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BENNETT'S MINUTES: Emotional, moving night for coach Rady
CLOVERDALE — Pat Rady had not seen the film “A Basketball Life” made about his high school basketball coaching career until its premiere on Thursday night at Cloverdale High School.
Last week, he was unsure what to expect.
“The producers told me there are some surprises in it, but they didn’t say what they are,” he said.
Greg Maish and his team from MTC Sports spent approximately two years interviewing more than 35 people, editing the footage, adding music and the narration by Greg Rakestraw.
It was well worth it.
Rady and his family members were all pleased afterward with the production, which started with his roots as a player and continued through his 51 years of coaching.
Rady took the microphone following the two-hour film to thank the people in attendance for allowing him to be a part of their lives.
“It was very nice of you to take time out of your lives, especially sitting two hours on the bleachers,” he said. “It has been 51 wonderful years. I’m not smart enough to use the English language to express very well from the bottom of my heart to all of you what this means to me.”
Rady then began speaking about Jeff Lewis, a former player at Shelbyville who was interviewed for the film and unfortunately passed away before its completion.
With his voice breaking up, Rady recalled Lewis’ visitation, and was especially fond of a story related to him by the former player’s family.
“His wife told me that the day that we met Jeff in Shelbyville for the interview that was one of the best days he’d had since he graduated [in the late 1970s],” Rady said. “She said he referred to me as his second father, because he didn’t really know his own father. It was really tough to see someone like that pass away at such a young age is heartbreaking.”
Rady and his wife, Margaret, have two adult sons who are successful in their careers — but he is also proud of Lewis and the few thousand other “sons” he has coached in his long tenure.
“I thank the Lord that for 51 years he gave me players like that,” Rady said. “Some of them are here tonight. I have been very blessed.”
Rady added later that he was moved by the film, and it elicited memories that had not been brought to mind for several decades.
“It was rewarding, and hearing some of the players and the coaches meant an awful lot to me,” he said. “That they would remember and cherish some of the memories we shared is very special.”
Rady has not spent a lot of time thinking about the past, but he may start doing that after the memories stirred up in the film.
“I did not realize some of the things that came up, and I had forgotten about,” he said. “I am kind of a present-and-future type of person. This whole project caused me to think about a lot of things.”
Margaret Rady said her husband has enjoyed the numerous team reunions that he has been invited to attend, and that he often looks in yearbooks to refresh his memory of teams of long ago.
One story which came up involved a motivational technique used when Rady was coaching at Bainbridge and a big game was coming up against rival Greencastle.
Some of the team’s cheerleaders painted doorways to put down Bainbridge’s team, making it look like people from Greencastle had done the deed.
The secret of the story was kept long dormant, until one of the cheerleaders admitted in the film that she told it at a recent reunion.
As it turns out, Rady had a similar incident when he was at Hanover College and had quietly suggested it to the cheerleader sponsor.
The outcome? Bainbridge won, of course.
The producers admit not being totally done with the final touches on the film, but the DVD version is expected to be available in a few weeks. It will be available at mtcsports.net, and other distribution methods are still being explored.
You should catch it at some point; true Indiana history at its finest.