‘Mr. Clutch’ and his drive for perfection

Posted Mar 21, 2010 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Mar 21, 2010 at 07:03 PM

Despite all the success Jerry West had during his basketball career, he was never satisfied.

If his expectations of perfection weren’t met, then in his mind, he had failed.

That’s setting the bar awfully high, but like his flawless jump shot, West was never afraid to work at it.

In a 1969 interview, West’s mother Cecile told a sportswriter that her son was “still the boy he always was, who wants to be perfect and just can’t understand why he can’t be.”

Veteran author and journalism professor Roland Lazenby reveals a better understanding of that mentality with an absorbing, meticulous biography of the Los Angeles Lakers’ great. “Jerry West: The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon” (Ballantine/ESPN Books, $28), explores what gave “Mr. Clutch” his drive.

Extensive interviews with West and his contemporaries, plus excellent research, gives the reader a look at how the NBA evolved from a second-rate league in the early 1960s to a money-making machine today.

And if anyone has missed the point about the impact West had on the NBA, just take a look at the league’s official logo — that’s West dribbling toward the basket.

Here is West’s résumé: a star at East Bank High School in his hardscrabble West Virginia town (where he played on a state championship team); a member of the West Virginia University team that reached back-to-back Final Fours, including a loss in the 1959 title game; a berth on the 1960 U.S. Olympic team that won gold in Rome; and the driving force behind the Lakers’ nine NBA Finals appearances.

Lazenby works to define the source of West’s obsession. He found it by going back in West’s family tree, to the family member who helped finance the Jamestown colony in Virginia. Several generations later, Edmund West inherited a mere two shillings from his father and eventually decided to move to the frontier that eventually became West Virginia, his descendants morphing from “landed gentry to hard-luck hillbillies.”

On her deathbed in 1910, West’s grandmother signed the deed of the family house over to her husband, Maxie West. Within hours of Salena West’s funeral, Maxie parceled his children out to neighboring farms, including Jerry’s father, Howard.

Howard West would become involved in Democratic politics and the local union, leaving his wife, Cecile, to raise the family. Cecile was a no-nonsense, humorless, hard-working woman, whose work ethic was inherited by her famous son.

Jerry’s sister Hannah told Lazenby that she used to tease her mother that “her idea of a good time was to clean her house up one day and go back and clean it up again the next.”

OK, I am dwelling a lot on West’s family history, but I believe it defines who West is, and how his quest to be perfect prevented him from contentment or happiness in his achievements.

Lazenby does a marvelous job tying it all together.

With his long arms, flat but smooth shot and dogged defense, West could have worn more NBA championship rings. However, his era was dominated by the dynastic Boston Celtics, who had Bill Russell at center and a cast of team players — guys like Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones and Tommy Heinsohn — who worked tirelessly to thwart West and fellow Lakers star Elgin Baylor.

Baylor’s impact as a player may be forgotten now, but West called him “my best teacher.”

“I owe so much to him. Elgin taught me how to get open for shots,” West told Lazenby.

And when West finally tasted ultimate success — when the Lakers won the NBA title by defeating the New York Knicks in 1972 — he seemed at a loss, believing he didn’t play his best that season and had “hurt the team in several ways.”

“I don’t know where I’m going to celebrate,” he said at the time. “The feelings I have now are private ones. I’m going to go home and lock the door.”

After his playing days ended, West coached the Lakers and served as a team executive. His ability to judge talent might have surpassed his skills on the court; indeed, he recognized Kobe Bryant’s skills and maneuvered the Lakers into position to draft him.

Even now, West’s passion for winning burns brightly. His love for the Lakers “was incredible.”

“It was like being a drug addict,” he told Lazenby. “Your highs are never high enough and your lows are unbearably low. … Winning was never good enough, never good enough.”

West is still not satisfied. And still looking for perfection.

Lazenby captures that perfectly in his book.