CigarBoy: Let me break in now. You played at Butler. Todd Lickliter a very good friend of yours, coaches at Butler, and your son coaches at Wright State. When they play, does it tear you up?

Schilling: You know, not at all. I always say blood is thicker than sheepskin. I still donate to Butler. Like I said, I’m really indebted to Butler University and I donate to their program. When I send my donation I always say, good luck in all but two of your games. He does the same. Todd will write back and say I hope he has a good year except when they play Butler. When they were coaching high school, Eddie was at Western Boone; Todd was at Danville they coached against each other.

CigarBoy: What does sheepskin have to do with…….oh forget it. So tell me more about Todd Lickliter as a coach. I’ve heard Young Coach Ed just praise him up and down. Tell about Coach Lickliter?

Schilling: Todd’s father was a great coach at North Central High School here in Indianapolis and Todd played for his father. He always had that point guard mentality and he’s just a tremendous student of the game. He just knows basketball. He could, I’m sure, take an offense and pick it apart. He knows how to attack an offense. How to do drills, to implement his own offense and those sorts of things. At Five Star he displayed that. I mentioned earlier in this interview, that I do individual clinics for high schools. Todd always hired me wherever he coached because I would do the big men . . . I would do the inside game stuff. I did one for him at Danville and Eddie’s high school coach had gone with me, and I said, “Gosh, I don’t think he’ll win a game.” They were as bad a team as you could find and I’ll be darned if they didn’t have a great, great season. They won several games just because of his coaching. Todd is really an excellent coach in terms of the X’s and O’s. I think down the line, he had a lot to do with Butler’s success under Matta, not to take anything away from Thad Matta, the present coach at Xavier. Even Collier, who’s now at Nebraska, Todd was kind of the brains behind it. These kids at Butler knew and really pushed for Todd to get the job when Thad Matta left.

CigarBoy: OK, let’s talk a little about Butler. What’s Butler got coming back next year? What do you look for Butler to do next year?

Schilling: Well, they still have several key players, you know them better than I do actually.

CigarBoy: Don’t bet on it!

Schilling: (laugh) I have this thing, when I use to play or even go watch a game, but especially when I played, they’d say, “Boy, wasn’t so-n-so really tough.” I’d go, ‘I don’t know.’ All I thought about was what I was going to do, what we were going to do. So in terms of players, I know they have Cornette back and that’s probably a key factor. I think they are really going to miss Hainje and Jackson the point guard. I think those guys were so good. I felt like when Butler and Wright State played, especially when they played Wright State on the return game, I felt if Jackson had been on Wright State’s team, again, not to take anything away from other players, I think Wright State would have won. I think he was that valuable. Those little things that the average fan wouldn’t see. He didn’t score much but he knew how to run a club. He knew how to control a fast break or to capitalize on a fast break and things like that. So I think Butler will be good but I think they’ll be a notch less than they were, but still very good. They’ll probably be one of the teams to beat in this really tough Horizon League.

CigarBoy: Let me go a little bit to your son, Little Coach Ed. I’ve got Big Coach Ed, Little Coach Ed and Baby Coach Ed. It’s just driving me nuts here.

Schilling: (Laugh) Big Chill, Little Chill….

CigarBoy: And maybe Baby Chill, I don’t know. (Laugh) You had a son; you were still playing basketball at the time. Talk about how you developed him, how he took to the game, how he became the man he is today.

Schilling: You know I made reference to rough edges and the fact that I could provide for Eddie some of the social graces things and some of the other guidance things that maybe I didn’t have.

CigarBoy: Are you sure it wasn’t your wife?

Schilling: Oh, you know this might be a really good time to deviate and talk about that.

CigarBoy: Oh oh!

Schilling: (laugh) That was another important point. I mentioned the two coaches when I transferred to Butler, the fraternity played a big role, and then the probably the biggest thing in smoothing me out and so on, was my wife. Ida Sue Cross; she was a cheerleader at Butler, editor of the yearbook, and she was an Air Angel - at that time they had an ROTC deal. She tells me that I told my mother, but I don’t remember this, that I went home and said, “I saw the girl I’m gonna’ marry,” and then I didn’t even ask her out until the next school year. She has just been a steady influence and did a lot to smooth me out as far as teaching me a lot of things but also being a level for us. Eddie kind of has that blend of a volatile personality and a very levelheaded, calm personality, patience from my wife. I think that blend has been pretty good.

CigarBoy: You married a cheerleader. Your son married a Butler cheerleader. Is it safe to say that Baby Coach Ed, Baby Chill, is going to marry a Butler cheerleader?

Schilling: (chuckling) I don’t know, we’ll find out. But, I think we both did pretty well. Eddie’s wife Shawn is really….again it’s one of those perfect blends. Like, if you asked Eddie, and I don’t feel uncomfortable saying, “What’s your house payment? Or how are you guys doing?” He has no idea. She takes care of the finances. When they bought the house, when they moved to Wright State, he said, “I don’t care what we buy, just as long as I’m about 5-10 minutes from the gym.” That was it. He probably couldn’t tell you how much they paid for the house. She handles all the finances, has their future well in hand

CigarBoy: Yeah, I have to tell you, one time I went over to his house. The garage door comes up, and there’s Shawn working on the automatic garage door opener. She’s adjusting it, she was up on a ladder working on it, and I don’t know what she was doing. He walks by says “Hi, how you doing.” Doesn’t take any real interest in what she might be doing. Two minutes later, she’s got it fixed and walks right in. She is amazing!

Schilling: Now there’s an example of the apple falling directly under the tree. I know nothing about handy work. True story. We have an old English Tudor house, with the slate roof an old fashion deal. The light bulb burned out on the porch. I went to change it and broke the light bulb. Tried to get that thing out of the socket, broke the socket, had to hire an electrician to fix that. It cost $50 to change the light bulb so my wife doesn’t let me….she does all that kind of handy work. But I’ll type a paper for her on the computer or whatever. So I’m good at….it’s such a weird blend. But Eddie and Shawn are the same way. She can do all handy stuff. He can’t do anything and he sure wouldn’t have learned it from me. It’s a magic thing that happens to me in my house in Lebanon, I go to Indianapolis, I come home and the lawn’s cut. It’s wonderful! I just write a check. So that’s how we handle that.

CigarBoy: (Laughing) OK, now back to raising Little Ed. How did he get started in basketball?

Schilling: I made sure he had chores to do. Here’s a classic example of training a kid. You could call it abuse, maybe, I don’t know. His job was to empty the trash. This is when he was in junior high and we were living in Connersville. I’m sure he would remember this. He didn’t empty the trash like he was supposed to. So I took the trash barrel, went in his bed, while he was sleeping, and dumped the trash on him. Unfortunately, there were pencil sharpenings in it too and it was all over. I said, “You’ve got 20 seconds to clean this up.” He JUMPED up and he had to go clean it. It was one of those, by gosh you are going to do the right thing, if you’ve got a job to do you are going to do it 100% and we aren’t going to tolerate anything less. That’s carried over.

CigarBoy: That’s expectations; you set expectations?

Schilling: Oh, very strong expectations and we followed through, and we were consistent. Whatever I said went. Whatever she said went and Eddie knew it. Here’s another quick story on Eddie, not that I was abusive to him (chuckle). He was a great kid, but we started out without allowing any room for deviation. When he was in high school in Lebanon, they were taking pictures at school. He was getting cool. I kept saying, “Eddie, you better go.” Actually, when we first moved to Lebanon, we rented the house for the first year. He kept dragging his feet, and dragging his feet, I said, “By gosh you better get going. You’re acting cocky.” And then he backed out of the driveway and got the car stuck in a little ditch out in front of the house. I didn’t even open the door. I just broke it open and ran out there. I grabbed him and told him he couldn’t drive for a week, he better walk everywhere he goes. Later he told me, the whole week he only took one ride. He was so afraid I might catch him. But he learned to do the right thing and do it well and I think that was a start. Now as far as basketball goes. I didn’t force basketball on him. We had a goal and I played a lot of amateur ball. I played on some really good teams, which would now be like the CBA, this Indianapolis entry. I would take him with me to games that were close. You couldn’t do it today. He was really little and I’d say don’t you go from here, here or here and I’ll see you after the game. And I’d go play. He’d be in the playground or whatever but then he’d come and play with us and shower with the team. I played for a team, Hardees use to be called Burger Chef, and I played for Burger Chef. We had big bags and the whole thing. So my wife made Eddie a little Burger Chef bag and he would carry his bag like I did and we’d go to the games. He would dress and warm-up and that kind of stuff. He was always part of it and then as he got older, we would go actually to these Butler games right here. We’d sit in the balcony, where I still do, above the bench, and we would talk. “What are they in Eddie? ‘A zone,’ he would say. How would you attack that? ‘Well in a 2-3 zone or an odd front zone, he’d say” …. It went on for the whole game. “What’s the best way to do this? What was the mistake that guy made?” We would talk strategy and he liked to do this. So he started to understand the game even before he started to play it. I had a thing, and I still do. I don’t like Little League, I don’t like AAU! I think they take the creativity away from kids. I think they put so much pressure on them that they don’t like playing when they get older in many cases. So I didn’t let him play until the 6th grade and only because I knew the coach wouldn’t take advantage of him and he’d have everybody play, didn’t worry about winning. Then we he got to junior high and I let him play.

