When Ron Slaymaker tells a story, there’s always a lesson to be learned.
One of Slaymaker’s favorite stories is how he ended up coaching basketball overseas. Today he leaves for Bamberg, Germany, where he will be coaching a basketball camp. He’s been to Europe to coach at a camp or clinic for 21 of the last 22 summers, and he claims this will be his last European expedition.
“We’re about traveled out,” he says.
Slaymaker’s story starts back in the 1960s, when he was coaching at Roosevelt High School in Emporia. He was at the Lyon County League coaches meeting, and they asked if anyone would like to be secretary.
Not one hand was raised, and there was silence, and Slaymaker hates silence. So he gave in.
“The way to be successful in life is do what other people will not do,” Slaymaker says, a quote he heard as a young man and tells young people today.
Throughout his career, Slaymaker kept volunteering for the job (secretary) that no one else wanted. Eventually, it all paid off when Slaymaker became the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
That job led to the opportunity to be an assistant coach at the U.S. Olympic Festival and the World University Games in the mid ’80s. At the University Games, Slaymaker worked under Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, and that’s where the story starts to come full circle.
In 1987, Krzyzewski was asked to conduct a clinic in Greece for the Greek Basketball Coaches Association. Krzyzewski could not make it, so he called Slaymaker and asked if he would fill in.
Through connections he made in Greece and other connections he would make down the road, Slaymaker kept getting asked to come back to Europe every summer, most of those summers spent in Germany.
When he retired in 1998 after 28 years as the basketball coach at Emporia State, his annual trip overseas kept him around the game.
“After 61 years of basketball, it’s hard to just put it away,” he says. “Officiating has been a nice bridge for me, but the camps, it may sound a little corny, but I think I can make a difference and I tell myself I can make a difference. And I think I have.
“I’ve passed on good things to a lot of young people in other countries.”
Slaymaker’s been to Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece and Germany, and there’s something about Germany that keeps bringing him back. Or maybe it’s the other way around; there’s something about Slaymaker that keeps the Germans asking him to return.
“Sometimes you get away from home, you get about 50 miles away from home, you become an expert,” he says. “When you’re around home, you’re just Slay. But you get over in Europe, and I’m not just Slay, I’m someone who’s very highly respected and they listen and they’re very eager.”
Slaymaker loves the way they teach basketball overseas. They harp on the fundamentals. They play all the time, because there are no restrictions on how long and when they can practice. There are no school teams; instead, they play for clubs.
“They have a saying in Germany that a lot of the Germans could play in America, in the NBA, but not many Americans could play in Germany in our top league,” Slaymaker says. “What they are saying is they play a different style of basketball. It is a great deal more team-oriented, and that’s why so many NBA teams now have so many foreign players. They fit in quickly and easily. You can see it and watch it.”
A few years ago, he brought some of the top 11th- and 12th-grade players from the camp in Germany to his Yes I Can camp in Ottawa. He took the Emporia summer league champions, Lebo, to Ottawa to play the Germans.
The Lebo team had just one loss during the high school season and only had one loss the next year, but they stood no chance against the Germans.
“It was night and day,” Slaymaker says. “Those German kids just cut them up. It was unbelievable, and not to say that the Lebo kids were not talented, they were, but these kids were so fundamentally sound that it just made them a notch above.”
The camp Slaymaker will work this week is run by Chris Bishoff, who has also come to Emporia to work Slaymaker’s camps. Bishoff is a former coach in the professional leagues in Germany, and he’s now a motivational speaker.
Motivation is also Slaymaker’s niche at the camps.
“A lot of times people are kind of turned off on pep talks,” he says. “Over there, they love the fire-ya-up talks, and that’s what I think I probably do the best.”
Slaymaker is taking his wife, Shirley, along with him this week and they will travel around Germany until Aug. 18.
He says it will be his last camp, but if Bishoff calls again to ask, and there’s silence on the line, there’s a good chance Slaymaker will be right back there next year.
reddog (K. B. Thomas Jr.) says...
as a young man, i would go to all the c of e and emporia state games. my favorite c of e player was charles dillinger, he was a fantastic dribbler and slay was my favorite at emporia state. slay never hardly missed a freethrow and led the nation in freethrow percentage. they were both point guards and i wanted to be like them. they were good role models and my heroes. slay was also the football coach for roseavelt high school on the emporia state campus. emporia high use to play roseavelt in a preseason exhibition football game. this was the only game we won my senior year. roseavelt was ahead by two points with just two minutes to go so i called time out and i could not bear the thought of another defeat especially to a much smaller school. so i called time out and went to the locker room and got a cherry bomb firecrackler and on the next play i exploded it and roseavelt ran off the field and did not return. now i must explain how bad we were, we commenced to score two plays later on a deflected field goal. this is one of my all time favorite stories of slay and if you believe it, i got some swamp ground over by strong city that you might be interested in. some of my fondest memories of slay were on the golf coarse. because we were both big sandbaggers, we always ended up in the same flight and i usually won and thats what made the memory so fond. when you beat your hero at an alternative sport, it makes you feel like a million dollars even though a million dollars is not what it used to be. bob johnson was my highschool coach and later coached at pittsburg state against slay. as i recall they are both members of the n a i a hall of fame. slay, one time in highschool bob johnson made me carry a deflated basketball to all my classes. he did not in any appreciate my harlam globetrotter dribbling antiacs. one more quick story slay, i remember one time i met bob johnson at an emporia eating establishment. he said , reddog i want you to meet my new associate coach, this is lonie krugger. i said, son with your name, your going clear to the top big time and he did. have a good safe trip and one last thought, the heart has reasons which reason cannot understand and slay you have a lot of heart.
August 6, 2009 at 9:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
political99 (anonymous) says...
i told you emporia gazette you've done a dump story about someone with money and yet you wouldn't do a story about a local youth born september 11 2001 and how she was trying to raise money and what not for care packages for our troops and a trip to new york city because she was asked to be apart of the opening ceremony of the national 9/11 memorial and muesm. i may seem bitter and i don't care but you just proved a thing or two to all of us that you don't care unless its with sports or its death or someone with money who wants to talk out their butt
August 7, 2009 at 8:55 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
reddog (K. B. Thomas Jr.) says...
political 99, thomas higginson said, noble discontent is the path to heaven. i feel your pain.
August 7, 2009 at 12:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )