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NBA FINALS: WARRIORS VS. RAPTORS

June 2, 2019

Frank Layden

Toronto, Ontario - Pregame 2

THE MODERATOR: Good evening, and thank you for joining us. I would like to introduce on the far side David Fogel, the National Basketball Coaches Association executive director, and closest to me here is Rick Carlisle, Dallas Mavericks head coach and National Basketball Coaches Association president. David, I'll turn it over to you for the special presentation.

DAVID FOGEL: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are incredibly happy to be here in Toronto for Game 2 of the NBA Finals and the presentation of the 2019 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award. My name is David Fogel and I'm the executive director of the Coaches Association. On behalf of Coaches Association president Rick Carlisle, our executive committee and all of our coaches, I just want to say a sincere thank you to Commissioner Silver, Mark Tatum, Byron (Spruell), Kiki (VanDeWeghe), Charlie (Rosenzweig), and all the league for all the help, support, and for giving us this tremendous platform to honor our veteran coaches.

We are especially proud of today's award, which honors the memory of Hall of Famer Chuck Daly, who over an incredible career, set the standard for integrity, competitive excellence, and tireless promotion of NBA basketball and NBA coaching.

Chuck was a mentor to so many of our coaches and players including Coach Carlisle and Frank Layden. So without further ado, I would love to turn it over to association president, Coach Rick Carlisle.

RICK CARLISLE: Thanks, David. Once again, Adam, thank you. Thank the league, this has been an amazing thing for us. This is our 11th year of presenting this award in memory of the great Chuck Daly, who was such a great friend to all of us. I want to recognize the selection committee, a group of eight guys that every year has gotten together and done a great job with this. Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Lenny Wilkens, Billy Cunningham, who was very close to Chuck, Joe Dumars, who of course played for Chuck, Bernie Bickerstaff, Donnie Walsh and Gregg Popovich.

Our past recipients are Tom Heinsohn, Tex Winters, Jack Ramsay, Lenny Wilkens, Pat Riley, Bill Fitch, Bernie Bickerstaff, Dick Motta, K.C. Jones, Jerry Sloan, Al Attles, Hubie Brown and last year it was Doug Moe. And this year it's going to be the gentleman to my right. And just before I get started, I want to recognize the fact that yesterday was Frank and Barbara's 62nd wedding anniversary. Congratulations on that, which is pretty amazing. (Applause.)

A lot of us have Frank Layden stories. My first experience with Frank Layden was my rookie year. We were playing in the Hall of Fame game in Springfield, Mass. I had just made the Boston Celtics team. This was the last exhibition game of the year, and we were playing against Utah. There was a luncheon and so they asked both coaches to say a few words. Luckily for K.C. Jones he got to go first. And K.C. said a few kind, cordial words, and then Frank got up there and he told a little story.

Now this was the fall of '84. And his son Scott had joined him the previous year. And so he started telling this story and he said, "I said to my son Scott last year, we were in the Boston Garden. The players are being introduced, I said, 'son, look around, look at all those banners, the great tradition here. There's 15 championship banners up there. See those numbers up there? Those are the retired numbers of all the great Celtics players: Russell, Cousy, Havlicek, Sam Jones, Dave Cowens. Those guys get introduced, Bird, McHale and Parish, those guys will be up in the rafters one day. You know, son, one of the great privileges that you have in coaching is to be in the Boston garden and have an opportunity to coach against the Celtics.'" He said, "Now, have a seat, son. Let's get ready to get our asses waxed." (Laughter.)

So that was an ice breaker for me. But the truth is Frank is well known as a guy with one-liners, a big personality. The fact is he's a NBA legend. He's an accomplished basketball man. In fact, in 1984 he did something that no man in the NBA has ever done nor will he ever do any time in the future: He won four awards. I should say he was recognized for four very significant things, he was the Western Conference All-Star coach, he was the NBA Coach of the year, he was the NBA Executive of the Year, and he also received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, which they now only give to players. And so that's an amazing accomplishment. And then from there went on to draft John Stockton, Karl Malone and set the franchise up for really a decade long run as a contender, and along the way brought along a guy named Jerry Sloan, who is one of the all-time great coaches.

