How do you win a battle when defeat nears inevitability? Aim for the war.
Announcer Dick Vitale first dubbed legendary college coach Bobby Knight "The General" when Knight took over at Indiana in the early '70s. His blend of tactical brilliance and loyalty, the fiery temper and military-like precision, elicited comparisons to Patton and Grant. An alternative approach indeed, but it constantly succeeded, even if the frontlines lay littered with broken chairs and soul-scarring obscenities afterward.
Two decades later, Pat Skerry (A '92) began wearing the badge while attending Tufts. The Medford-born eldest of three sons led his brothers. He led his teams. He led his troops.
Skerry landed his first Div. I head coaching job last year at Towson, knowing full well that a steep climb lay ahead for the General and whatever soldiers stuck around at one of college basketball's most despondent programs.
The nickname has disappeared over time, fading as he moved from college to college throughout the East coast, scaling the coaching ladder and advancing on his dream. Though men's basketball coach Bob Sheldon and fellow Jumbos know Pat Skerry as "The General," his Tigers know him as someone else, someone Skerry has envisioned himself becoming since high school, someone who will hoist Towson out of the cellar and into the national spotlight for the right reasons. They know him as Coach.
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It takes an elevator — or exactly 80 stairs across six floors, depending on your commitment to exercise — to find the woman who raised The General.
Behind the door to room C603 in the Fletcher School sits Bernadette Kelley-Leccese, the endearing Irish-Catholic mother you wish you had. Miniature elephants from across the world — India, Belize and Panama, to name a few — overlook a candy cane jar, cutout shamrocks and snapshots of her three beloved sons as a shortwave radio provides a soothing, classical soundtrack.
It's the same office to which Bernie, as she's known to friends, returned after watching her son coach Pittsburgh in the NCAA Tournament in Washington, D.C., last spring. While gazing at the April sky over Packard Ave., she received a call from Pat, who told her to pack her bags yet again. She was needed for an introductory press conference in Towson, Md.
An "eternal Jumbo" with 30 years of service at Tufts, Bernie, Program Manager for the Southwest Asia and Islamic Culture program, is now a Tiger too. After meeting Skerry's players over Thanksgiving at his house, she now refers to them by first name. She's been a Husky in the past. And a Panther. And a Cougar. And all the other mascots at the pit stops on Skerry's journey.
The Skerry brothers grew up in Medford, attending the Eliot-Pearson nursery just up College Ave. from Cousens Gym, where Bernie spent a decade watching her boys pass through coach Bob Sheldon's program, one by one, sometimes side by side.
Pat and John, the middle child two years behind the eldest, started out as hockey players, enduring 5 a.m. wakeup calls alongside the Sacco brothers — Joe, the Colorado Avalanche head coach who spent 14 seasons in the NHL, and David, who enjoyed a brief stint with Toronto and Anaheim in the mid-1990s. Hockey in the morning, hoops in the afternoon.
Pat eventually singled out basketball in seventh grade, trading skates for Converse sneakers and filming three-way grudge matches on 7-foot Michael Jordan Jammer hoops they wheeled out into a driveway shared with the neighbors. Viewing the videos became a road-trip favorite for the Jumbos years later. As long as there wasn't any blood, everything was OK with their mother.
"Here you have this little boy at 6 years of age, putting masking tape on his wrists and dribbling the ball with both hands in the basement," Kelley-Leccese said, a metal bracelet clanking on her wrist as she mimes the motion. "It's like, for God's sake, go out and ride your bike. But he wanted to play basketball."
To this day, the three brothers remain linked by the bonds formed during dunk-offs, intense whiffle ball games or backyard wrestling matches on Wyman St. in West Medford and Daniel St. near Medford Square. Brian now works as a consultant in Abu Dhabi. John practices law in Miami. Pat has a wife, Kristen, and two sons, Ryan and Owen. Spread across the world, they talk every day.
Summers were either spent on courts or traveling between them. Five-Star camps and East Coast Invitationals doubled as vacations. Sometimes, just to fire off a few extra jumpers at Cousens, they'd sneak in through the locker room, or have Chris, Pat's favorite security guard, let them in. Open windows also worked on more than one occasion.
"He's a true Meh-fuh boy," said Sheldon, mimicking Skerry's thick local accent that reminds his players of Ben Affleck's "The Town" (2010).
Pat was his generation's boss around the house, especially after fourth grade, when his father moved out following a separation. Pat drove his brothers around after getting his driver's license. He'd delegate chores, telling his brothers where to sit and what to do. And then he'd dream of leading.
"He used to tell me, ‘I'm going to be the coach, mom,'" Kelley-Leccese said. "I was like, ‘Oh, OK. Go walk the dog.'
"I'd be proud of him if they called him ‘The Private.' Moms and dads just want their kids to be happy in whatever they're doing."
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"I don't consider coaching to be a real job … I'm in here 70 hours a week during the basketball season. But it's not 70 hours I dread." — Pat Skerry, The Tufts Daily, March 13, 1995
"I may have thrown Pat out of practice more than I have any other player in 24 years," said Sheldon, sitting in his office overlooking the gym that Skerry snuck into as a kid, played at in a Jumbos uniform for four years and then graced the sidelines for three seasons.
Explanations for dismissal ranged from fighting to insubordination. In retrospect, the underlying cause was Skerry's strong will. Sheldon wasn't booting Skerry for being a jerk; his actions surfaced from a fire forged during the driveway skirmishes just miles away.
