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By Matt Hickman
Herald/Review
DOUGLAS — A decade ago, Richard Zalenski was the head coach of the Northland Pioneer College Eagles, a powerhouse in Arizona junior college basketball.
Zalenski’s connections to the high school scene in his home state of Michigan enabled him to bring in droves of talented players from the upper midwest, making the Eagles a hit in a part of the state where love for basketball is plenty, but players who can play above the rim are few.
 Mark Levy•Herald/Review Colorado Northwestern Community College head coach Richard Zalenski (left) watches from the sidelines during his team’s 102-97 victory over Pima Community College Friday night in the Cochise Shootout at the main campus of Cochise College in Douglas. Assistant coach Stephen Garnett (standing) cheers the Spartans on. |
Zalenski’s team would pack the bleachers at Holbrook High School night after night, and on one night in early 1997, Zalenski collapsed on the sidelines in the closing minutes of a close game with Yavapai College.
He was taken away by ambulance and upon further evaluation, doctors discovered a leaky aortic valve in his heart and fitted him with a mechanical replacement. This meant Zalenski had to have blood drawn weekly in Holbrook, and tested in Pinetop-Lakeside, over an hour’s drive away.
The then 38-year-old coach returned to his team and everything was fine until Dec. 28, 1998, when he awoke at 3 a.m. at his brother-in-law’s home in Glendale to use the bathroom.
“I got out of bed, fell and couldn’t move my left arm to brace my fall, so I landed on the floor,” Zalenski recalled. “My body was in chains. I told the paramedic I thought I was having a stroke, even though I didn’t know what a stroke (felt like).”
Zalenski said his INR test result was alarmingly high the day he suffered his stroke after being normal for more than a year. He suspected a flaw in the transfer of blood from Holbrook to Pinetop-Lakeside may have played a role in his ignorance of the growing danger.
“If someone had contacted me to go to the emergency room to get (an infusion) of frozen plasma, it probably wouldn’t have happened,” Zalenski said.
INR tests evaluate the ability of the blood to clot properly.
In the days following his stroke, Zalenski slipped into a coma, not to return for nine weeks.
“The doctors told my family to pull the plug. They said I’d have no quality of life,” Zalenski said. “But God is good.”
Zalenski said doctors were amazed by his return to consciousness and his ability to remember things as picayune as phone numbers of former players. But his recovery was by no means complete. Doctors still doubted whether he would ever walk again without assistance.
Zalenski returned to Michigan to undergo regular intensive physical and speech therapy. For two years, even sitting up without someone to hold him up on all four sides was impossible.
But as he progressed, Zalenski was able to move around some and went back to his alma mater of Rochester College in Michigan where he helped head coach Garth Pleasant, who was the coach there in his college days.
“I went to all the practices, went recruiting and scouting,” Zalenski said. “I did everything I could do until I felt I was ready.”
But once he felt ready, finding a job wouldn’t be so easy for Zalenski, despite his 14 years of head coaching experience. He wanted to return to the Eagles, whose program had fallen on hard times since his stroke, going through three coaches in three years. During those years, the Eagles averaged as many losses as Zalenski averaged wins — 26 — and average attendance had dwindled from more than 1,000 specators to less than 100 a night.
But when the job came open again at NPC, the coach who guided the Eagles to two conference championships and one NJCAA Region I championship in his 8 1/2 years at the helm, was passed over.
Zalenski had previously hired an attorney to lodge an EEOC complaint on the grounds that he had been replaced while on medical leave.
Zalenski said he wound up settling his suit with the college and shortly thereafter, Northland Pioneer folded its men’s basketball program and the Eagles haven’t fielded a team in four years.
“I applied for every job that has come up,” Zalenski said. “I almost got the Eastern (Arizona College) job, I was a finalist for that. I think they just questioned if I could physically do the job. I need assistance, but everyone needs assistants anyway.”
Then, Zalenski heard about an opening for a women’s coaching job at Colorado Northwestern Community College in Rangely, Colo. from a former NPC player.
“I talked to the A.D. for about 45 minutes and he asked me if I would rather coach men’s than women’s. I said I thought the only opening was for women’s, but he said, in about 45 minutes he was expecting a letter of resignation from the men’s coach and the job will be open,” Zalenski said. “I submitted my stuff and he looked past my disability and at my ability.”
Zalenski won the job and is in his first season with a Spartan program that has struggled mightily in recent years. But Zalenski’s disability is no minor thing. Though it doesn’t affect him mentally, he walks very slowly with a brace around his left calf and a tripod cane. He knew he needed someone to be his arms and legs.
“Coach called me in June and asked me if I wanted to coach with him,” said Colorado Northwestern assistant coach and former Winslow High and Northern Arizona University star Stephen Garnett.
“I’d seen NPC play as a kid and had it not been for his stroke, I would have played there... I just told coach, I’ll be your arms and legs and you just tell me what to do.”
Garnett was the head coach at Class 4A Flagstaff Sinagua High when he got the call from Zalenski.
Zalenski is the 10th Spartan coach in the last five years and the Spartans did not win a conference game all of last year.
So far, Zalenski and Garnett have Colorado Northwestern on the road back. They won their season opener over Buckley Air Force Base and on Friday night at the first Cochise Shootout, the Spartans went to 2-0 by defeating Pima Community College, 102-97. In the late game, Cochise defeated the Tucson Cats, 118-91 to go to 4-0 on the season.
Tonight at 7:30 in the final game of the shootout, the Spartans will take on host Cochise. Zalenski and Cochise head coach Jerry Carrillo went head-to-head at least a half-dozen times in Zalenski’s days in Holbrook.
“In my opinion, Jerry has done more with less than any other team,” Zalenski said. “He doesn’t have the most talented players in the world, but they win. Cochise is lucky to have him and to have kept him as long as they have.”
Despite what he considers shabby treatment from the brass at Northland Pioneer, Zalenski remains very affectionate of Holbrook.
“I love Holbrook because of the community,” Zalenski said. “In a small town, you’ve got to support the coach. We had weekly reading programs at the elementary schools, monthly ‘say no to drugs’ programs and the junior high and our players delivered meals on wheels. That’s why Holbrook will always be my home. I still own my home there.”
Even before he landed a coaching job, Zalenski became the legal guardian of Corderro Bennett, who is now the leading scorer on his Spartan team.
Bennett, the cousin of a former player at NPC, was having trouble in his hometown of Gary, Ind., a hotspot of recruiting for Zalenski in years past.
Bennett played his senior year at Holbrook High, where he scored 23 points per game and led the Roadrunners to a 28-3 record. Upon graduating, Bennett went to Arizona Western College last season. Western head coach Kelly Green did Zalenski the courtesy of releasing Bennett when Zalenski got the job at Colorado Northwestern.
Dwaine Wack Thompson wrote on Nov 19, 2008 11:19 PM: