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Craig Mattick: Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. Today's guest is one of only three high school basketball coaches with over 600 wins. He took two schools to the state B Boys Basketball Tournament a total of 12 times. He's number three on the all time boys' wins list in 37 years of coaching. He's been a teacher, a coach, an administrator. In fact, his Class B team back in the late '70s still holds the Class B Boys Basketball record for consecutive wins with 64. He's the Armour Packer and former head coach Burnell Glanzer. Burnell, welcome to In Play.
Burnell Glanzer: Well, nice to talk to you, Craig.
Craig Mattick: 2016 is when you retired. How's retirement treating you right now?
Burnell Glanzer: Can't complain. We're healthy and doing things we enjoy and I guess that's what we were working all these years to get to.
Craig Mattick: You grew up in Freeman. What was the family life like back there, the late '60s and the early '70s while growing up there in Freeman?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, my dad was a teacher. My mother also had a teaching degree, but then she stayed home to raise four boys and it was pretty idyllic. It was pretty ideal, I mean, for a kid. We had a lot of sports things going. I remember playing baseball, probably baseball more than even basketball and some other sports. We played that incessantly and it was just good.
Craig Mattick: What was the age difference between the four boys? Were they fairly close together?
Burnell Glanzer: I think from my age to the youngest, this is going to make me look bad now, but I think from my age to my youngest brother, I think it was 10 years between the four of us.
Craig Mattick: Yeah, there was no roughhousing going on at all at the Glanzer house was there, Burnell?
Burnell Glanzer: No, not much.
Craig Mattick: So were you successful as an athlete, whether it was baseball, basketball, or football at Freeman?
Burnell Glanzer: Good question. Moderately, I guess. I was all conference basketball player. I played on our legion baseball teams, but I think track was my best sport. I placed in a lot of the track meets. I think I got second to a kid from Scotland in the mile when I was a senior. And our medley placed second by tenths of a second. So that was my major sport, I guess, or the strongest one. I liked basketball the best, but I was probably better at track.
Craig Mattick: You always had kind of the love for track because all those years you were the basketball coach at Armour. You were also the track coach. Was that pretty important for you to also be involved with track with boys and girls there at Armour?
Burnell Glanzer: It was. I enjoyed it. And of course the athletes we had weren't just good basketball, football players. I mean, some of them were maybe even better in track and field. The Tiefenthalers, there was hardly anybody that could run with them in the state. We had good teams and that always is fun. I coached girls too and we won the girls' state track title three years in a row and got second in the one before that. So it was a lot of fun.
Craig Mattick: You graduated from Freeman in 1971 and right after that you're at USD. What was that intrigued you to go to Vermillion for college?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, for two years, I was at Southern in Springfield with Don Baker was the track coach. He's a big name in track and field and coaching. So I ran cross country and track there. And then, try to make this short as I can, my high school principal and basketball coach, Ron Bennett, came to me after my sophomore year and he said, "They're starting a government program for people that want to be teachers and they're going to call it Teacher Corps. It's a new program, kind of an internship." And he says, "There's five target schools in South Dakota and we're looking for five kids to go to each of those schools and be interns. And we have hired five experienced teachers that want to get their masters to be the head of each one of those schools."
And so that's what happened. And you could go to these schools and you'd do two years of internship, but we had to go to drive to Vermillion every Tuesday, I believe it was. One day a week, we drove to Vermillion and sat in on the classes that we were taking and the other two days we had to take them, just we got our assignments from the professor on the day we were there. I'm not sure how well they liked it, but I'm sure they got compensated for it a little bit. And we'd come back, and then of course we were obligated to go to summer school all those years too, to actually get the academics.
Craig Mattick: What was your major then?
Burnell Glanzer: Math and a PE major, and then I had a science minor. So it was good. The other thing that was interesting, and I give my coach principal credit for it, is that they don't want people to go to their hometowns because obviously you're going to be teaching classes with kids that you were in school with, being only two years apart in some cases. He says, "But I talked to them and I said if he wants to come to Freeman, we will have him at Freeman." So they got that changed, and so when I got to live at home and all the stipends that they were giving us to have food and lodging kind of went into my pocket. So it was a good situation. I graduated with no college debt and had a lot of experience. When Freeman won the state tournament that year with Keith Massey. You'll remember some of those years. I was helping Coach Ben, not helping I guess, but I was on the staff and doing whatever I could. That was a fun time and a learning experience too.
Craig Mattick: Well, your younger brother, Barry, he was at Freeman as well.
Burnell Glanzer: He was, yeah.
Craig Mattick: At that time, he attended Freeman. In fact, again, Freeman, they made it to the state basketball tournament in 1976. That would've been the year after you graduated from college. I think Barry must've been about a sophomore, right, at that time.
Burnell Glanzer: I believe that's right. Yeah.
Craig Mattick: And they finished third in basketball. What was that like, you watching your younger brother go at it in basketball at Freeman?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, it was enjoyable. It was fun. He was a good player and even as a sophomore you could see that he was going to be outstanding, and so just watching that was interesting and a good time.
Craig Mattick: So one year later though, 1977, a job opens up at Armour. What was available in Armour at that time?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, our superintendent at Armour, Dick Fuller had gone to school with and was acquainted with Coach Bennett, who was the principal at Armour. And I was looking for job and Coach Freeman said, "We'd love to have you here, but we don't... There's no math openings, there's no coaching openings, so it's not going to work out that well." So I started looking and had a couple job offers, but at school that I didn't think would be, and I already knew I wanted to coach, I didn't think that would be that conducive to having a good sports career. I won't say the name of the schools, but they were very small. And so that would've been an uphill climb. I saw Armour was open, and so I went, interviewed there, and to be honest, knew nothing at all about the wealth of talent that was waiting for us there.
Craig Mattick: Oh, boy.
Burnell Glanzer: Really didn't. And Superintendent Fuller never said a word about that. He didn't say, "Well, you should come here because we've got great talent." His son was on the team and they were just looking for a coach and it seemed like a good thing to me, so signed the contract and the rest is history.
Craig Mattick: You had not been a head basketball coach and here you are just, what, two years out of college, you're the head basketball coach at Armour. You're teaching there. Did you think you knew what you were doing at that time?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, basically I was doing what we did in high school and what they had done at Freeman with Coach Bennett. That's why I give him a lot of credit. He was a fundamental hard-nosed coach, stressed fundamentals all the time. Whatever he had done, I kind of tried to go with that. And then as I got more experience, built on my own a little bit, but I have to give him a lot of credit for some of the things that we did and his emphasis on the fundamentals of the game and how important they were. So I took that and ran with it.
Craig Mattick: Boy, there was a lot going on that very first year, 1977, first year as a head basketball coach and also your younger brother, Barry, decides to transfer to Armour from Freeman as a junior. Now I've seen a ton of coaches who've had their son or their daughter on their basketball team, but I do not know very many of coaches who have their brother on the team. What was that relationship like then, you, the coach, and Barry, the player?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, I think it was a good relationship. I mean, there's background there that I think people should know, but at that time, my mother had cancer, colon cancer, and was not good. And my dad bought a camper and they drove all over the country trying to find the miracle cure. And of course, it didn't exist and so it was not a good thing. And so we decided that it'd be better for my brothers to come and live with me, and that's what happened. But as far as our relationship, when somebody as good as he was, there was no arguing from anybody in the community that he was playing just because he was my brother.
All that smoothed itself out and he fit in with those kids anyway because when he was still at Freeman, the Armour Teener team was a state champion and then they went on playing, I think they had to play the Class A teams or something and they could pick up two players, and so they picked up two kids from Freeman that they knew of. Barry was one of them, and another kid was named Jeff Stucky and they picked those two guys up. So he had played with those kids, so before he ever came to be in school in Armour. So it was pretty seamless fit and just worked.
Craig Mattick: You talked about thinking about getting a job there at Armour, did not know the kind of talent that was lining up to make it an unbelievable run in boys basketball at Armour. When did you get a good idea that, "Hey, there's some talent here and we can do some damage"?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, when I saw our first grade school game, I think. I mean Dan Friedel, Denny Tiefenthaler were eighth graders. Jeff Tiefenthaler was a seventh grader. And watching them play in the seventh and eighth grade games was pretty eyeopening. Back in those times, they wouldn't let school board decision, I think, and it got changed later, but they would not let eighth graders or grade school, seventh or eighth graders, come up to the high school team. I suppose it would've upset some upperclassmen, I don't know. But definitely those kids, even as seventh and eighth graders would've played big roles on our first year team. They were just that good. And we ended up the first year, even without them, we ended up 15 and four, which the town thought was pretty good. And after that it was just they became freshmen and now they could play, and everything just meshed.
