Anyone familiar with Don Klocek figured it was coming.
Except, to no one's surprise, Klocek himself.
Klocek, 64, coached the Hopedale High boys' basketball team for 30 seasons before retiring in 1999. The Blue Raiders won games -- nearly 400 of them -- along with Dual Valley Conference titles, Clark Tournaments and Central Mass. championships during his long and terrific tenure.
More than that, Klocek won over fans, players and coaches from both sides of the court with a dignified manner that has become harder to find in today's ESPN-influenced sports society.
“He really is one of the nicest guys in all of sports,” long-time T&G sportswriter Sandy Burgin said. “He never said anything bad about anybody, a pleasant guy.”
And because one good turn deserves another, Klocek was inducted into the Massachusetts Basketball Coaches Association's Hall of Fame recently during a ceremony at Holy Cross.
It's an honor he gave little consideration to while winning 387 games and losing 210, all with Hopedale.
“Your focus is primarily with coaching the young men you have in that particular year, so you really don't look beyond that,” Klocek said from his Grafton home. “You try to make your team as good as it can be. You don't really think of any awards, so when it comes, it's a pleasant surprise.”
Klocek's election to the hoop hall completes a rare double play. He was inducted into the baseball coaches' Hall of Fame in 1996. He coached the sport at Hopedale with considerable success for 19 seasons before being succeeded by one of his former players, Joe Small, in 1989.
It was another former player, Tony Bresciani, who introduced Klocek before his latest hall induction. Bresciani is a former three-sport standout for the Blue Raiders and a member of the Assumption College Hall of Fame.
“I wanted a player to introduce me because in effect that's who I was representing,” Klocek said. “Obviously, you had to have some very good ballplayers in order to win 382 games or whatever it was. When you get an award like this, you do so on behalf of the players and the community that supports you.”
Klocek spent eight seasons as the junior varsity coach at Grafton High under another legend, Tom Blackburn, before heading to Hopedale in 1969 to teach physical education and coach basketball. With the support of an administration that included Chick Sayles and Bob Pagnini, Klocek found a home.
Looking back, Klocek said there were too many players to mention by name (no surprise). He did note any game with Nipmuc Regional -- perhaps as many as 70 total -- was memorable (no surprise II) and the community support no matter the opponent was unforgettable.
For example, the Blue Raiders were Central Mass. Division 3 champions in 1985 and paired up with St. Joseph's of Pittsfield in the state semifinals. The game was in Springfield and, at Klocek's urging, the school rented a motor coach for the special occasion.
Klocek remembers boarding the bus and looking out the back window to see a line of eight buses the community had rented and packed with fans for the game. The thought of it still makes him smile.
These days, Klocek spends time with his family and does a little bit of fishing. He still watches high school sporting events and is a big fan of current Hopedale coach Tony Cordani.
On numerous occasions, Klocek made reference to the community support he and his team received. But he helped support the community with his coaching all those years. It's the kind of thing he'd never have seen coming.
KLOCEK RETIRES AS THE BEST HIGH SCHOOL COACH
By David Maril, Milford Daily News
March 4, 1999
If it was up to him, this story wouldn't be written.
Don Klocek has never liked to talk about himself and when he decided he was going to retire as a Hopedale teacher-coach this year, he wanted to leave the scene quietly without fanfare.
That, of course, is impossible.
In the sports writing business, people are always asking us to pick all-stars, top local teams, and greatest all-time players. In most cases, I'd always be very careful about going out on a limb. But one certainty I know is that if I had to name the best high school coach I've ever seen in 27-years of sports writing Klocek, would be my answer.
He's been a fixture at Hopedale for 30 seasons and won 377 basketball games. He's already in the State Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame for his 230 wins on the diamond. And sometime soon he'll enter the Basketball Coaches Hall for winning two District Championships, eight league titles, and two Clark Tournament crowns.
But that, as most local observers know, is only a small fraction of the story.
Simply stated, he's the total package as a high school coach. If you wanted to make an instructional video for young coaches to follow, he'd be the perfect role model.
Talk to other coaches, referees, and players from other teams and they'll all tell you that he's one of the greats. He's all that interscholastic sports is supposed to be about. When he wins, he's low-key and never gloats. He hates to lose but he's rational, constructive, and a gentleman after even the toughest of defeats.
