Reminisces – Mike Berndt, ’71

One of the most memorable and influential of Coach LeBaron’s personality traits was his ability to remain a gentleman and maintain the highest standards of civility in the most adverse and unfair of circumstances. He was always a class act.

I remember vividly a game at White Salmon my senior year in 1971 when we were rated number 1 in state. The officiating was, well, home-cooked, to be gentle. Our top six starters fouled out of the game, which we lost. But rather than rant at the officials, Coach determinedly let his frustration turn to tears as he held it in and stuck to the game plan. I never heard him curse. I never heard him say a cruel word to anyone.

Coach LeBaron inspired me to become a basketball coach, and I wish I could have been more like him. I coached for 11 years in Potlatch, Idaho, and another 8 in Hoquiam. As it was, however, it was one of Coach LeBaron’s out-of-bounds plays that helped a senior guard score 45 points in one game in Idaho to break the school record.

A couple of memorable anecdotes for me include sitting on the bench for two games for no apparent reason. I had to learn through the grapevine that Coach did not think I was working hard enough. That was never a problem again.

The moment that touched me the most in my life, and influenced me the most with Coach LeBaron, came in the second game of the state tournament in 1971. Knowing that we might lose and this would be the last basketball game I would play, I left my heart on the floor. I did everything I could to make us wake up and win.

Coach’s frustration was palpable. He called a time-out, and with the spittle flicking from his lips as it occasionally did, he looked in everyone else’s eyes in the huddle, and pointed to me, and said, “Why don’t you play like he does?”

It was the greatest compliment I ever received. It was a moment of enlightenment I took with me as a teacher, and a coach, and a human being in times of difficulty. I can only hope I was able to pass on to my players some of the influence that Coach LeBaron had on me.