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Sunday, June 03, 2001

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The old guy wondered how he was going to hold up. Who could blame him? It's not easy to eulogize your son. It's not natural.

But Chuck DeVenzio, 80, and feeling the same emotions he felt 25 years ago when he lost his beloved Lora, did just fine yesterday. Maybe that's because the family insisted the service for his son, Dick -- held, appropriately enough, in a school gymnasium in the North Hills -- be a "memorial celebration." It wasn't the time to dwell on Dick DeVenzio's death at 52 May 19 a mere 11/2 months after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was a time to remember his life as, in his brother Huck's words, "a doer, a teacher and a thinker."

Dick DeVenzio was the greatest point guard to play high school basketball in Western Pennsylvania. He was far from big, 5-foot-9. He wasn't especially quick and didn't jump well. But he made himself one of the finest schoolboy players of all time. He led the 1967 Ambridge team to an undefeated season, the PIAA championship and enduring fame as, arguably, the best team in Western Pennsylvania high school basketball history.

There's no doubt DeVenzio was a doer.

His role as a teacher came much later, after he finished his career at Duke and played professionally in Europe. He wrote five instructional books. He started a series of basketball camps across the country -- the Point Guard Basketball College -- and taught youngsters who could only dream of seeing and playing the game as well as he did. He did so well financially with those camps he was able to buy his dream house in Charlotte, N.C., five years ago and pay it off before he died.

And that thing about DeVenzio being a thinker?

Anyone who knows him will tell you he always was thinking.

No one in the family was surprised when he handled word of his illness so calmly. He had told everybody years ago, long before he really knew how devastating cancer was, that he began preparing for his death in 1963. He was 14.

"'It was the day John Kennedy was shot,'" Huck DeVenzio remembered his brother saying. "'If a guy that rich and that famous and that important can die, we're all going to die. I'm going to enjoy my life while I have the chance.'"

Funny, isn't it?

Even in death, Dick DeVenzio taught a lesson to the 250 people who showed up in that school gym yesterday.

He was never a guy to waste a minute. He insisted on keeping reading material in his car -- just in case there was heavy traffic. It's no surprise he didn't waste a minute at the end of his life. He married his longtime girlfriend, Laurie. He made arrangements with his brother, Dave, to take over his camps. And he made it a point to help his father come to terms with his death.

Son told father about the cancer late one night in early-April, after the rest of the family and several friends had left a surprise 80th birthday party for the elder DeVenzio. Dick had organized the party months earlier and, sick as he was, made the trip to Pittsburgh to be the host of it.

"You should have seen the invitations he sent out," Chuck DeVenzio said. "They said something like, 'My dad is getting older and we don't know how much longer we're going to have him. If you come to this party for him, you'll be exempt from going to his funeral.' That was his sense of humor.

"It just seems so sad that he was the one to die instead of me."

The old guy didn't break down when he told that story during a telephone conversation Friday. He didn't come close.

"We had two talks before he died," Chuck DeVenzio said. "Each time, he told me, 'Dad, I've lived 52 years. It's been a great life. I've got nothing to gripe about.'"

That's not entirely true.

If DeVenzio had a regret in life, it's that he wasn't able to reform the NCAA. He fought long and hard to get college athletes paid for their part in helping the schools make millions from football and basketball. He wrote magazine articles. He did all of the national television shows, including "60 Minutes." He made his pitch repeatedly on ESPN.

"If he could, he'd still tell you the NCAA people are all a bunch of crooks," his father said.

"He might not have been successful," said Huck DeVenzio, who was fascinated by his brother's passion. "But if you notice what's happening now, they're inching toward that. Dick just was a little ahead of his time."

DeVenzio brought that same intensity to basketball.

He was going into junior high school when he told his father he didn't think he was big enough to play football and didn't have the arm to play baseball. He decided then he was going to concentrate on basketball and put up a sign in his bedroom that read, "I will work harder than anyone else therefore I will be the best."

That's exactly what happened.

"Four hours a day he practiced in the summer, usually more," Chuck DeVenzio said. "He kept a detailed chart about everything he did."

It didn't matter if it was in Ferguson's back yard or on the School Street court. Folks in Springdale will tell you they could find little Dickie DeVenzio from morning to night, working on his dribbling, perfecting his jump shot. By the time he was a junior at Springdale High -- his father was the coach -- it was obvious he was a big-time player.

Somebody at Ambridge was smart.

The school offered Chuck DeVenzio its coaching job in the fall of 1966.

"They didn't want me that much," Chuck DeVenzio said. "They just wanted Dick. How else could they get him but to take me?"

It might have been the greatest package deal in high school sports history.

Father and son led that Ambridge team to a 27-0 record, beating its opponents by an average of 25 points. In the playoffs, it beat a terrific Schenley team -- the defending PIAA champion led by Kenny Durrett -- by 18 points. In the PIAA title game, it beat Chester by 32.

They showed grainy game films of that team during the memorial celebration. If you love basketball, you would have been fascinated by the way DeVenzio played. The films showed him hitting Dennis Wuycik, who would play at North Carolina, with a perfect pass for a backdoor layup, or feeding big Frank Kaufman, who played at Purdue, in the post for a turnaround jumper, or taking that magical left-handed shot that he honed with all those hours of practice. If you remember that Ambridge team, you would have had chills.

How good was Dick DeVenzio? He was a first-team Parade Magazine All-American ahead of players such as Durrett, who, coincidentally and sadly, also died this year, Spencer Haywood, Artis Gilmore, Dean Meminger and Austin Carr. He said no to scholarship offers from Princeton and North Carolina. He even turned down UCLA's John Wooden.

Do you think Chuck DeVenzio was proud when he spoke yesterday of Wooden's home visit? Or when he told of one of his most cherished possessions? It was an old newspaper clipping from after that championship game against Chester. The headline read, "Dick DeVenzio Gives State Title To His Father."

The old guy cried a little when he said those words.

It was OK, though.

He wasn't alone.

Ron Cook can be reached at rcook@post-gazette.com