Craig Mattick: So it's 1977 and the first time in 25 years Armour qualifies for the state B Boys Basketball Tournament. So what kind of team did you have at Armour in '77 when you made it to the tournament for the first time in 25 years?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, I still believe in my heart, and that's probably what everybody says, but I still believe we had the best team in the state. We got beat fairly handily by Webster and they just had a good night and we did not have a good night. But talent-wise and whatever, maybe they out-coached us, I don't know, but we were good. I mean, we had Dave Fuller who went on to play at Wesleyan. We had Barry, we had all... I mean, the Friedel, the Tiefenthalers, Bender, Tom McFarland. We had it all. We just didn't perform in that state championship game. Haunts me to this day, but that's the way it is.
Craig Mattick: Well, 1978, magical year for Armour Boys Basketball. Of course, your brother Barry is on the team and you mentioned some of those other players. You go undefeated 26 and 0. What made that team click in 1978?
Burnell Glanzer: Talent and unselfishness, and like you said, Armour hadn't been in tournament play or a contender, so to speak, for a long, long time. And I think the kids and the town were just hungry, especially the kids. They knew they had the talent and they knew that some other teams in Armour had had some talent but didn't have the cohesiveness or whatever it was, they couldn't get the job done. And these kids just said, "Well, we're going to get it done." Back in those days there wasn't that much that would distract them from that. I mean, if they weren't in the gym playing, then they were outside playing baseball or doing something else. There wasn't a lot of video games and things like that to distract them. I mean, the only thing you could do is go to a movie in town. TV had three channels on it probably, so you played sports.
Craig Mattick: Armour versus Elk Point in the championship in 1978. What do you remember from that win, which by the way was the Armour's first state Boys Basketball title?
Burnell Glanzer: Didn't play very well, to be honest. Didn't play up to our capability. Barry didn't shoot the ball very well. One of our seniors actually won the game for us and probably, I don't want to insult, probably had the least talent of the starting five, Joe Morrow, and he had a good game. He bailed us out. He had 17 points, and we got it done, but it wasn't real pretty. But you're in a state championship, the other team was good. Elk Point was good, got to give them credit. They had some shooters, a [inaudible 00:18:11] kid that was a very good player and a couple others whose names I don't recall. But it was kind of a relief I think after '77 when we thought we should have done that.
Then you remember in '78 the Freeman Classic was going, and so the big draw in the Freeman Classic in '78 was they put us against Webster again in that Freeman Classic. I just remember my kids before that game were just, I mean, they were just focused. I mean, they wanted to show that the year before might've been their own fault, but it might've been what they considered an upset, and I think we beat Webster by 39 or something like that in the Freeman Classic. But that's what it was like, and I think just a focus by the kids and just an attitude where, "Okay, we're going to get this done no matter what."
Craig Mattick: Burnell, I have heard you say that "excellence is the goal." It's really tough to go undefeated no matter what class you're in, but was 1978, was that an excellent year in your mind?
Burnell Glanzer: Yeah, like I said, there was times where I didn't think we played as well as we could have or should have, but things happen, sometimes you need a little luck. But yeah, most of the games that I remember, we played close to our capabilities and we had a deep team too. We had eight guys that could play and we rotated them in, so we were always fresh and we were quick. I think that was the biggest thing. We were fast. I mean, you had the Tiefenthalers running on the break in the side and you had the ball handlers like Fred Allen Berry in the middle and, I mean, it was hard to keep up.
If you didn't make some shots to slow us down and we got some steals, full court press, or got the rebound, it was tough to slow us down. But Webster did that. They made a lot of shots, so there wasn't that many defensive rebounds for us to go. They didn't turn the ball over, so that kind of slowed us down, but for most of the year, '78 was close to excellent as we could probably play.
Craig Mattick: Well, and it started a little trend too, Burnell, that no matter where your team went, you filled up gyms. People wanted to come and watch the Armour Packers. You were filling up every gym you went to. 1979, of course your brother Barry, he graduated and he's off to college. What was that transition like without having your point guard? You didn't really miss a beat too much.
Burnell Glanzer: Well, I mean, yeah, we lost a good point guard, but then we had one that... Dan Friedel stepped right in there and he's in Augustana's Hall of Fame. He led the NCC in steals one year, and assists. I mean, it wasn't like we were bereft of talent when Barry left. We still had the point guard that could get the job done. We still had the Tiefs on the wing, and Bender was still there, and McFarland underneath. I mean, we still had some horses.
Craig Mattick: You go undefeated that year again. Were there any games that you almost got beat that year, 1979?