CigarBoy: At what point did you figure out, you had something special here as a player?

Schilling: You know I really didn’t know until probably in late jr. high. He was OK, but was it because he got opportunities or is it because he had some skill? When I coached, and this is probably a legacy that Eddie has followed that I’m so happy with, the thing I gave Eddie was time. I may have had to take him with me recruiting or here and there, but family has always come first for me and my family. Eddie feels the same way. He took his family to the Final Four when a lot of coaches, that’s a great opportunity to party and see a lot of other coaches. I would always take him with me and I didn’t see that that was going to be the reason. I think Eddie was a good athlete. I think I was a much better natural athlete than he was, but he worked so hard. You couldn’t believe how hard he worked. He kept a log and he would record every day how many drills he did. In the house we lived in, he would dribble his basketball to Public School 84 in Indianapolis. One day he lost it and a guy ran over it and blew up his ball and he was heart broken. I think we did get him another one. And you’ve heard his speeches where the kids would criticize him for being so dedicated, not drinking, and not doing all those things and just dedicating himself to basketball. I think that’s what made him a good player more than his talent. He had talent and he was decent size for a guard as he got older, but I think it was his work that did it.

CigarBoy: When Ed got out of college and was looking for opportunities, were you advising him along the way? He gets out of high school, let’s go through the recruiting process, he gets into college and then we’ll go out of college.

Schilling: OK, I’m going to back up a step right before that. When we moved to Lebanon, which was just before his junior year when I took the job at IUPUI. Lebanon is the home of Rick Mount, maybe the greatest shooter ever to play the game. He made the mistake, I guess it really wasn’t a mistake but he said to Eddie, “if you ever want to work on your game I’ll be glad to work with you and play with you.” Well Eddie called him every day. Of course Mount had money from pro ball and different things so they played every day one on one in the hot summer, full court. Mount just helped him so much improve as a player and talked about pros, college, recruiting and things. Now as we move forward, when Eddie was being recruited, Mount sat in and his high school coach also sat in on any home visits. So we had me who had been recruited and knew about recruiting. And Mount who knew all about recruiting. So Eddie had some pretty good advisors when he was deciding where to go to college. Probably the proudest moment I had, and I guess I can say the college, Iowa was recruiting him, Raveling was the head coach and we got stuff from Iowa every single day. Well, they have a big budget, it doesn’t mean they are that interested. The assistant coach came to the house to talk about everything and said “you are the point guard we are recruiting.”: Well we found out they had recruited and offered Moe a guard from another high school and they didn’t tell Eddie that. The next day, one of the coaches called as a follow-up to the visit, I’m sure the rules were different then, and I could hear Eddie on the phone. When he was asked how he liked the visit he said, “Well, I didn’t like it.” How many kids say that? And here was Iowa, a Big 10 school! When asked why he said, “You guys lied to me and told me I’m the guy but I’m really a secondary choice in case this guy doesn’t come through. So I’m not interested.” That’ the way Eddie’s been. If he believes, he believes, period. You know he’s very religious, he believes that if you do the right thing…and here’s an example. Then Miami of Ohio came in the picture but we weren’t sure so we did an unpaid visit because you were only allowed to take 3 paid visits. He had a shoebox full of letters like many kids do. Syracuse was sort of in the picture a little bit, but not really, you know how that goes. Then we went to Miami for the visit, and that was it.

