Longtime Coach Gary Hammond dies

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, April 29, 2008

By CHRIS COLLINS

Baker City Herald

A former longtime Baker High School teacher and coach who led the boys basketball team to the state tournament nine of 17 years before his retirement and who coordinated the small-school tournaments in Baker City for 27 years, died Saturday at Pendleton.

Garold R. andquot;Garyandquot; Hammond, who would have turned 89 Monday, had lived in an adult foster home in Pendleton for the past three years, said his grandson, Mark Grigg of Moses Lake, Wash.

Grigg’s mother, Cheryl Heffner, and his sister, Tricia Martinez, also live at Pendleton.

A celebration of Hammond’s life is scheduled at 1 p.m. May 10 at the Baker Elks Lodge, 1896 Second St. Gray’s West andamp; Co. is in charge of arrangements.

andquot;Me and my grandpa were the best friends you could ever have,andquot; Grigg said, recalling his childhood with Hammond, which was filled with days of fishing, hunting and adventures at the Hammond cabin on East Eagle Creek.

andquot;Grandpa was just a very joyful person,andquot; Grigg said. andquot;He loved to be around people, especially his friends and family and he loved his grandchildren dearly.

andquot;His life was the mountains and his life was fishing,andquot; said Grigg, who was just 5 when his grandpa was ending his era as a legendary basketball coach in 1972.

Hammond’s lifetime coaching record over a 28-year coaching career totaled 565 wins and 171 losses. He also served as BHS athletic director for many years. He retired from teaching in 1983. His service to the Baker School District also included a term on the school board, a position he was elected to in 1984.

Before coming to Baker City, he coached three years at Pullman, Wash., and seven years at Genesee, Idaho, where he led his team to a state championship.

Many of Grigg’s childhood days were spent on Brownlee Reservoir with his grandpa and Hammond’s fishing partner, the late John Holland, a Baker High School librarian.

andquot;Me and Grandpa and John went fishing every weekend,andquot; Grigg said.

And Hammond and his hunting buddies, Mike Durgan and the late Bob Derrick, were there when Grigg killed his first deer.

andquot;Bob said he’d pack it out if I got one,andquot; Grigg remembered.

So when he shot a andquot;big ol’ four-pointandquot; in the andquot;deepest, darkest canyonandquot; near the cabin, Grigg said he went looking for Derrick. Hammond and Durgan made sure Derrick lived up to his promise to bring the animal out of the woods for the then-12-year-old Grigg.

andquot;It was the nicest buck of the day,andquot; Grigg recalled.

And when the time came, Hammond took his grandson to Vancouver, Wash., where he had enrolled in Clark College.

Grigg’s wife, Colleen, credits Hammond’s matchmaking skills with bringing the couple together in a marriage that will reach the 15-year milestone in July.

andquot;We dated when we were younger and then we both married other people,andquot; Grigg said. andquot;Grandpa was the lifeline that kept us together.andquot;

Grigg said she would return to Baker annually to help out with the district and state basketball tournaments and Hammond always held out the hope that she and his grandson would one day get together.

Hammond was well-known for his hospitality and generosity, his family and friends say.

Thoughts of the cabin, known as the andquot;Hammond Hideaway,andquot; bring memories of cooking andquot;crappie after crappie after crappieandquot; for the 50 to 100 people who would gather to enjoy the company of Hammond and his wife, Fran, who died on Feb. 6, 2007.

Those guests included the cast and crew of andquot;Paint Your Wagon,andquot; filmed near the cabin in 1969.

andquot;The director (Joshua Logan) stopped to have coffee with Grandpa every morning,andquot; Colleen said. The two men visited while waiting for the cast, which included Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg, to arrive on the set.