Burnell Glanzer: Yep. We traveled to Rapid City to a classic that Larry Luitjens set up with Custer and there was a Native American school there that was really good, had a really good player, Austin Knife or something, his name was.
Craig Mattick: Pine Ridge, maybe, how that was?
Burnell Glanzer: No, it wasn't Pine Ridge.
Craig Mattick: Okay.
Burnell Glanzer: They had us down in halftime, and Austin Richards, the kid's name was. He was like a 6'6" silky smooth player. They had us down at halftime, but we kind of came out of that. The next night was Custer, and we led them throughout the game but they made a run at the end and actually I think Doug Hermann might've had a shot at the buzzer, but it was a long shot, 30-some foot or something like that, that would've ended the streak, but it didn't go, and so we survived. Then of course the classic game with Beresford in the state championship, we certainly could have lost that. We were down four points at whatever, 27 seconds left to go and-
Craig Mattick: Goes overtime.
Burnell Glanzer: Yeah, we got it to overtime. Bender hit that last shot to tie and we got to overtime and then they didn't score in overtime and we ended up winning. But that certainly could have done it too.
Craig Mattick: I think there was about 11,000 people at that game in Rapid City that year.
Burnell Glanzer: There was. That was interesting. People were sitting on the floor around the arena. I mean, you don't get that anymore with the three-classes, but it's what it is. That was the big B at that time was the event in sports.
Craig Mattick: What did you tell your team when you played in front of all these people? I mean, the fire marshal had to be there almost for every game because there were so many people there. What did you tell your team about playing in front of huge crowd like that?
Burnell Glanzer: I don't know, really. Most of those huge crowds were against us. They would boo us and I guess a lot of people like just to be for the underdog, and that's fine. I think it just drew us together a little bit. We knew that if we didn't stick together and it was like an us against all the rest of them mentality, and that seemed to work somewhat and just play, reach for our standard. Like you said before, we're not really looking at what the score is. We just want to make sure that when we're do things, we do them like we practiced, we do them as well as we can. And then if the score is wrong and we did the best we can, then some other team was better than us. But most of the time if we did what we were supposed do and went in with that kind of mentality, it would work out for us.
Craig Mattick: Two undefeated seasons in a row, two state championships, and here comes 1980. Armour has won 64 games in a row. And during the season the Freeman Classic at the Sioux Falls Arena, 7,000 people packing that arena. It's Armour and Beresford again, rematch of the state game from a year before. What was that atmosphere like with Beresford?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, by that point everybody was everybody, and before that all too. But everybody, you knew that everybody was going to play their best game against you because you had the target on your back. We had lost some really good players by that time, again, and we still had had some good players around. But-
Craig Mattick: You had Friedel and Jeff Tiefenthaler, but you didn't have Dennis Tiefenthaler for that team.
Burnell Glanzer: Right. That's exactly right. He had hurt his knee in the last... I think it was the last or second last football game of the year. And of course, again, back then orthopedic surgery wasn't what it is today. Had they had the technology then that they have now, he would've been up and playing I think by the end of the year. But this took him out the whole year and we certainly missed him, because he was a force, he was a scorer. But that's how things go.
Craig Mattick: Well, we know the Beresford wins the game. Brian Rick hitting a 20 footer and the Watchdogs win it and end the streak. What were your emotions after that game?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, human nature, I guess, disappointment, I guess. I didn't want it to end. I wanted it to go forever, but also some realism in it, that it's going to end sometime, it's not going to go on forever. And he hit the shot and we made a crucial turnover. We had the ball there. I still remember this as plain as day. But they did not have the running time at the ends of the floor at that time, I believe. It was just on the clock above. We had something set up that we were going to go and attack at such and such a time or whatever, and one of our players looked up to see what the time was. And about that time, the kid with the ball passed it to him and hit him in the chest, because he wasn't ready for it, and it rolled away and Beresford picked it up. So consequently they got the shot that they wanted and they hit it, so we're done.