CigarBoy: Where was Butler in the whole thing?

Schilling: Butler didn’t recruit him until . . .that’s another funny story. The coach then was Joe Sexton and I had become great friends with the track coach Stan Lyons. They were showering one day and Sexton knew Stan and I were friends and he asked, “How good is Eddie Schilling.” Stan said, “I don’t know but Iowa was at the house yesterday.” IOWA! Then they became a little bit interested but Eddie was sold on Miami. He was uncommitted until we made an unpaid visit. It was a good decision. He had ups and downs with his knee and some things but his academic experience was tremendous. It was the right place for him. He got to start as a freshman. Here’s anther story on him. Purdue was recruiting him in his senior year, they decided to recruit a guy named Stephens who played point guard for them, and didn’t recruit Eddy. So Miami played Purdue at Purdue Eddie’s freshman year. Rick Mount was telling Gene Keady, “You better watch this Schilling kid. He can play.” Well whoever the point guard was, Gene said he could handle him. Rick said, “You are underestimating him.” Miami had Ron Harper at the time and they went up to Purdue and beat them. Eddie played the whole game, had 9 assists and 1 turn over. My father-in-law who graduated from Purdue, that was the only time in his life he ever pulled against Purdue because Eddie was playing for Miami.

CigarBoy: As Little Coach Ed graduates from college, he’s looking possibly at the NBA, at Europe, at maybe a coaching opportunity. What’s the processes?

Schilling: First of all, at Miami, he was originally going to study business. Then he decided he really wanted to teach and coach so he changes to a physical education major and an English minor. Which is exactly what I had. When he graduated, he couldn’t have played in the NBA, he had that bad knee, maybe he could have played overseas, possibly but a guard isn’t a high commodity. So his big thing, he had a lot of opportunities because of contacts at Five Star to be either a Grad Assistant or coach high school. I gotta’ tell you here, somebody had talked to Duke’s Krzyzewski about Eddie going there as a Grad Assistant. Anyway he was kind of in the mix and Krzyzewski decided not to use Eddie, to go with somebody else. Afterwards he had the class to call Eddie to explain the decision. How many guys do that? It’s usually; you are out of the picture, good bye. But at any rate, everybody, Garf, and I felt pretty much the best thing to do was coach at high school first and learn how to coach. So many college coaches start as a grad assistant and are kind of the errand boy or whatever, then they get to be a third assistant and they get to be on the road all the time, breaking down film at their home. They don’t really ever make decisions and then they become a head coach and they’ve never called a time out. They’ve never subbed. They’ve never gone through a bad run. So Eddie was fortunate. It was funny. He interviewed at Western Boone High School, which is a consolidation of some small schools right near Lebanon, kind of like a suburb if this suburb can have a suburb. It’s like the farm school in the county. Eddie began at Western Boone teaching English and head coaching. I began my professional career as an English teacher at one of those schools that consolidated into Western Boone. So he got to be a head coach in Indiana. The principal, who I knew because it’s in the area said, “I don’t think they’ll win a game this year.” That’s how bad they were, they were horrible. Which is why he would get the job right out of college instead of some experienced coach. They actually won 5 games! Then before he left Western Boone, they had set, I think, a record for the most wins in a season and Jon Ramey was one of his players who played at Wright State later. Now he does the color for the Raiders’ radio broadcasts. So they ended up being very successful. Eddie was still very young, 25, and he got the Logansport High School job. They came to him, or at least asked him to apply or whatever. Logansport is in the North Central Conference, which all along has been considered the best basketball conference in the state. His gym, for example, seated 6,000 and it was the smallest gym in the conference. New Castle’s in there with 9,500, Anderson 8,000 plus, and Richmond. It was a huge conference. So here’s this young guy as head coach. We went to the first open gym, and oh my gosh. They were sooo bad. A guy would be at the top of the key and see a guy open on the baseline opposite and think he could just throw a chest pass to that guy. As if everyone’s going to open up and let him throw it. They were just horrible and they really got rocked. But again, they won some games. They didn’t expect them to win any and they won some. As time went on, they set a record for most wins. I’ll tell you, you run across a lot of jerks, but there’s a lot of good, classy people in coaching and here’s an example. Eddie had to do two radio shows after every game. That’s how big basketball is there. They played Muncie Central, which is a tremendous program. Bill Harrell was the coach. He won several state championships in Indiana and one or two in Kentucky. So they played. Muncie Central beat them, but didn’t kill them. Harrell walked by as Eddie was on the radio and they looked at one another. Eddie mouthed ‘thank you” and Harrell gave him the high sign. They both knew Harrell could have beaten them by 30 but beat them by 10. It was such a classy moment that Harrell did that. Eddie recognized that. Then as time moved on, Eddie had success there.