For 11 years, Sheldon had at least one Skerry brother in practice every day. Unless he threw them out first.
The Sheldon-Skerry relationship embarked on rocky terrain. An assistant at Clark, Sheldon met Skerry on a recruiting visit, where a subpar handshake and below-average height turned Sheldon off immediately. Skerry wanted to play at Tufts for Rod Baker, anyway. Baker began recruiting Skerry after watching him play pickup in Cousens, but left for Holy Cross shortly thereafter. Once Skerry matriculated at Tufts, he marched into Baker's former office and found Sheldon sitting there. Rather than complain or transfer, Skerry won the starting point guard position midway through the team's season-opener. Typical Skerry resolve.
Left-handed and fearless, the 5-foot-8 point guard who ranks 13th in NCAA Div. III career assists per game once took a charge from a Salem State player built like a Div. I linebacker, knocking out a few front teeth. He didn't miss any action. Even players twice his size gravitated to Skerry. No cockiness, just seriousness. That he's progressed so quickly through the college ranks, from beside Sheldon after graduation to Stonehill, to Curry, Northeastern, William & Mary, College of Charleston, Rhode Island, Providence, Pittsburgh and finally Towson, is no surprise.
"You hear stories about Bill Belichick, when he was at his earlier stops he was painting lines on the football field," said John Skerry, who later referred to his brother's travels as indicative of a basketball gypsy. "Pat was like that. He was working on his master's at Tufts, coaching the JV team, answering phones. He'd work at coaching clinics on the weekend, picking up guys like Jim Boeheim, John Calipari and Jim Calhoun. He really knew what he wanted to do, and he wouldn't let other things get in the way of that."
It's a long slow climb and a quick fall in this business, Skerry says. But when you're doing what you love, you don't mind 15- or 16-hour days. Coaching is coaching. No matter where you do it.
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"Later that afternoon, I asked Skerry how he managed to recruit anyone while coaching the worst basketball team in America. He walked over to his jacket, pulled out his keys, and tossed them on his desk. At first, I had no idea what was going on; then I realized this was the pitch. ‘Heah ya go,' he said, ratcheting up his accent, because this is the kind of stuff you play up when you're chasing after fickle 18-year-olds. ‘I need guys who can drive the cah.'"—Michael Weinreb, Grantland.com, Jan. 31, 2012
At halftime of Towson's Valentine's Day visit to Northeastern, a blonde emcee brought three courtside fans to the center circle for an impromptu dating game, alternating between enthusiasm and sarcasm while soliciting answers for a blindfolded bachelorette. One contestant had a phone number Sharpied onto his shirtless chest. Across his back was written, "Let's Get Weird."
At 1-28, Towson has grown accustomed to strangeness. Thirty-five minutes before tipoff, five seats at Matthews Arena had occupants. When the teams later retreated to their respective locker rooms, some Northeastern students chucked shots from midcourt, whooping it up whenever they struck rim. Cheerleaders, dance team members and the pep band outnumbered actual fans at tipoff. The difference wasn't even close.
Behind the Northeastern bench, Skerry leaned up against the hockey boards, his white shirt split down the middle by a dirty-mustard tie, shaking hands with a few friends. Between 40 and 50 eventually trickled in to witness The General once again march the sidelines on a Beantown battlefield.
After trading baskets to open the game, things unraveled, as they are wont to do for a squad that's lost 47 of its past 48, including a much-publicized 41-game losing streak that the Tigers snapped against UNC-Wilmington on Jan. 28. Towson eventually lost to the Huskies 70-51, dropping to 1-15 in the CAA. Another night, another fight, another loss.
But armed with the administration's backing and a six-year contract, Skerry has assembled the CAA's best incoming class, which ranks sixth for all non-BCS schools. The class includes Frank Mason, Virginia's leading scorer out of Petersburg (Va.) High School, poached from the backyard of conference rival VCU, a 2011 Final Four team. Also on the horizon is a new 5,200-seat arena, slated to open in August of 2013.
By that time, Skerry hopes his program can shed the losing tradition. He envisions college basketball's biggest turnaround. His mother, sporting a Towson sweater and scarf in the Northeastern stands, guaranteed a winning season in 2012-13, and a Big Dance appearance on the horizon.
"Why not be part of something really good?" Sheldon said. "Why not take a program that's going to win two games in two years and bring it from the ashes to the top? He's selling them a chance for them to come in and do something no one's done at Towson."
Sitting among the contingent of local well-wishers who arrived to support Skerry on Tuesday, Sheldon remarked that his protege seemed "calm" while patrolling the sidelines, — a characterization akin to a cheetah calling a gazelle slow. The animated and energetic Skerry rarely regressed to his seat. That spot belongs to players who need a few words before reentering.
The General perpetually exists between the bench and the court, his dark dress shoes moving in tune with the action. Whenever he explodes onto the hardwood to bark instructions, like a cavalry leader sounding the charge, his assistants follow suit, leaping as one. From the ground up, the man who once got cut from the BC High basketball team his freshman year, transferred to Malden Catholic and started as a sophomore, is slowly constructing a winning program.
"As you can see," he said after the Northeastern game, pausing to glad-hand a few more friends, "I'm not someone who's easily discouraged."
With the keys in tow, so the General marches, on and on.