So without further ado, it is my great honor to introduce the 2019 winner of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award, the great Frank Layden. (Applause.)

The mic's all yours, Frank.

FRANK LAYDEN: Rick, how many more years you got in this term as president?

RICK CARLISLE: I don't know.

FRANK LAYDEN: We got to work on your delivery a little bit (Laughter).

You know you had them quivering but not really laughing.

RICK CARLISLE: Some day I'll get there, maybe.

FRANK LAYDEN: You got to work, son. You got to work. You got to work at it.

It's a semi-pleasure to be again this year with you. Did you get that? (Laughter.)

Gosh, I thought I was talking in front of the BYU alumni. But, Rick, very proud of your accomplishments and to say that you certainly were a long-time great player and great coach and still are coaching, and we're very proud of you.

Over here we have another guy who is just wonderful and David, he had big shoes to fill, right. Of course he had a good friend of ours, of course, Michael Goldberg, who at that time was the head, the leader, the beginning, the one who fostered this whole organization of the Coaches Association, and a guy we really loved. He was a guy when you saw him, you wanted to hug him. Now we're not quite that ready for you yet to do that, but anyway, thank both of you. It's wonderful.

And Commissioner Silver, it's such a pleasure to see you and to be able to say we don't do this enough, but to say it to people in public, you're doing a great job and we're very proud of you and very proud of the NBA. Yeah, so I think that is worth a round of applause.

(Applause.)

Of course my good friend Wayne Embry is here and long-time friend. Yes, you remember when coaches were all fat, Wayne. You know what I mean. Now they all look like they're starving. Actually the poundage hasn't stopped, it's just there are more of them, you know. And of course Kiki VanDeWeghe is a great, great friend and long-time friend of ours.

And there's a lot of things I could talk about, about this particular award. At my age I'm at the stage of my life where people call up and say, "I'm looking for Frank Layden. Is he still alive?" You know I understand that. So this is probably the last award I'll ever receive. But you know it's also the most important one because, first of all, my family could be here and could help to share it with me.

Chuck Daly was a friend, long before our association in the NBA. He was an upstater and I remember him when he was a young coach and a young college coach, and we did clinics together and the Five-Star camps and what have you, and he was a great guy, and we had a lot of great times together and it's wonderful to receive this award in his name.

And then the people you named that had won this award previously, certainly an All-Star type group. Academy Award winners. I don't really believe that I should be amongst that group, but nevertheless, here I am and I'm going to take it home with me, no matter what, all right.

I think also the wonderful -- you know, one of the things I heard about the group that made this selection, the selection committee, now when I realized that the coaches on that group, that I helped to put most of them in the Hall of Fame by losing to them constantly. All right, now you're looking at somebody -- you notice they didn't read my record off. I'm the only guy that ever got this award that lost more games than he won. Isn't that the truth?

RICK CARLISLE: That's not true.

FRANK LAYDEN: Sure, it is.

RICK CARLISLE: You and Fitch are close. Fitch just went in the Hall of Fame. So you got a chance, Frank.

FRANK LAYDEN: Did you have to bring him up?

You know, and as long as you mention that, I just talked to Bill recently, Bill Fitch, and he said when he got in the Hall of Fame he received all these wonderful letters of congratulations and phone calls and what have you, he says and not one a single one came from a referee (Laughter).

