Ian Gilyeat - 1977

The most vivid memories for me with Mr. Eathorne and East High basketball are lessons that have been burned in my conscience. They come out in various places at home with my family, at church and when watching sporting events – even when watching professionals and the Olympics. They are frequently top of mind and have never drifted far away. Two such lessons are:

“the best defense is a great offense” and “never, ever – give up the baseline!”

These lessons have been invaluable to me over the years. Perhaps another, although a little more personal, but just as useful, and deeply engrained in my character is the long path to breaking into the starting line-up. I didn’t play any school ball until my Junior year and by some miracle Coach Eathorne put me on the team. I practiced for hours and hours and finally made the team. I rode the bench a lot but remember vividly one game when he gave me a chance to start. It was a game at O’dea and I lasted about sixty seconds as I recall. My mind went blank and I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. Coach Eathorne pulled me and put me back on the bench. It’s very possible that no one else will remember this event – but it taught me a great lesson about paying attention to the details and to make sure I know exactly what I’m doing before I get up on a public stage. This has been exceptionally useful over the years as I have been called on to speak in public often and have given many presentations in boardrooms across the country.

Another lesson for which I am indebted to Mr. Eathorne - I was thrilled to be on the team and it was more important to be on the best team possible and ride the bench than it was to be a big shot on a much lesser team and play all the time. I rode the bench a lot and loved running lines in practice because I knew I could make the team better by doing my best to run everybody else into the ground. Not that I could, but I could at least try. We were a small team and we had to run if we were going to win. At least that was the message that I got so I just worked at it…

The last that I’ll mention is that he taught me how to compete. He taught me that if I wanted something bad enough, I was gonna have to work for it – and it didn’t matter if I thought I was good enough or not – I had to make him think I was better than the next guy. He knew that I had no natural gifts that were suddenly going to make me into a great ball player. If I wanted to play then I had to work at it and to work hard.

Mr. Eathorne was a great coach and I had tremendous fun and learned many life changing lessons from my experiences with him. High School was a great experience and in many ways it was due to the privilege I had to play basketball and the lessons he taught.

Ian Gilyeat
I.R. Gilyeat & Company