John Dybvig—basketball’s outrageous outlaw

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 18

John Dybvig —basketball’s outrageous outlaw

Specially written for “The Press” by TOM HYDE, editor of “New Zealand Basketball Times.”

When John Thomas Dybvig (pronounced as Dib-vig) walks by a certain construction site in Napier the hard hats give him a standing ovation.

on the outcome of a hearing set for July 15 in Christchurch.

So what is the problem? Basically it is Dybvig’s choice of words (or the moral judgment made on them, depending on how you look at it) and the tone he uses when he speaks them. In short, he swears with vengeance. ‘People outside the sport rarely hear it, people inside it, many who attend games simply as spectators hear it all the time. Dybvig’s reply to that is this: When people go to a basketball game they are like people who go to movies. The language they hear in the cinema can be worse than his own so why do they get so upset when they hear it at a basketball game? If you accept that view than logically the coach should be judged by the film censor not basketball authorities. But the New Zealand Basketball Federation, not the film censor, controls basketball so the counter reply to that is that the NZBF has every right to judge his language and the language of anyone else in the context of the game any way they so desire. The analogy does not hold.

True. The men working on the building site stop what they doing to applaud. When Dybvig pulls a broken down van carrying his Napier basketball team to Auckland, into a service station in Putaruru, the attendant recognises him immedately and says, referring to the coach’s war with New Zealand basketball authorities, “good on ya.” Later, Dybvig negotiates that same van through heavy morning traffic in Auckland. As he slows the vehicle for a red light, a hairdresser recognises him as a former customer. The man risks life and limb by running into the flow of cars just to say hello. Outside the sport he is generally well regarded, but inside he is about as well received as the Creature from the Black Lagoon. That is the paradox of New Zealand’s most outspoken, outrageous outlaw who was recently banned from coaching basketball for the remainder of the Countrywide League season and perhaps forever, depending

When he stepped down off the plane in Napier from California six years ago, John Dybvig brought with him more top level coaching experience than any previous American ever to come to this country for basketball. That experience amounted to years of doing little else but training teams, watching and analysing game films, recruiting players, and attending live games almost anywhere and everywhere west of the Mississippi.

first year in the country but it was not until the second year, when he led his Creighton-Ford club team off the floor during the final of New Plymouth’s annual Queen’s Birthday tournament, that he drew national media attention for the first time. The game between Creighton-Ford and Massey University was only minutes under way when Creighton’s top scoring centre, Tom De Marcus, was quickly handed four successive fouls by a Taranaki referee, Bryce

In effect, he studied the game, the players who play it, and the coaches who coached it, all with one aim in mind: to win. But after a year at De Anza College, two years at Santa Clara University and three years at Gonzaga University, (in Spokane, Washington), he quit. Like Gaugin walking from business in Paris, opting instead for painting in the romantic South Seas, Dybvig left American basketball for basketball in New Zealand. He found Napier an interesting, sleepy, seaside town and in his book, “Technical Foul” (now out of print) he talks about his first impressions of basketball there, like the player who played and smoked a cigarette at the same time. He coached an all-star selection to an unexpected win over the New Zealand senior men’s team in his

Evans. De Marcus protested, Evans quickly signaled a technical foul, effectively removing the big American from the game once and for all, and that is when Dybvig got involved. Evans then signaled a succession of technical fouls on Dybvig which prompted the coach to order his team off the floor

Dybvig felt the official was unapproachable; an argument he has pressed against referees generally. But the 600 people sitting

in the stands that day also felt ripped off and they were blaming Dybvig not the referees. The New Plymouth Baskbetball Association placed a lifetime ban on Dybvig, prohibiting him from participating in any basketball activity in any form within, presumably, city limits. So unprecedented was Dybvig’s action (he had never done anythiing like that before and nobody had ever seen it done in this country) that national news services could not ignore it. If the New Plymouth affair did not launch the coach into the national spotlight, the attempt two years later in Auckland by the referees’ association to have Dybvig banned from all basketball certainly did. The move was first made by the Auckland Baskbetball Referees’ Association after Dybvig went nose-to-nose, eyeball-to-eyeball with the ABRA president, Bill Wotherspoon, after a game on the North Shore over that Easter week-end. The feud became a war when the national referees’ associaton upheld the Auckland campaign against him. But Dybvig’s lawyer had little trouble picking holes in the referee’s case because, as some observers have since argued, the referees did not have a case to begin with. The only ground for prosecuting Dybvig has been, and still ap-

pears to be, the fact that he uses offensive language in public. That was a matter for the New Zealand Baskbetball Federation to deal with, or the police, not basketball referees.

Of course, Dybvig is quick to argue that referees control the NZBF rather than the other way around; that the prosecutor is also the judge. The referees lost their case and Dybvig’s successful defence drew headlines in most major daily newspapers around the country as well as the attention of television. It is a classic rise and fall story. Bad guy makes good only to turn bad again. While Close Up filmed a piece, Dybvig coached the national senior women’s team to the semi-final of the Commonwealth basketball championships. The senior men’s team had lost to England the day before and been eliminated. The women’s team was the last chance for a New Zealand team to reach the final, thus drawing a wider local viewing audience as the NZBF had hoped for. With one second remaining in the game, England scored a basket to beat New Zealand by one point after the Kiwi women had led the entire game.

The next year he accepts a job working for the Hutt Valley Basketball Association but after recruiting two

American players and making an effort to be competitive in the men’s national league second division, he suddenly and quite dramatically disappeared during a tournament in Napier. “I could no longer fake it” he later said.

If the loss to England in the Commonwealth Championships was a disappointment to basketball authorities, the coach’s walkout from Hutt Valley left his credibility open to question, however honest Dybvig’s reasons.

After walkabouts in Australia and California he returned to New Zealand earlier this year. He lived from day to day until he was offered the coaching job in Napier. Again he picked up his verbal war with referees right where he left off when he walked away from Hutt Valley. Complaints about his language to officials during and after games against Ponsonby, Centrals, and Exchequer Saints have led to the hearing on July 15. The charge is “abusive language” that might be considered to be “bringing a reproachable disgrace on the game of basketball.” Again the paradox. A man charged with bringing disgrace on a game is the same man who has brought more public attention to that game than anyone before him.