So I said, I wonder why. With that, you know, and I would like to take this opportunity, if I may, Rick and David, to like I say, this will probably be the last award I'll ever get. The last time I'll be in front of a group like this, Wayne, you know what I mean, with the microphone in front of me and what have you. So I would like to say if I could change anything in my life, it would be by the way I treated referees. All right, I think I was very, very hard on the referees. You know, I remember Earl Strom one night, when we were getting killed by the Lakers, you know, and I said to Scottie, and of course at that time Phil Johnson was my assistant coach along with Scott, and I said, "Listen, you guys take over this game. Try to pull it out." I said, "I'm going across the street and get us a table for dinner. I'm going to get drunk." So I started on Strom, and just got after him something awful. And he gave me, remember he used to do this, (indicating), he was blowing the whistle and screaming and everything, and he is storming over at me, storming over, and he finally gets there. He says, "I know what you're trying to do." He said, "But if I got to stay here and watch this (expletive), so do you. Sit down and shut up." (Laughter.)

And it just went on like that, you know. But I was thinking that about the referees and I really apologize to them on behalf -- and I really mean it. I think I was too hard on them, if I could have changed things, I certainly would have. Instead of yelling at them, I would have paid them (Laughter.)

It would have been a little more expensive, but it would have been quicker. But anyway, I was thinking one day about the referees and I came up with years ago, -- you know I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and in Brooklyn as youngsters in the public schools, how many people here went to public schools in New York or in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn particularly? But New York anyway, but in Brooklyn, all right, we had a young soldier in World War II killed -- World War I, killed on the last day of the war before the armistice came about. And his name was Joyce Kilmer. How about some of you writers, your English classes, do you remember Joyce Kilmer? There's a forest named after him because he wrote a wonderful poem. He was a Brooklyn boy, he died when he was 21 years old on the battlefield, and he wrote a wonderful poem called Trees. Have you ever heard of that? "To think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree/a tree that in summer shall bear a necessary of robins in her hair."

And then goes on and on and then it ends with, "Poems are made by fools like me/but only God could make a tree." Joyce Kilmer. So he used to teach the first graders that story. He was a hero, you know the kind of heroes we even need today for our youngsters and what have you.

But I read a poem by an anonymous source in Scholastic Digest many years ago when I was a high school coach. And it went something like this:

"To think that I shall never see a satisfactory referee/ about who is head a halo shines whose merits rate reporters lines/ one who calls them as they are and not as I would expect by far/ one who stings the coach who yaps/ from Siwash High to Old Milsaps/ now poems are made by fools like me/but let's face it, only God could referee."

(Applause.)

RICK CARLISLE: Anybody have any questions for Frank.

FRANK LAYDEN: Well, just one more thing. Hey listen, listen, you got somewhere to go?

(Laughter.)

RICK CARLISLE: There's a game in an hour.

FRANK LAYDEN: I tell you, those suits are coming back. Don't worry, I got one of those for my communion.

All right. But when you think about it, if I may, this is something that we come together, I brought the idea that we had friends like Wayne, yourself, David, and Kiki, and Hubie Brown, my old roommates broadcasting the game today, and we were teammates and roommates at Niagara University many years ago and coached together in the NBA together. He was the one that brought me into the NBA. And that was a wonderful time and a wonderful day.

But there's always a group, all right, that pays a price for what you do coming down that tunnel every night year after year. No one knows what's that's like, all right, and when you walk back out, you're like the bullfighter who drags his cape behind him, all right. There will be a smile on your face some of the times, if you're fortunate enough to win, but a lot of times you pay a terrible price. And I am very fortunate for this particular trip, all right, to be able to have my whole family here. All right, Scott Layden. All right, Scottie, stand up. Look at him. Do you remember? (Applause.)

When I was 13 years old, that's how I was built. All right?

Michael Layden, who is my other son, all right. (Applause.)

And Kate Layden, my daughter. (Applause.)

All right, and their spouses are with them, all right. Would you like to stand up and take a bow? Yeah. (Applause.)

So we're able to come here together and Barbara and I, Barbara, stand up. People said, How did it last so long? Well when you see how pretty she is, all right, yeah. (Applause.)

