this story was front page in the Idaho Falls Post Register yesterday...interesting timing...
Printed on: December 26, 2011
Madison coach wins games, inspires students
By ZACH KYLE
[email protected]
As the adrenaline subsided, Troy DeBoard realized he had nowhere to go.
That night in 1982 had been rough. DeBoard, a senior at Salmon High School, engaged his father in a yelling match. The argument turned physical.
DeBoard ran from the house, jumped on his dirt bike and tore into the early-morning darkness.
His father pursued in his Ford pickup.
The high-speed chase went from Carmen Creek Road down Main Street in Salmon and up S Hill, where Salmon athletes paint their jersey numbers on rocks.
DeBoard shook loose of his father by the end of it. As he motored down, shaking, he knew he couldn't go home. He rode back into town to a trailer park, which no longer exists, off Mary Street.
There, DeBoard knocked on the door of a dingy single-wide.
Bill Hawkins, 24 years old and in his first year of coaching boys basketball at Salmon, answered.
Months earlier, DeBoard quit the Salmon team during halftime of a game in Dillon, Mont. He yelled at Hawkins that he was done and threw his towel. Hawkins shouted that was fine by him.
Now DeBoard was knocking on the coach's door.
"I remember he opened the door," DeBoard said. "He gave me a hug I'll never forget. He told me it would be OK."
It's tough to remember Hawkins' four years in Salmon during the early 1980s.
It's tough to remember what came before the 24 seasons Hawkins spent building a basketball empire at Madison High School.
Last March, Madison upset Skyview in the state championship, giving Hawkins five titles, the most of any active boys coach.
Those championships tie Hawkins for third on the all-time list. He trails Elliott Anderson, who won seven titles at Rigby High School.
Hawkins, 54, played for Anderson at Rigby.
He doesn't think he'll catch him.
"Too long in the tooth," he said.
Hawkins also refused to tally up his win-loss record.
Hawkins shakes a few dozen hands before each game. He's unfailingly polite. His smile could win an election, especially in Rexburg, where little boys grow up wanting to set picks in Hawkins' pass-heavy motion offense.
The man also can talk.
More than one coach described Hawkins as "sort of like a politician."
Coaches need a little bit of politician in them to stay in power, and Hawkins has that it in spades, Shelley coach Dave Hadley said.
"Number one, Bill does things the way they are supposed to be done," Hadley said. "He's honest. He's forthright. Number two is that Bill could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo. People want to be around him, to join in what he's doing."
Hawkins' players buy what he's selling.
Every season, regardless of talent, Hawkins' teams play smart, disciplined (some say plodding) basketball that keeps them in games against teams that look superior on paper. Madison always is tough in the district tournament. Madison players adhere to a strict dress and grooming code. Hawkins has stars sometimes, but never prima donnas.
Josh Fuller, 2009-10 Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year while a junior at Madison, was humble in his 10 or 12 interviews with the Post Register.
The 6-foot-7 forward would smile down at reporters. He'd call them sir, touch them on the shoulder and lean closer when they spoke. His answers always would touch on the same safe and attention-diverting clichs about hard work and execution and believing in teammates.
Fuller's lines were the same melodic, feel-good, unusable quotes that Hawkins has fed reporters for nearly three decades.
Rexburg has a veneer of trim haircuts and tucked-in shirts.
Not only is Salmon courser around the edges, its people are proud of it.
Its high school mascot is the savage, and its basketball players were wild children. The seniors Hawkins inherited all those years ago were busted for drinking on the bus after the last football game of the season.
One of those wild children was DeBoard, who said things changed when Hawkins arrived.
"The inmates were running the show, and he was the new sheriff in town," DeBoard said. "All of a sudden, we had to wear ties, had to dress up to go to games. We just played by different rules. He was the only coach in high school I ever respected. He had a passion. It was infectious."
Hawkins didn't win any titles in Salmon. He won some games. He took some lumps.
He yelled more back then.
His former Salmon players remember him dunking in practice. They remember him showing up to coach the second half of a game after his wife, Peggy, gave birth to their son, Moses.
Moses was the Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year when Madison won the state championship in 2001.
The couple's other son, Isaiah, was a starter when Madison repeated as champs the next year.
Peggy tells people her sons' names are biblical.
Hawkins tells people he named his sons after basketball legends Moses Malone and Isiah Thomas.
Of course, Hawkins can pass Anderson and retire with more championships than any boys coach in Idaho history. His teams keep winning. His fire still burns.
The competition in District 6 always is fierce. The league is strong this season. Rigby's squad is stacked.
Madison tends to peak at the district tournament. If the Bobcats manage to advance to state, Hawkins will keep his usual sweaters and dress shirts at home and take his suits to the tournament.
In the locker room, one of his players will write the Madison mantra on the white board: Play hard! Play smart! Play physical!
The rest of the board will remain empty.
Hawkins will shake several dozen hands by game time. Coaches. Parents. Former players. Ushers.
DeBoard will be there. Former player Ken Miner probably will make the trip from Salmon, like he did last year. So will Hillcrest coach Don Baldwin, who played against Hawkins in high school and for years in city leagues.
Peggy will be there, just as she has for nearly every game for the past three decades.
Few degrees separate Hawkins from anybody in the Idaho basketball universe. Fewer handshakes.
"That's what's so cool about this game; the people you associate with," Hawkins said. "I think I have a good rapport with most of the opposing coaches, and even their families. I see them at the mall and we talk and share our lives. Those are great relationships, and that's what it's all about."
