This Trial Is No Error : Ups and Downs Are Nothing New for USC’s Bibby, Who Has a Wealth of Experience to Call Upon

Trying to figure out what is going on with USC’s basketball program may be a headache to some, but not for interim Coach Henry Bibby.

Bibby, who coached for 11 years in the Continental Basketball Assn. and the U.S. Basketball League, is no stranger to difficult coaching situations.

“I’ve coached over 600 games already in my coaching career and that’s a lot of games,” said Bibby, 0-3 as USC’s coach going into today’s game against Arizona at the Sports Arena.

“I’m a trial-and-error coach now because I feel that I’ve been through it all.

“When I coached in the CBA, they were just big kids who needed some love and direction. It was important for me to see them reach their potential. I experienced a lot of victories that you can’t measure with wins and losses.”

Bibby’s being named interim coach Feb. 7 was almost a footnote to the more startling news of the day: that Athletic Director Mike Garrett had unexpectedly fired Charlie Parker and that the Trojans were rumored to be trying to hire former Phoenix Sun coach Paul Westphal for next season.

But Bibby, 46, says he had no doubt he could handle the job because he has spent years working for an opportunity to run his own college basketball program.

“I wanted to be a college coach 10 years ago, but being a Christian person, I knew that I would just go in whatever direction God took me,” said Bibby, who also has coached international summer club teams for eight years. “That’s why I feel that I’m very capable of coaching at any level.”

Bibby, an All-American guard at UCLA, began coaching at the end of his playing career in 1981-82 with the Lancaster (Pa.) Lightning in the CBA. He was an assistant to Cazzie Russell and also played 10-15 minutes a game.

The next season, Bibby became a full-time coach for the first time when he joined Bob Weinhauer’s staff at Arizona State. As the Sun Devils’ top recruiter, Bibby was quickly tagged as one of college basketball’s up-and-coming assistants.

But his coaching career took a turn in the wrong direction in 1983 when he was involved in a recruiting scandal involving three high school players. The Pacific 10 stripped Arizona State of a scholarship and ruled that the Sun Devils could not recruit two California prep players, Greg Butler and Robert Redditt.

The Pac-10 made him take a written test on conference recruiting rules before he could recruit again, and USC made a point of checking with the conference before hiring him last May.

“SC talked with us about the infractions he was involved in,” said Jim Muldoon, a Pac-10 assistant commissioner. “We told them that we didn’t have a problem because the violations had happened [in 1983].”

Bibby is reluctant to talk about his coaching days at Arizona State.

He left Arizona State in 1986, then coached in the USBL for three seasons and was named USBL coach of the year his rookie year. From 1988 to 1994, Bibby won more than 200 games in the CBA and was named CBA coach of the year in 1989 when he led a Tulsa team that included ex-NBA players Wes Matthews and Otis Birdsong to the league title.

Bibby has many stories about his days in the CBA, particularly the one about the time he drove a team in a 12-seat van from Baltimore to Toronto and back to play three games in three nights.

“I drove the team all night and had them ready to play with only an hour’s rest in a hotel in between,” said Bibby, who had a 223-213 regular-season CBA record and is one of only four coaches to win more than 200 games. “I have so many stories with so many teams. I’ve coached all over the place.”

Bibby coached at one time in the CBA with no assistants; one summer in the USBL, he arrived in time to coach but not to find a place to live. He wound up in an acquaintance’s attic for the season.

“I’ve dealt with a wide spread of situations,” he said.

When Bibby was playing on three consecutive NCAA championship teams at UCLA, he gained a reputation as John Wooden’s coach on the floor.

He was regarded as a defensive specialist who got the most out of his abilities through hard work. When he went on to play nine seasons in the NBA, including a championship year with the New York Knicks as a rookie, no one around UCLA was surprised, especially Wooden.

“Henry was a smart player and a good defensive player,” Wooden said. “He was one of my better guards, and I think he would have done well if we had the three-point shot. He was probably as good of a [perimeter] shooter that I ever had.”

Bibby was coaching a club team in Venezuela last March when he contacted USC about its head coaching position. When Garrett replied that he already had made Parker head coach, he asked Bibby if he would be interested in being an assistant.

For Bibby, it meant a chance to return to the college level, even if it meant going to a school he was supposed to hate.

“When I first came out here, I really didn’t understand the UCLA-USC rivalry,” said Bibby, who grew up in Franklinton, N.C. “I never imagined that I would be doing anything with SC. All I had known was UCLA, I didn’t know SC really at all.”

Bibby, whose son Mike has signed to play with Arizona next season, did not take long to be accepted by the Trojan players, who knew little about his playing background. His easy-going style seemed to fit in with Parker, which is why Bibby says he was shocked by Parker’s ouster.

“It was really tough. . . . It was like a death in the family,” Bibby said. “Charlie is such a great guy who gave me a chance. It really hurts because we really became friends.”

Despite having only nine games left in the regular season when he took over, Bibby wasted no time adjusting from assistant to head coach.

“We now know that he has experience from his playing days and coaching pros in the CBA,” guard Stais Boseman said. “We’re confident in him, and we believe he can only help us.”

So far, USC has not won a game under Bibby, but he says he is not discouraged. Nor is he concerned with the possibility that USC wants Westphal to take over next season.

“That’s the least of my problems; right now I just want to put down the right foundation for the team to get to the Final Four,” said Bibby, the only player to win an NCAA, NBA and CBA title. “To get to that point, you get there through hard work. It’s not luck. It’s something that has to be done over years of hard work.”

Wooden believes that USC has a coach who can bring stability to the Trojans’ program in Bibby.

“If they give him a chance, I think he’ll do a great job,” Wooden said. “But it will be very tough to see how good he is on the interim basis. He’s been a successful coach for some time now at different levels and I think he will do very well as a college coach.”

Only time will tell if Bibby is the coach to get the Trojans to that level, and only Garrett knows if he’ll have enough time to do so.