulls). He won the 1981 NBA title as the Boston Celtics' coach 
with Larry Bird. He coached in the NBA for 25 years and was the only 
person to coach 2,000 regular-season games and his 944 wins ranked 
second only to NBA coach Lenny Wilkens. I am grateful to Mike Hlas of 
the Cedar Rapids Gazette for writing this column about one of Iowa's 
great athletes, and I am thankful to my friend, Senator John Culver, 
for bringing it to my attention.
  At this point, I ask that Mr. Hlas' article be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

                   [From The Gazette, Apr. 22, 1998]

                       C.R.'s Fitch a Big Winner

                             (By Mike Hlas)

       No one will ever put a sign at Cedar Rapids' city limits 
     proclaiming it the hometown of the NBA's all-time losingest 
     coach.
       That's good. Bill Fitch, who attended Wilson back when it 
     was a high school and coached at Coe, deserves respect.
       You don't last long enough to lose 1,106 times unless you 
     were good. You don't become the only coach in NBA history to 
     coach 2,050 times in the regular season unless you were good.
       Fitch, fired by the Los Angeles Clippers Monday at age 63, 
     was good.
       But as Casey Stengel once said, I managed good, they just 
     played bad.
       Perhaps none of Fitch's 25 NBA squads was as bad as the 
     1997-98 Clippers, who won 17 and lost 65, and did so without 
     a hint of style.
       It didn't even feel this rotten for Fitch in 1970, when he 
     and the Cleveland Cavaliers spent their first years in the 
     NBA together. The original Cavs were so bad they were 
     unaffectionately nicknamed the Cadavers. Somehow, Fitch kept 
     a sense of humor and his sanity.
       By the time Fitch's nine-year engagement closed in 
     Cleveland, the Cavs had made the playoffs three times.
       As the years passed, Cedar Rapids could take more and more 
     pride in calling Fitch a homeboy. Especially when NBA 
     coaching legend Red Auerbach, then a general manager--brought 
     him to Boston to coach the then-stale Celtics.
       When surrounded by people who could play the game better 
     than anyone, Fitch turned out to be quite a coach. He had 
     three consecutive 60-game winners in Boston, and won the NBA 
     title in 1981 with young Larry Bird.
       Houston was Fitch's next stop. The Rockets had four winning 
     seasons in five years under Fitch, and once reached the NBA 
     finals, only to lose to Bird's Celtics.
       The NBA's heights were great, but Fitch was one of the few 
     coaches who could survive in its depths. His last seven teams 
     were in New Jersey and Los Angeles, where talent was 
     inadequate. Last year, though, he did lead a very young 
     Clipper club to the playoffs.
       The promise gave way to a nightmare season. A very good 
     player (Bo Outlaw) left as a free agent, and another star 
     (Loy Vaught) missed most of the year with a bad back.
       So the coach got fired because he's 63 years old, because 
     his players supposedly began to tune him out, and because the 
     Clippers are about to move into a big new arena in downtown 
     Los Angeles and want a sharper image.
       Fitch, who had worked with Bird and Kevin McHale and Moses 
     Malone, was surrounded in his final season with youngsters 
     who had never won a thing in the NBA. They were tuning him 
     out? He should have turned them out.
       For anyone to endure four years with the Clipper's and 25 
     seasons in the NBA as a coach is semi-amazing. If meddling 
     management isn't giving you a headache, some underachieving 
     knucklehead player is giving you heartache.
       You need a cast-iron stomach to coach in the NBA for 25 
     years. To be the only person to coach 2,000 regular-season 
     games in the league tells how highly regarded Fitch was held. 
     His 944 wins rank second only to Lenny Wilkens. It is 
     something worth honoring.
       As any coach will tell you, losing one game tears you 
     apart. To drop 1,106 and keep plugging is wonderful.
       ``It's depressing,'' Fitch said about this season, days 
     before he was fired. ``But it's also one that makes you want 
     to say, `Never again,' We'll get it going in the right 
     direction again.''
       If you spend four years with the Bad News Clippers and can 
     still say a thing like that, you are a winner for the 
     ages.

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