CLEVELAND, Ohio — It was about eight years ago that I last saw Kevin Mackey.
He was scouting for the Indiana Pacers. I was in Indianapolis for a Cavs playoff game, and we connected in the press room.
We talked for a while about the “old days” at Cleveland State. He was hired in 1983 after spending six seasons as an assistant coach at Boston College.
At the time, I was the baseball writer for the Plain Dealer. In the winter, I covered Cleveland State basketball. Mackey arrived with Boston bluster, talking fast and with big plans.
Many know how he coached the Vikings to the Sweet Sixteen of the 1986 NCAA tournament. He knocked off Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers along the way.
We didn’t talk about that in that last meeting.
Instead, the subject was Manute Bol.
The tallest recruit
Mackey had amazing basketball contact often across continents. He heard about a 7-foot-7 Dinka tribesman who played a little basketball in his native Sudan. Mackey found a way to get him to Cleveland and enrolled him at Case Western to take English classes. The hope was he’d learn enough to eventually qualify for admission to CSU.
Mackey also had Bol hanging around his Woodling Gym office.
“I never even knew how old he was,” Mackey told me that day in the Cavs press room. “We sort of made up an age and put it on the documents.”
We both laughed.
I told him about playing pickup basketball with Bol at Woodling Gym. He was a regular in those games. He wasn’t eligible to play for the Vikings.
“Manute kept telling me I needed to make our guys shoot more jump shots and foul shots,” said Mackey. “Did you ever see him shoot? It was like he was throwing a spear back home.”
“Kevin, one day we’re playing full court with Manute,” I said. “He ran up and down the court a few times, then got tired. He sat down in the middle of the floor and said, ‘Manute take vacation.’ The game just stopped. We waited for him to get back up.”
“He played 10 years in the NBA,” said Mackey. “Ten years! Made a lot of money.”
In those 10 seasons (1985-95), Bol made $5.8 million according to Basketball Reference.
Bol never played for CSU, but his presence did lead to the basketball program being put on probation for three years. Mackey used to quote former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who once said, “The NCAA got so mad at Kentucky for cheating, they hammered Cleveland State!”
This was one of the stories I thought of when hearing Mackey died Tuesday at the age of 79. According to ESPN, Mackey suffered a heart attack.
1983 Press Photo Kevin Mackey new coach of CSU
Kevin Mackey when he was hired in 1983Cleveland Plain Dealer
Not McDonald’s All-Americans
Mackey coached Don Bosco Technical High in Boston to a state title. He later became an assistant coach at Boston College from 1977-83, working for Gary William and Tom Davis.
Both coaches valued Mackey for his recruiting contacts, especially in the East Coast urban areas. He had an eye for talent, especially little guards. Two of them in Cleveland’s State early years were Shawn Hood and Eddie Bryant. He added Clinton Ransey, who was listed at 6-foot-5. He was much closer to 6-2 and he played forward.
After I first met Mackey, he mentioned he was looking for players.
I told him about Eric Mudd, who was a senior at Benedictine. That was my alma mater. I heard Mudd had no Division I offers, and I saw him play once. Mackey was new in town. He checked out Mudd and offered him a scholarship.
Mudd averaged 11.3 points and 7.3 rebounds as a starter for his four-year career at CSU. After graduation, he played pro ball in Europe. Many of Mackey’s recruits were like Mudd – the overlooked or the undersized.
“Some teams have McDonalds All-Americans,” he said. “I have a team of guys who eat at McDonalds.”
KEVIN MACKEY AT WOODLING GYM
Former CSU Coach Kevin Mackey knew how to play to the crowd at the little gym in the 1980s.Cleveland Plain Dealer
The Mackey Way
When Mackey was hired in 1983, he began teaching his team (and me) about his view of in-your-face Boston basketball. He pressed full court for the entire game. This was before the 3-point shot came into the college game.
Mackey believed in the battle of tempo. A team that is less talented can pull an upset if it forces the opposition to play faster than its usual pace.
In a few years, Mackey began to call his style “Run & Stun.” He used at least 10 players most games. Go hard for about five minutes, then come out. Here come the fresh guys. Then back to the starters.
He also believed the approach helped him recruit because more players had a chance to earn playing time with his style.
He had this theory: If his press was working, they would double the number of forced turnovers in the second half. For example, if CSU made the opposition commit six turnovers in the first half, they’d have 12 more in the second half.
Mackey said he learned to be patient when the press wasn’t working early in the game.
“We will wear them down,” he said. “I’m telling you, we’ll wear them down.”
They often did just that.
Mackey had a 14-16 record in his first season. The next year, it was 21-8.
Then came 1985-86. The Vikings had added Cleveland native Clinton Smith and New York playground legend Ken “The Mouse” McFadden. That was the Sweet Sixteen team, still the best in CSU basketball history.
Mackey became the “King of Cleveland.” He never had to pay for a drink or a meal, once people knew he was CSU’s coach. He went out … a lot.
Former Cleveland State men's basketball coach Kevin Mackey, pictured in 1987, has died.
Former Cleveland State men's basketball coach Kevin Mackey, pictured in 1987, has died.cleveland.com
What could have been
Mackey was 37 when hired to coach CSU. He was 40 when his team upset Indiana in the NCAA tournament.
In those days, there was a dark side to Mackey. He not only recruited the mean streets of some cities, he enjoyed hanging out there. Mackey liked to drink. As time passed, there were drugs.
In the summer of 1990, he was arrested outside a crack house on Cleveland’s East Side. At a press conference soon after the legal trouble, Mackey admitted his drinking and drug problems.
He had just signed a new two-year contract extension worth $300,000. CSU fired him.
Mackey went into a drug rehabilitation program run by John Lucas, the former NBA guard who later became the Cavs’ coach.
Mackey rebuilt his career, coaching for some minor league basketball franchises. In 2003, he received what he called “a call out of nowhere” from Pacers president Larry Bird. Mackey was offered a chance to scout for the Pacers, a job he held for 18 years until he retired in 2021.
Bird had played for the Boston Celtics when Mackey was an assistant at Boston College. He had heard good things about Mackey’s recovery and how the man still could find players.
Mackey could have been a great college coach, that’s the “What could have been … “ part of this story.
But his sobriety and his changed life is in many ways a better story.
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