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From a sports writers' perspective, he wasn't the easiest guy to do stories with. Oh, he was more than cooperative and it was a pleasure to talk with him about major league baseball and other sportsworld topics. But when it would turn to himself or his team, he remained understated, staying very protective of his high school aged athletes, and seldom would give very colorful quotes. But after a few years of dealing with him, you'd begin to appreciate his honesty. His idealism became a refreshing change of pace from the hype many high school coaches practice. You could always take whatever he said at face value.
"He's the coach any father would want his son or daughter to play for," explains Bill DeVita, who was a basketball and baseball player for Klocek in his first year at Hopedale. DeVita is a teacher who has also coached at Milford High.
"He just epitomizes quality, class, and all the right values as a high school coach," adds DeVita, who was one of many Klocek admirers who made a drive down to Falmouth through the snow a few years ago to see him inducted into the Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.
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As far as wins and losses, he's one of the top guys around and he's always gotten as much out of his talent as possible. He's been an innovator in basketball, who for many years had the best man-to-man shuffle offense that could always get a player open for a 15-footer. Many of his teams were also famous for their defense.
But what has impressed the most is his character and fairness and the fact he's an educator first.
"A lot of people just know Don for what he does as a coach but he's the same in the classroom, the way he relates, teaches and care about kids," the late Albert "Chick" Sayles, Klocek's former Principal at Hopedale once said. Sayles, who had a successful career as a player and coach and was a great basketball referee, hired Klocek as a baseball and basketball coach 30-years ago.
"There wasn't any doubt that Don was the coach we wanted when the position was opened," recalls Milford's Bob Pagnini, who was Vice-Principal and Athletic Director at Hopedale in those days. "Watching Don over the years, it was obvious he could have coached just about any sport and he'd have also been a very effective college coach."
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Win or lose, those were great years for Hopedale High in Athletics. Its' doubtful many people realize how fortunate a school the small size of Hopedale was to have quality athletic people in administrative positions like Sayles, Pagnini and Klocek.
Klocek was influenced by a number of sports people, starting with his father, a former semi pro player, and coaches like Tom Fazio, Basketball Hall of Famer Ed Steitz, Red Wilson, and Tom Blackburn.
The logistics problems with travel for practice of growing up in Grafton and attending St. John's in Worcester kept him from playing high school sports. But he was a center-fielder for the Shrewsbury Legion, playing under Fazio. He initially went to WPI to study engineering, but transferred to Springfield and became interested in coaching and physical education. At Springfield, playing a lot of basketball on the "scout" team against the varsity, he learned a lot of basketball from the legendary Steitz.
"We were very fortunate to get him because he was an assistant to Tom Blackburn at Grafton and a year or two later, Tom left Grafton to go to Worcester Academy," recalls Pagnini, who worked with Klocek for 12 years at Hopedale before becoming Principal at Milford High. "If Don had still been at Grafton, he'd have become AD, basketball coach and baseball coach there."
And for 30 years, Klocek was consistent in his approach, teaching discipline, sportsmanship, and respect for the opposition.
My first encounter with him came 25 years ago in a District game against arch-rival Nipmuc Regional. It was the first sports event I'd covered for this newspaper and right away Klocek made a strong impression the way he sat so calmly on the bench through a nail-biter type game. He conveyed a sense of poise and patience while watching the chaotic action on the field dominated by walks and wild pitches. His team ended up upsetting a powerful Warriors team.
Twenty-five years later, Klocek had not changed much when he ended his Hopedale coaching career Monday in a 57-44 loss to Tahanto at WPI in the CMass semifinals. He remained the same restrained but upbeat good-will ambassador for high school sports, conducting himself with class and dignity.
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There are a number of things that come to mind that make Klocek special. First of all, he's a gentleman. Its' hard to imagine but coaching in 584 varsity basketball games, he's only drawn one technical. That's less than some overzealous JV and freshmen coaches get in a week.
"I got one years ago after a bad call," Klocek recalls.
He is so much respected by the referees, his reputation even worked against him one time when he did want to draw a "T".
"I tried another time to get one called because things were getting pretty rough on the court and they were letting too many things going on," he recalled. "I thought if I got a technical, which was pretty unusual, it would bring attention to the way things were going. But my reputation worked against me. They wouldn't call a technical on me no matter how much I yelled."
Which isn't to say that Klocek would sit like a statue on the bench with a smile on his face and let the other coach get the upper hand. He'd voice his opinion to an official if he didn't like what he was seeing or he felt his players were not being treated fairly. But he'd do it without playing up to the crowd or making a spectacle. Dancing around, like a Rick Pitino, is not part of his routine. He'd voice his opinion without showing up the official.