Yesterday, yesterday was our 62nd wedding anniversary. 62 years this lady, if this is what I get, she deserves the Eiffel Tower. But it's been a wonderful, wonderful relationship and she brought the children up well while I was trying to bring up your children. But she was a wonderful coach's wife and it's time that I said it publicly, I love you and I always will, and God bless you and thank you for being my wife, and the mother of my children, all right. (Applause.)

You know, we're seeing great players today. People are asking me all about it. We're very fortunate to have the opportunity to see the great athletes we have today. This is an amazing game that just continues to get better. In baseball they get better if they change the equipment, you know. We don't do that here. But we're very fortunate to have great, great athletes who are great performers in great venues like this. And this is a great host city, Toronto, who I knew a lot about because I used to coach and went to school at Niagara University, which is close by.

But anyway, we are here. God bless you, thank you for coming, and I can't thank you enough, these guys right here, for having this award presented to my family. I really mean that. (Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions, please.

Q. Obviously very well deserved, I was curious you talked a little bit about Chuck and just curious what it means to you to not only be given the Lifetime Achievement Award named after Chuck but also obviously the connection with Jerry Sloan, if you could speak about those two people?
FRANK LAYDEN: Let me say this, Chuck and I, as I say, went way back. I don't know if people realize it, but Chuck actually when he started college went to our arch rival of Niagara's was St. Bonaventure. He lived up I guess in western Pennsylvania or up in near Olean, New York. So I didn't know him exactly at that time, but it was a conversation piece, and we got to know each other through the years. I remember, I first really spent some time with him when him and Hubie Brown were assistant coaches at Duke and saw him later on when he was an assistant at Penn and Niagara played in the NCAA's and what have you.

But through the years we always -- there was a time when after the games the coaches used to go out and have a few beers. We weren't enemies, you know -- oh, did I say that? I didn't mean to say that. We went out and had a few sodas together, all right. But, yeah, it wasn't all out war, you know, it was not only competitive but it was a lot of fun.

So getting an award that is not just some anonymous being, but somebody that I knew and respected and had spent real time with and had respect for knowing him in that way, it makes it extra special.

Does that help at all? Yeah. Thank you.

Q. Karl Malone can't say enough good things about you and one of those was that, "When Coach retired, he stayed retired." Did you ever get the itch to come back? You were relatively young when you did quit. Did you ever get the itch and if not why?
FRANK LAYDEN: I never got the itch to coach, I never missed coaching, I missed playing. I loved basketball, I loved to play basketball and I played it as long as I could and on playgrounds and what have you. I was a gym rat and what have you. But coaching is a profession, it's teaching. The game itself is merely a tool. My most effective coaching times in my life was when I was a high school coach. When I could get into the hearts and minds and souls of those youngsters and maybe guide them for the rest of their lives. That was really important.

We did a few things in the NBA I hope were lasting and that Karl Malone would remember, that we try and make ourselves interested in them as people and that after they left playing with the Jazz, all right, that they would feel that it was a rich time in their lives, whether it was the chapel services or the wives club or we had a bonus program for guys who would go back and finish college, all right. I remember Rickey Green one time and I said, "I'll give a $10,000 bonus to any player who would go back and finish school." And he said, "How much?" I said, "$10,000." He said, "That's chump change, Coach." I said, "Your mother didn't think so. I'm going to give it to her." He said, "Oh (expletive), you didn't tell her, did you?" Yeah, two years later he had his degree from Michigan or it could be Adrian (Dantley) getting his degree from Notre Dame. His mom told me that was the proudest she ever was in her life when she saw him walk and get his diploma at Notre Dame. You can imagine what a great feeling that would be.

So we hope we left some things. We forget about the scores and the what have you. I remember one time we had a great run with the Lakers, and I thought that Laker team had Worthy and Jabbar and Magic and everything. We went seven games with them. We lost the seventh game in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon and when we had the press conference like this, in fact, we were sitting up in front. And I looked at Pat and I said, "Well, Pat?" He said, "It was fun, wasn't it?" I said, "It sure was." You know, it was competition and then we went on with our lives. It's not necessarily life and death and it's not necessarily more important than that. It's supposed to be fun and I always tried to make it that way for myself and for those players that saw it.

