Guru of Go

By now, it should be clear that I have a problem staying up at night watching nonsense. Last night at least I picked something that was of decent interest. I was watching ESPN's 30 for 30 film Guru of Go. It's the story of Paul Westhead and his coaching stint at LMU where he took Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble on a tremendous run in the NCAA basketball tournament.

It's a pretty interesting look at Westhead's high flying up tempo system that led to his team averaging a record 120+ points a game. Typically, upper 70s in a college game is pretty high scoring but these guys were nuts. Westhead would put them in tremendous condition where they would just outrun the other team and keep pounding in the points. Some of the players were saying in their interviews that practices were hard but the games were easy. There was less running and fatigue in games compared to their practices. That team started 3-3 but went on to win 25 straight and really had something special.

The other side of the film was the story of Gathers and Kimble and how they grew up in the projects of Philadelphia and their respective personalities. It was tragic in watching the high flying Gathers collapse on the court and die an hour after collapsing. It was interesting to understand how that story unfolded. How Gathers had fainted previously on the floor in a game a few weeks prior to his death. How he had gone through a battery of tests and was given medication to treat his heart condition but that the medication was effecting his play so he got off of it and that when he collapsed the second time, he sat back up and was trying to get up but ended up dying.

Gathers' family ended up suing LMU and Westhead for negligence for $22+M. The family ended up taking Westhead off of the lawsuit and was awarded about $1.5M from LMU which was settled out of court. It was tough for Westhead who cared deeply for Gathers to watch his star player die but then be blamed for the death by the family.

All in all a good film as it chronicled a magical season for LMU. They had the right coach, the right players, the right system all at the right time. Westhead would try his run'n'gun system with other teams (Nuggets, Bulls, George Mason) but it never worked until again, recently, for the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury who ended up winning the championship in 2007.

For Gathers, we will never know what he would have done had he made the pros. He was supremely talented but he also benefited from running in Westhead's system and who knows how good he would have been in a traditional offense. Kimble was drafted but was never nearly as good in the pros as he was at LMU.

I was a high school senior when all this went down and I remember Gathers death and the run of LMU and the story of them being an offensive juggernaut. However, I didn't really know it that well so it was interesting to watch it now as I was familiar with the story and can remember it but didn't know/follow many of the details back in 1990. Pretty good film if you can catch. Certainly better than Joy Ride.