Dave Lewis, another retired Baker teacher and coach, recalled how Hammond cooked fish for the andquot;Paint Your Wagonandquot; crew and in return crew members did favors for him, such as pouring cement to form a patio at the cabin.

andquot;We called him Mr. Crappie,andquot; Lewis said of Hammond.

andquot;The best thing I can say about him was he took me fishing,andquot; Lewis said. andquot;And he showed me everything I know about basketball.andquot;

Chary Mires, whose grandparents lived just down the road from the Hammond cabin and whose family owned the property the cabin sits on, recalled Hammond’s pickup truck affectionately known as andquot;Little Red.andquot;

andquot;He’d come by in the evening and load all the kids in the back of his pickup and look for deer,andquot; she recalled.

andquot;He was really a lot of fun,andquot; she said. andquot;He enjoyed life.andquot;

Mires was 16 in 1956 when Hammond was hired to teach Democratic Problems and coach basketball at Baker High School. She recalled that he also was the adviser for an extracurricular history club she participated in.

andquot;I’m sure there are many, many men around who had Gary as a coach who are really thinking of him this week,andquot; Mires said.

One of those men is Bill Ott, Colleen Grigg’s father, another retired Baker teacher and coach. Ott forged a friendship with the Hammonds long before their families were joined by the Griggs’ marriage. Ott was a player on Hammond’s BHS basketball teams from 1959 to 1961.

andquot;He was a very well-disciplined person,andquot; Ott recalled.

Ott carried Hammond’s lessons about discipline with him when he began his own teaching and coaching career.

andquot;He was a fair person and I tried to copy that,andquot; Ott said. andquot;He let people know what to expect so there were no surprises.andquot;

Ott noted that Hammond’s reputation was well-known throughout the state and nationally.

andquot;We’ll all miss him and we’ll always remember him for the things he accomplished,andquot; Ott said.

Baker County Commissioner Tim Kerns is another of Hammond’s players who speaks highly of the man who helped mold him into a competitive basketball player.

andquot;He was a great coach who had a particular talent of taking what he had to work with and making good teams out of them,andquot; said Kerns, who played for Hammond in 1961 and 1962, a year that took the team to the state tournament.

andquot;We went home kicking ourselves,andquot; Kerns said, recalling the memory of losing to Grants Pass by one point in overtime in the first game of the tournament that year. Grants Pass went on to win the state championship, Kerns said.

That Baker team had four players who could score 20 points a game and then Kerns, who at 6 feet 2 inches was short compared to other centers the team faced during the season.

andquot;That was his weak place,andquot; Kerns said of the center position, andquot;but he managed to make do with me.

andquot;He was a great coach and a fantastic man and he had a great influence on these kids,andquot; he said.

Mike Durgan says Hammond influenced him as a basketball fan during his junior high years, as a student and basketball player during high school and later as a hunting and fishing partner, as an employee on a maintenance crew that Hammond directed one year, as a volunteer where he helped Hammond in his role as basketball tournament director and finally as a friend.

andquot;He impacted my life in many, many ways,andquot; Durgan said.

He said his own sons tell him that discipline and respect were the best things they learned from their father.

andquot;That’s where I learned it,andquot; Durgan said, referring to Hammond.

John Heriza, who replaced Hammond as head boys basketball coach when he retired, was assistant coach in 1972, the year the team placed second to the much larger Jefferson High School of Portland.

That championship game drew 13,300 fans to Memorial Coliseum, the largest crowd ever gathered at the site, Heriza said.

andquot;They were known as the crewcut kids,andquot; Heriza remembered. andquot;Everybody had to have a crewcut.andquot;

Hammond emphasized the fundamentals and preferred a slow, disciplined style of basketball, Heriza said.

It was that discipline that Hammond’s friend and hunting and wood-cutting partner Gene Rose especially admired.

andquot;Gary insisted on those kids looking good and acting good,andquot; Rose said. andquot;I just know everybody in Baker was very pleased to see those kids cleancut and representing themselves well on the floor and off the floor.

andquot;He was an incredible basketball coach,andquot; Rose added. andquot;He was a gregarious, outgoing guy who focused on coaching basketball and he did a hell of a job of it. Baker won’t forget him for his basketball coaching for a long time.andquot;