A Legend Reinvents Himself

The following is my first sports features piece which appeared in the Oct. 25 issue of the Hartford Courant.

"It's not what you used to do, it's what you're doing now," Bill Detrick says.The navy cap with "Blue Devils" on it reveals where he used to work, if not exactly what he did.

In 29 seasons at Central Connecticut, he led six teams to the NCAA Division II men's basketball tournament, amassed a school-record 468 wins and became a charter member of the CCSU Athletic Hall of Fame.Before that, he became the only Central athlete to win 12 varsity letters, playing football, basketball and baseball. His No. 4 jersey hangs above the basketball court, and the gym bears his name.

But all that was yesterday. Today, Detrick is making a name in another sport, at another level. At 80, he is in his 17th year coaching the Trinity College golf team, and he has just won his second consecutive coach of the year award in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC).

"Coach was definitely one of the reasons why I came to Trinity," says golf captain Josh Biren, a junior from Sudbury, Mass. "He told me before I came to Trinity, `You have a lifetime contract with me.' And every player has that with him ... He wants to mold us into successful people. If we ever need anything, he said he'll always be there for us."

Detrick makes sure the players focus just as much on books as they do birdies. Maybe more so.

"At Trinity, Coach had to make academics come first for the kids," athletic director Rick Hazelton said. "He has gone practically overboard with that. He's very proud of the academics of his team, and I think these things make him just as proud as all the other things."

After leading Central into Division I play in 1986, then coaching Coast Guard basketball for a season in 1989, Detrick was approached by Hazelton with a proposition: leave basketball for a golf program with little success and no home course. It was the Connecticut sports equivalent of asking Clapton to put down the guitar and play tambourine for your garage band.

Detrick accepted and began using personal and professional connections to reserve courses at which his team could practice. He finally led the Bantams to the school's first NESCAC title on Sept. 30, when they won the league's fall championship qualifier, earning the right to host April's NESCAC championship, which could be at Wethersfield Country Club or the TPC River Highlands in Cromwell.

The team then claimed the ECAC Division III New England championship the following week, posting school records for total score for a single day (299) and two-day performance (599).

"I found out I didn't know as much about golf as I thought I did," Detrick said. "I played a lot, but it's a pretty complicated coaching situation. It basically is not coaching in a sense. Like in basketball, we would take a youngster and help him with his shooting and his defense. Golf, it's impossible to do that. If you change something in golf, it affects so many things, and you have to practice it until it becomes part of you. You can't do that midseason."

Detrick, a father of three and grandfather of six, lives with his wife Barbara in Cromwell. He says that aside from his family, basketball is his greatest love. He still attends games at Central when he can and has plans to see the women's team play in Florida, where he spends several months each year.

Detrick has not forgotten his basketball success at Central. He just prefers to nudge the past aside in favor of the present in order to help his players along in the future.

"I would say in all the sports I coached, golf is probably the best one for preparing a young man to do what he has to do when he gets out," he says. "These kids are the cream of the crop ... We can't all be leaders, but we want to help each person develop those skills."