CigarBoy: Let’s jump forward here. Eddie goes off to be a college coach. We all know the story. He coaches in the Final 4 at UMass. He’s got some great stories there. Goes to the Nets, making over $100,000 a year, finds out about the Wright State job and applies. What do you tell him at this point? I know you are talking to him. He’s in the NBA, he’s got an opportunity to be head coach. What do you say to him?

Schilling: Let’s go back to where he gets the UMass job, because this again is pretty important. Work ethic is something Eddie understands and I feel proud that we had something to do with developing that. Eddie, at Five Star gives 100 percent, just like anything he does, it’s 100 percent . He would take kids and work afterward with them. There were some bad players that were foreigners and Eddie would take them off to the side and work with them. While he was at Logansport, Rick Pitino was coaching at Kentucky, out of no where, they called Eddie to be the assistant. The reason Pitino called him and was going to hire him until his buddy, who is now successful with the Celtics, got fired in Dayton and he took him as his Assistant, which he should have done because it’s his good friend. Otherwise, Eddie would have had the assistant’s job at Kentucky. He asked Pitino why, and he said “because I saw how hard you worked when nobody knew you were being watched.“ That helped him. Well, Calipari was recommending Eddie for the Kentucky job. Then the next year, Calipari has an opening at UMass, he offers it to Eddie and Eddie takes it. Eddie’s making about $30,000 at UMass as the third or forth assistant coach and the other assistants are making $70,000 and probably Bruiser Flint was making more than that. Eddie was always the first one in, and the last to leave. Whatever Cal asked him to do, that’s what he did. Then when Cal gets the Nets job, Eddie’s the one he calls because he’s the one he can count on. So because he did the right thing, Eddie goes from $30,000 a year to $100,000a year with the Nets. That was just a fantastic experience and it just came out of the blue when Cal got that job. Eddie really got along with the pros. I was surprised that the pro guys were so polite, considerate, and were good guys when I went out to visit. Eddie would work with them after he proved that he was going to help them. But he really liked the idea of shaping lives and we wanted to be in a situation like Wright State, on the collegiate level where he’s not going after 6 periods of English and all that kind of stuff for $30,000 a year. Then when the Wright State job opened, he went after it. An interesting thing, when he was ready to interview, the Nets were on a west coast tour. He and Cal would go running and Cal would interview him for the Wright State job. Eddie would answer and he’d tell him things like, “why don’t you say it this way, or why don’t you say this, and you’ve gotta’ have a story when your interviewing.” So he really helped Eddie develop his shtick for the interview. That’s what Eddie wanted and he was fortunate to get it. They took a chance on him, took a little heat for it, and now I think it’s proven to be a good move. Everybody who recommended Eddie, Dick Vitale etc. said it won’t be the easy way out, but it’s the solid way. It won’t be done in a year or two. And that’s just what he’s done. He’s recruiting quality kids and not gonna’ take a shortcut and cheat or do anything like that.

CigarBoy: Now you’ve seen Eddie for five years at Wright State. Could you give me an overview of what you think he’s doing, how he’s doing it, and how would you have done it?

