Legendary Chester coach Alonzo Lewis dies in accident

FROM KEITH GROLLER

I have always had great respect and admiration for the Chester boys basketball program; the gold standard when it comes to Pennsylvania schoolboy hoops.

One of the men who made it a special program died earlier this week.

Alonzo Lewis, who coached Chester for 10 seasons from 1985-95, died after being hit by a car while crossing a Philadelphia street on Tuesday night. He was 77.

I remember Lewis as a classy gentleman who was complimentary toward our teams when he met them in the state playoffs. Usually, he won. Chester, it seems, always wins.

But he had the same demeanor whether his Clippers beat Liberty 88-55 in the first round of the 1987 tournament or lost to Emmaus in the first round of the 1986 tournament.

Lewis had a 237-67 record and his teams won six league championships and two state titles. He was the third-winningest coach in the Clippers' history but stepped down to become the head coach at Cheyney University.

In a Philadelphia Inquirer story, Fred Pickett, who was an assistant under Lewis and succeeded him as head coach said: "We're going to miss him. He took the program to new heights and levels. He gave a lot and demanded a lot from his student athletes."

And that's what always struck me about guys like Lewis and Pickett.

The job at Chester always seemed to me to be as much about saving lives, keeping them from going astray and putting them on the right path, as they were about winning basketball games. Lewis, who was a college star at La Salle, and Pickett inherited many more difficult situations than coaches at other Philly suburbs.

Yet, they made sure to instill much-needed structure and discipline into their kids lives and that's why many Chester kids went on to play college and pro ball and experienced great success later in life.

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/