Craig Mattick: By the way, that 64 game win streak by the Armour Packers, it still holds today. Arlington, by the way, had the old record of 61 and that was back in the '30s, Burnell. By the way, you didn't have the three-point line either during that time. What do you think your packers would've done back in 1978 and '79 if you had had the three-point line?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, we had some players that certainly could hit the three-point shot, but I'm not sure how big it would've been featured in our offense. Our offense was, "Let's get in, let's make the extra pass, let's get some layups." But we certainly would've utilized it for some of our players, I'm sure. But our big game was penetration. We had the guards that could handle a ball and beat their man and penetrate. Then if some other opponent's big guy came over to stop the penetration, then we had the skills to make the pass. And so our big kids got a lot of easy shots down low and that was our bread and butter. So I'm not sure how big the three-point shot would've played in our attack. Again, I know we had some kids, Barry could have shot the three-pointer and a couple other kids, but I'm not sure it would've played that big a role on that team. Now, later on in our other state championship team with Lenabore and some of those, it was more of a point then because we had a couple kids that could do that.
Craig Mattick: Well, Armour would get back to the state championship game in 1983. You lost, though, to a really good Hamlin team, 45-40. And then 14 years later, Armour gets its third basketball title. It's 1997 and it's Armour against your alma mater, Freeman. You're already smiling. What takes you back to that game back in '97?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, it was fun. I mean, knowing the people back there and the whole background of it. They had good players, for sure. And I had a distant relative on that team, so it was interesting.
Craig Mattick: I do remember that game. The Packers won it 55-54. What was special about that team that you took to the state tournament?
Burnell Glanzer: I don't know. Austin Lenabore, if we had to pick top five players that came out of Armour, that would be hard, but he would have to be in one of them. He even got in college, I think. But he was a major force and we had Noor kid that was really steady and good and Chris Peters was really fast. I don't know, we just knew the year before, right, we had said we didn't do quite as well as we wanted to the year before, but we said, "Okay, next year we're going to hang a banner." We win state championships, we put a banner up in the gym and that was our mindset that year. "We're going to hang a banner." During the year we lost a couple games we shouldn't have to two class A schools, Platte and Scotland, we didn't. I mean, now the Scotland game we lost was probably the worst basketball game I remember coaching. I mean, we could do nothing right? And I don't know why, but we just could do nothing right, and we got beat by them and then Platte beat us.
But came down to the tournaments, the kids were ready and put it together. But that Freeman game was a dog fight, that's for sure. We had played them in the Hanson Classic and beat them during the year. And so they came back with a vengeance in the state tournament. And I know they wanted another shot and it was back and forth the whole way, low scoring, and physical and tough.
Craig Mattick: Well, if it's one game that was the absolute worst out of over 800 games, that's still a pretty good percentage there, Burnell.
Burnell Glanzer: Well, people talk to me about those kinds of things. "Well, what do you remember about these games?" And I said, "Well, I remember the losses more than some of the wins." There was fewer of them, but they stick out in my memory more than some of the wins do. Not the championships, of course, but some of the other ones. I just did not like to lose and our kids did not like to lose, so you remember those.
Craig Mattick: I'm trying to come up with the best phrase of the kind of coach Burnell Glanzer was, demanding, wanted excellence. How would you describe your coaching style, because certainly you were fairly active along the sideline?
Burnell Glanzer: Well, I think, I hope, you hit the right words there, but I also think, you talk to my players, that it wasn't an abusive situation. It was just demanding that they give us what we knew they had in them, and that was their thing too. They weren't going to be settling for anything less than their best. And if they cut some corners or were a little lazy on defense or didn't do things the way we wanted them, then we made sure they knew about it, and they accepted that. Now, some players nowadays might not, but they did. And you can talk to them all. I don't think any of them felt abused. So it was just a good situation, and I'm glad I coached in those days, and maybe not in these, but-
Craig Mattick: You became-
Burnell Glanzer: Seems like now kids are more, I don't know, kids and parents are more sensitive to that. Back in my early days, that was just accepted. That's what coaching was, so whatever. You have to be who you are. I mean, I know even back then John Wooden wouldn't agree with me. He sat on the bench and had his rolled-up newspaper in his hand and didn't say hardly anything during the game. He said you had to do your coaching during practice. And that's true, but I couldn't do that. I had to have a outlet for my emotions and for my competitiveness too. And so that's the way I was. Again, blessing to the kids and the parents that they accepted that and knew it was nothing personal. It was just the way it was going to be, and so it worked out.
Craig Mattick: You retired from coaching in 2012. You became superintendent of Armour in 2009. After retiring as the Armour's boys basketball coach, how easy was it for you just to sit and watch a boys' basketball game?
Burnell Glanzer: Not all that easy, but you do it, because you don't want to criticize and you don't want to make the new coach think that he's not doing something right or that you would've done something different. The new coach was one of my former players who was a good player, played in the state tournament for me, and he is now the superintendent at Armour, Craig Holbeck. He did well. But we'd sit in the bleachers and watch and if he wanted to talk about the game the next day, we certainly would do that. But we weren't going to make any suggestions that were unsolicited.