We don't want to embarrass ourselves. We just want to do the best we can all the time. Yes. Any other?

Q. Question for Frank and Rick. What are your impressions of Steve Kerr and Nick Nurse as coaches and as people?
RICK CARLISLE: Tremendous. Tremendous. Steve is -- a run of five consecutive Finals is just an amazing accomplishment, regardless of the talent. And I've watched Nick closely, we played against him twice this year. He's terrific in making adjustments and I love the way he's approached the entire season, they have set up the entire season to work to get to this point and for a first-time NBA head coach, that's not easy to do.

FRANK LAYDEN: I just met Steve for the first time outside and we hugged each other and he said, "It's such an honor and a pleasure to meet you," meaning me. And I said to him, "You know, Steve, are you having fun?" He said, "Yes, I am." I said, "Then continue to do it as long as you are, continue to do it the way you're doing it, never forget where you came from, and enjoy the ride." No matter who you are, whether you're Red Auerbach or Steve Kerr or anybody else, Pat Riley, basketball's temporary. The games are temporary, sooner or later it comes to an end and you want to leave a legacy, that's important.

What I recognize, Coach, is Steve gets it. He gets it. He communicates. Johnny Wooden made it very simple, when someone asked him, "What's a good coach?" He said, "A good coach is one who wins when he has good players." Now that might be an overstatement because a lots of guys coach good players and lose. You know that, you've seen it along the way. Otherwise we wouldn't need Las Vegas, would we?

So the thing being that Steve has good players and he wins with good players but he seems to communicate so well with it and balance the identities and it isn't all him. He has a role in it, but whatever he's doing he makes that family do it very, very well. It's a great example that whatever level you coach at, Steve Kerr is the kind of guy -- I mean, my thing is, I always judge coaches by, would I want my son to play for that coach or would I want my daughter to play for that coach? And if the answer is yes, then they're a good coach. And I think that that's what I could say about Steve Kerr. If I had a son, I would want or daughter that could play for him, I would say certainly. He seems to be a gentleman, he handles winning well, when a lot of people don't, you know. We always get back to Pete Carril's words about, if losing builds character, sometimes winning reveals it. And I think he's handled himself very well both in winning and when he's been losing.

And just like these guys here, he's talking about other people, how well they coach and how well they do, you know. And he's not saying, hey, aren't I great? But he is great. One of the greatest coaches in the world. I mean that. Because if you coach in the NBA, you're a head coach here, you got to be one of a small group of the best coaches in the world. And if you've tried it, it's not an easy job.

Does that help you, son?

Q. Nick Nurse as well?
FRANK LAYDEN: Is that okay?

Q. And can I get your thoughts on Nick Nurse as well.
FRANK LAYDEN: I don't know him. I've never met him, all right. I'll have to say this for him, so far I've been impressed. You know what I like about the team here? They play hard. I don't know if they can win, I don't know if they're better, I don't want to measure them by that, but they just went through a long schedule and had the best record, didn't they? That's why they're here tonight and not somewhere else. So I mean, so far, oh, he's done a wonderful job. He's done a great job.

You know we're talking about the World Series here, in a game that's played around the world by more people than maybe than outside of soccer than any other game in the world. So I'm impressed, yeah.

I think he should put on a little more weight. I think our coaches are a little too -- aren't our coaches a little too skinny? They look like they're too much in shape. Put on some weight, son, will you? Okay? What, are you trying to impress the commissioner with that haircut?

RICK CARLISLE: Let's go have a meal.

FRANK LAYDEN: You trying to impress the commissioner with that haircut? You guys got the same barber or what? All right. Anybody else?

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Congratulations. If you wouldn't mind staying up here for another photo opportunity.

FRANK LAYDEN: I never miss a photo op. God bless you all. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

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