Schilling: Hmmm, we don’t agree on everything in terms of basketball. There have been a couple times where I wish he had taken my advise. See, usually he asks it and often takes it. The kid who transferred from UMass, can’t remember his name…

CigarBoy: Inus Norville

Schilling: Yeah, he came in overweight and I told Eddie you ought to sit down and tell him he’s got to go work out and you’ll never get a uniform until you get in shape. He needed somebody who could play a little bit and he took the gamble and it really didn’t pay off. The kid was fat all year and never really produced like he could have, because he was a great player. So there’s a few things here and there we disagree on. But again, he does it the right way. I’ll tell you what he’s done that he doesn’t have to do any more. He’s been teaching everything. He’s been giving a foundational base to the players. Now, he has enough players in the program returning who have that foundational base and his coaching staff understands exactly what he’s looking for and they’ve all agreed on what they want to do. Now, I think they are ready to go to the next level. By that I mean win the conference, get to the NCAA. They have a different schedule this year which I’ll talk about in a second but I think they are ready to move. Now they are going to coach to the game. This is what so and so has to do to help us win the game. No more teaching all these fundamentals as much as they did because they have them and they can assimilate the new guys into the program. The schedule is a funny thing. People don’t understand that Texas Pan American probably has more talent than Toledo, Akron, Miami, Ball State, but whoever heard of Texan Pan American? You look at them as a gimme game. So now this year, they’ve go with teams I’ve just mentioned on the schedule so that’s fine. Maybe people will support the team more thinking that this is a quality schedule. It’s so hard for a mid-major to schedule games. Butler went through that with their RPI. The worst thing that happened, and the best thing that happened was when Wright State beat Michigan State. It was great for the notoriety of the university. People were like, “who’s Wright State?” They got some national publicity and the program got a little boost. But boy oh boy, teams don’t want anything to do with Wright State - my gosh “you beat Michigan State, I’m not playing you.” Why would a team, especially play them at home, if they can get beat?

CigarBoy: Now let me go into where basketball is now. How has it changed? The game in the mid/early 60’s versus now?

Schilling: Right now, I’d say the athletes are better trained physically and I think they are a little bigger. Generations tend to get bigger and stronger, but all the weight lifting year round and those sorts of things have added to the size if today’s players. I think they are much better physical specimens. The game is played at a higher level. By higher level I mean height-wise. I know I didn’t play for a while. Then I started playing with the IUPUI kids before my last couple of knee operations and one thing I learned immediately was, when there’s a rebound, you don’t wait until it comes off the rim. You better go up and get it when it’s above the rim, not goal tending but …it’s because they play at that more physical level. I think fundamentally, the game has just deteriorated tremendously. There’s a lot of power basketball. I watched these NCAA tournament games, getting towards the Sweet 16. I think in 7 minutes, I counted like two scores that came off plays. The rest came freelance, a fast break, or put-backs.

CigarBoy: It’s becoming more like the NBA.

Schilling: Yeah, just play!

CigarBoy: With all the NBA games on TV and all the kids watching the NBA, is that why it’s going in that direction?

Schilling: Oh, it kills them. I see this at Five Star. Every kid has to dribble between his legs standing still, going nowhere but dribbling between his legs. You know that hoppin’, it’s all flash. The basic, like I use to call it, the high top black tennis shoe game, is gone. The Celtics use to play such a fundamental game when Red Auerbach was the coach. Today, teams just don’t play smart fundamental basketball like they use to. One of the worst things to happen to the game probably was the three point shot. It’s taken a lot of the finesse away. Kids can’t shoot the mid-range jumper. Instead they work on a set jump shot to hit the three. I don’t think the game is as nice as it use to be. Knight had a lot to do with that by taking the charge. He really advocated that. Now anybody who drives, you are going to have somebody jump in front of you and you land on them. I’d like to see that NBA circle put into college so we can get a little move where a guy can fake, drive and go to the bucket without having a guy jump under him.

CigarBoy: Let’s talk a little bit about area programs. I’m going to name a program and you give me a few words about the program. Let’s start with, Miami.

Schilling: This year I felt that this was not a typical Miami team when we played them. I didn’t think they were a disciplined or well unified team. I thought they just played and Wright State should have beaten them. But they hit some shots that just went in and with that Center… Wright State had no post defense.

CigarBoy: So Miami was down a little this year?

Schilling: Yeah. But I didn’t think this was a Charlie Coles type team, and I didn’t think it was a Miami type team this year. I bet if we could get in to Charlie Coles’ heart, it would be saying, “just wait until next year. We are going to straighten this out right now.”

CigarBoy: Cincinnati?

Schilling: Just raw talent. Athletic and they play very hard. Good team every year.

CigarBoy: Detroit?