Craig Mattick: You go back to before the year 2000, it was before the switch in seasons with volleyball and girls' basketball. Remember girls' basketball used to be in the fall and volleyball was in the winter before it switched in 2000. You refereed for several years. What kind of a basketball referee were you compared to a basketball coach that you were?
Burnell Glanzer: I don't know. I mean, I will say I enjoyed that basketball refereeing as much as anything that I've done. I mean, I really did. I got to go out and see other kids playing, and the girls. The other thing that was fun about that is I ran the Hansen-Anderson basketball camps for many, many years, so a lot of the girls in the state came through there. And so then I could kind of ref some of those games and see how they were doing, after having at least knowing them and having a little bit of a relationship with them at the basketball camp. So going to these games and refereeing was a good time. I enjoyed it. You made a little bit of money and you got some exercise and you got to be involved in what you liked, which is sports.
So I really was sad when the girls switched to the same time and I couldn't do that, so I missed that a lot. How was I? I don't know. Back in those days, the coaches voted for referees for the tournament. I'm not sure how that actually goes now, but I refereed in 15 straight girls' basketball tournaments in a row. So I must not have impressed too many coaches as being a bad, bad referee, so it was fun.
Craig Mattick: Well, it would be interesting if you worked with any of those officials and later they worked your games when you were on the sideline as the coach.
Burnell Glanzer: Happened all the time. I refereed with Molo, I refereed with Bob [inaudible 00:38:40]. Well, I refereed with a lot of people at the state, even at the state tournament, girls' state tournament, and then come back and we're in the boys' state tournament and they're refereeing my games. So yeah, it happened a lot.
Craig Mattick: You're in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame, Burnell. What does that mean to you?
Burnell Glanzer: I take pride in it, I guess, but I also know that the vehicles that got me there are the kids that we had all these years. I mean, you're not going to be in there if you don't have good athletes and you don't have athletes that are willing to sacrifice for the good of the team and take the instruction that you're willing to give them. And that's what drove all that. So you're kind of humble about it and then you see the people that you're in there with and then you get even more humble. But it's a good place to be.
Craig Mattick: Two more for Burnell Glanzer. Burnell, you're number 3 all time in wins in boys' basketball in South Dakota. Meanwhile, I believe he was an assistant with you. Talking about Jim Bridge. He's 37 years now at Hanson, and during this season, Jim's going to pass Dawn Seiler as the winningest girls' basketball coach in South Dakota. What do you remember when Jim Bridge was your assistant? When did that happen?
Burnell Glanzer: Jim played for Wagner on the team that back before the three-class system, back in the two-class system, he played on the Wagner team that had only two losses all year, and both of them were to us. One during the regular season and one during the tournaments. So he knew of us, and then he got into teaching and when he was in college, his practice teaching, he called and asked if he could possibly come to Armour to do his practice teaching, and we said, "Sure." So Jim came there and he wanted to help coach, so we said, "Of course. Many people as we can have, many eyes on the product and suggestions. I'll decide what we're going to do, but I'll listen to all suggestions. Always do." So he was part of it.
He still talks about the first time or whatever we went in the halftime and we were talking about what had happened in the first half with the kids and what we needed to do better and whatever. I said, "Jim, what do you say? What did you see? What do you think?" And he was kind of flabbergasted by that. He still talks about it. He says, "I didn't know what to say here. I was a student assistant and here you were and had won some state tournaments or whatever and you're asking me." So he liked that. Jim and I have been close friends ever since. I just talked to Jim last night for half an hour. The Hanson Classic was playing. In fact, I'm watching it right now as I'm speaking to you. The Hanson Classic is on, and yeah, I hope Jim gets it. He deserves it. He's been excellent for many, many years and we did many years of basketball camp together. Just been a good relationship.
Craig Mattick: Well, well over 1200 wins between you guys. You finished off with 617, he's going to be well over 620-30. Who knows how much longer Jim is going to go after this year? Last one for you. Do you keep in touch with any former players, or is it the other way around where former players are keeping in touch with you?
Burnell Glanzer: Both. Both. I have most of their numbers on my cell phone and I just talked to Dan last week. Jeff and Dennis, when they come back to town to see their folks stop in. Brian Bender's mother is my neighbor, so I see him quite a bit. Yeah, we do. We were close.
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