"If you let yourself become too emotional as a coach, you are not going to be able to do your best job," Klocek once explained. "You can better serve your team staying calm and focused."
Pagnini remembers the ultimate test for a coach keeping everything in perspective at a District Tournament baseball finals game against St. Peter's.
Hopedale was behind early in the game but started to come back," Pagnini recalled. "We had really turned the game around and I had no doubt that we were going to win. Momentum was on our side, they were falling apart, and we'd crept to within a run. But then the sky darkened and the rains came, washing out the game and we lost. That was before the rule came in, which was the result of that game, about District finals having to be played to their completion."
"The kids were down and disappointed but Don really picked them up, and handled what was a very tough break in a very positive fashion."
Another Klocek trademark has been his fairness and his refusal to play politics. In many towns, and too many school systems, certain coaches feel it's necessary to socialize with parents, and butter-up influential officials, to keep their jobs.
Klocek has never been a part of any of this. His practice was to never get into conversations about one of his teams with parents and he never allowed himself to be influenced in any way by anything other than what he observed in practice and on the court.
He once told me "if you try to socialize with basketball parents, generally you'll have five groups - the parents of the starters - that like you and think you are their best friends while the others are not happy. I can't get into that."
A parent could disagree with Klocek's assessment of their son's talent. But one thing they knew they couldn't question was that it was his assessment and not because of what anyone else wanted. Usually, the only time he'd have any type of extensive dealing with the parents would be after graduation.
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"In the 12 years I worked with Don as Athletic Director at Hopedale, I never had a single compliant from anyone on anything he ever did," says Pagnini. "He was always very well respected. He was very loyal to the school and you could always count on him to do the
right thing, no matter what the situation."
As an Athletic Director, Klocek was also ethical and fair, shielding his coaches from the outside pressures that come from parents and politicians. Several years ago when he didn't agree with certain athletic decisions that were made in the school system, he very quietly stepped down as AD. He maintained his principles without trying to publicly show anyone up.
I was always impressed with the way he strictly followed the MIAA rules regarding off-season influences on athletes. Klocek was an idealistic throw-back in his philosophy. These days, varsity coaches who don't pull the strings and run summer league teams - which is in violation of the rules - are considered out of step. And we've even gotten to the point where some coaches boast publicly that their players had better play in the off-season and follow weight programs or they won't make the team the next year.
Klocek's approach - which is the right way - was to leave the athletes alone after the season was ended. He'd encourage anyone who wanted to play in a summer league but he'd never try to intimidate an athlete into participating.
"Don was always a guy who loved to see kids play as many different sports as possible," DeVita recalls. "He'd never try to make a kid specialize in one sport."
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Most people figure that winning the Districts in basketball or the Clark Tournament would be the biggest highlights of his coaching career.
But when he's asked, he usually answers its, "seeing former people I've had as students and players after they've graduated be successful and happy in the outside world as adults."
Even heading into his Hopedale retirement, he was thinking of others.
All season he tried to downplay as much as possible that this was going to be his final Hopedale team. He didn't want any type of "farewell tour" theme to take away from the tremendous season (17-4) his players were having.
And he wouldn't allow himself to be drawn into any flamboyant or emotional post-game scene at WPI after his team had been eliminated by Tahanto.
"This was a good time for me to wind things down," he stressed quietly by the bench after his team had headed to the locker-room and the many well-wishers had left.
Most coaches with 377 wins who still had their health would stick around for two more years to reach the 400-mark. But Klocek has other, more unselfish values.
What makes it nice is that I'm stepping down as both a coach and a teacher," he said. "There will be a full-time teaching job open so they can go out and give a good, promising young coach a chance to come n and take the whole job over. There's no point in an older coach hanging on and not clearing the way for a young person to have a chance to get started."
With that, the 30-year veteran picked up the large bag of basketballs that had been inadvertently left by the bench and walked off the court for the last time as an active Hopedale coach.
While coaches like Klocek are irreplaceable, you have to be happy for him. Now, for example, he'll have time, in a couple of weeks, to go down to Fort Myers and watch his youngest son play early season baseball games for Trinity.
And hopefully the school will follow his advice and go out and find a promising young teacher-coach to add to the fulltime staff. Thirty years ago it certainly paid off when Sayles and Pagnini decided to bring Klocek in.