Schilling: I think Detroit is a good program. I think they are under control. I think that coach does a really good job. They run patterns. They do some really good basketball things. I think he’s a throwback to the good old days maybe where you take good talent and blend it into a team concept.

CigarBoy: I am trying to think of teams you have seen play and I know you haven’t seen Dayton. How about Memphis?

Schilling: Well with Cal, they’re going to play hard. I was SO impressed when I saw them on t.v.. But knowing John Calipari, they’re going to play hard and that’s typical I think. They’re not great shooters. That’s typical of what Cal recruits. He just got a player from Indianapolis, who’s not a great shooter but a great athlete. I just saw where he high jumped 6”10”. He’s a 6’6” kid who could kind of be a tall guard, small forward, but that’s a typical Cal player. I think Memphis shows it. They play, they run a basic set, then get after it, and play great defense.

CigarBoy: Are there any teams out there that you really like, just their style of play, the way they approach the game. Any team that you say, “Gee, if I could get them on TV I’d like to watch them more.”?

Schilling: This is probably prejudicial but I really like what Butler does. They’re everything I want to see in a basketball program. They have a great system, they play excellent defense, they’re super together, they’ll work to get the open shot, they’ll play to their strengths. I think that’s a team I’d pay to see, and I did actually in the NIT.

CigarBoy: You mean you paid? I got in for free. I cobbed a media pass! You paid?

Schilling: Well, that’s what gets me mad. I’m going to complain to the President.

CigarBoy: Geez, well, I guess I won’t be seeing any more free games at Butler. Let me ask you about your playing days for a second. What was it like going on a road trip versus what they do now? It had to be a lot different getting on a bus back in those days, or maybe a DC-3 or something.

Schilling: Now again, Hinkle was a unique bird and he’d been here many years, about 40 or whatever he coached here at Butler. When I played, we still did what he did when he was coaching 30+ years before I got there. For example, on a road trip, he and his daughter packed sandwiches and they would take this box of sandwiches and 7-up on a road trip. After the game, we’d get on the bus and eat these same kind of sandwiches, year after year. It’s kind of the running joke, you could tell what year a guy was by how many sandwiches he ate. Your first year travelling, you might eat 3 or 4 of those sandwiches. We’d each get two but people didn’t want to eat them, and the 7-up was warm. So you can imagine cotton mouth after playing a whole game at Michigan State and then have a ham and cheese sandwich with a warm 7-up, and that’s what we did. It was so different than what they do now. The teams, like Wright State for example, will have food brought in just so they can get back quicker like sub sandwiches, or pizza, whatever. When they go on the road, they get there a day before, stay in a hotel, and have a shoot around. We never did that. Back then with Hinkle, we’d get up there right before the game but we’d get there early so we’d have to wait for the janitor to let us in. That was it. We didn’t have a shoot around we didn’t have any of that kind of stuff. It was way different. I prepared a graph for Hinkle. Once again I spoke up, but I was a captain so I guess I was okay to do that. I showed a graph of the difference of when we played these teams on the road compared to when we played them at home. I was actually in Sports Illustrated but there was a little bit of other extenuating circumstances. My Junior year, we played at Evansville and I had my lowest game of my career there, 4 points, maybe 6, but Eddie had been born the night before, in between two games. They induced labor and then there was a blood problem. He was one type and I don’t know exactly what. I was OK but there was that to think about. They beat us there by a lot. Then we beat them here. I had 38 point and we killed them here. So that was one of the examples with a way big margin, but there was a lot of that. He said, “Yeah, that’s pretty interesting.” The next year, ham sandwich, warm 7-up (Laughing) Here’s a classic story about those sandwiches. My Junior year he decided to go with Turkey in Durkee’s dressing instead of ham and cheese sandwich. Now that’s a major deviation you gotta’ understand. So we’re playing and there’s time out. I’m at the free throw line and Gene Milner, one of the players on our team, said to me, “If you make this free throw you’ll break the scoring record.” Hinkle said, “What are you…? Shut up! Listen to me.” After the time out, Hinkle asked what we were talking about and I said, “Turkey and Durkee’s dressing”, and he thought it was pretty funny. Here’s another story about Hinkle along these same lines. I became friends with Lyons so he told me these things later. When I’d get carried away and hit somebody or something, they would be talking about it, the coaches down in the locker room, and the Assistant AD. They’d say something like, “Wow, Schilling got volatile again.” “Yeah, he looses his…” and Hinkle said, “You’ve gotta’ understand, these foreigners have a hot temper.” Now he considered me a foreigner because I came from Cleveland. My parents and I had been born in this country… but that’s how strange I was to Butler. He recruited farm kids or suburban kids and that was about it.

CigarBoy: When you ended your career, let’s get this straight. You were number one, the highest scoring average in a season, most points per game?

Schilling: No, in a season

CigarBoy: OK, in a season. What else do we have? You were one of the top all-time scorers?

Schilling: You know, I think I was most points in a season, highest scoring average in a season, highest rebounding average in season and maybe most rebounds in a season. See I only played two years and the other guys played three. Heck I don’t know exactly where I was on the all-time lists.

CigarBoy: How many points did you average in your career?

Schilling: I don’t know. I had…..

CigarBoy: A lot, a lot of points. (chuckle) It was a long time ago. I understand.

Schilling: See, another thing that I think is important to consider I guess is there were no 3 points, no shot clock. We ran a controlled offense, and Hinkle’s offense does not feature a big guy. I tried to show my son a film when I scored, I think, 31 and Hinkle only filmed like 2 games a year, that was it. There again, these coaches study tape now, he didn’t. I was showing my son and as we got to the end of this film, I only had only like 18 or 20 points. In reflecting, I know when it got close I just went down to the block and said, “Throw me that damn ball and forget this offense stuff!” I’d have to go pick-away, then they’d reverse it, then a high post pass cut off so I really didn’t get a chance to get it unless I rebounded. But when the film ended, it got cut off. I didn’t have the points yet. I had to go to my scrapbook and prove to my son that I did have that many points. (laughing) So that’s kind of what I remember in terms of number of points and all that stuff.

CigarBoy: We’ve spent a lot of time in the past, and it’s been a great trip down memory lane but what’s in the future for you?

Schilling: For me, I’m really happy at what I’m doing at IUPUI. For people who don’t know what that is, it’s Indiana University, Purdue University at Indianapolis. 28,000 student, third largest college in the state of Indiana. I’ve been there 21 years. I’m an Associate Professor. I train teachers and coaches and supervise student teachers and I just love that job. I have 6 more years until I retire, if I want to retire. They have a tremendous retirement program that I’m involved in, so I’ll probably take that 6 years from now.

CigarBoy: I’m looking back through this and we’ve jumped all over the place. I’d like to think I run an organized interview but you have to interview organized interview so you never know what’s going to happen. But we are sitting in front of Hinkle. This is like the Wrigley Field of basketball arenas, or maybe gyms is what they called them in the old days. Give me a favorite memory. Out of all the years, what’s your favorite memory of Hinkle Fieldhouse?

Schilling: I can recall that. When Michigan came into the Hinkle Fieldhouse, they were number 2 in the nation. They are a big school, that had this all-American Cazzy Russell, who’s a 6’5” guard, they had a 6’10” center, and a 6’8” forward. They were prohibitive favorites even though we were pretty darn good. I can remember leaving the house, telling my wife, “Oh my God, they’re going to kill us,” and the place was packed. They’ve remodeled Hinkle, but back then it would seat 16,000 people. It was packed, and standing room only. The people were just really psyched up. You could dunk in warm ups. They would dunk and our fans would ooh and aah. We would dunk and they would - phhff old school. I can remember telling a teammate of mine, “ You watch, we get a lead on the guys and these people are going to go crazy.” Sure enough we just kicked the crap out of them. THE moment that I can remember, that epitomized my entire college career - I hit a spinning lay-up, where I was knocked to the ground. I can remember shooting and skidding out of bounds, not knowing if it went in or not but hearing this fantastic roar and it was like, yeeeaaah. That, I can never forget. That’s probably the moment that is etched in my mind for Hinkle Fieldhouse.

CigarBoy: Well Big Chill, I really enjoyed and appreciate the time we have spent together. I’m glad to proclaim that you have reached the big time now, now that you have been the subject of a CigarBoy interview. I’m glad I could be a part of helping you to higher media heights.

Schilling: Well this is one of my all-time great interviews and I feel honored to be interviewed by you.

CigarBoy: Thanks! And you are buying lunch? I love it!