Jerry Zgoda's Sunday Insider: Rambis serves as coach and teacher

Bruce Bisping, Star Tribune

Wolves coach Kurt Rambis might be soft-spoken, but you “don’t want to say the wrong thing.” Rambis says he’s focused on teaching and remaining patient with his young team.

Wolves coach Kurt Rambis has the kind of temperament that should suit a team with a steep learning curve.

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: November 2, 2009 - 7:15 AM

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The son of a high-school math teacher, new Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis says he considers himself more of an educator than anything else. So if he hadn't stuck around the NBA for 14 years as a player and another decade as a coach and front-office executive -- winning six NBA titles along the way -- what kind of school teacher would he have been?

(Other than one of the world's taller ones, of course.)

We asked the man himself and the coaches and players around him that question and these are some of the answers received:

Jonny Flynn, rookie point guard

"I think he would have been one of those teachers who a lot of kids think they could push over, until they push the wrong button and he gets to screaming and his hair's sticking up and his face starts turning red. He could have been one of those teachers.

"Could they push him over? Nah, he's 6-9. He's soft-spoken until you say the wrong thing or don't do what you're supposed to do. Then he'll get on you.

"He's one of those guys who has to be right. Somehow he's going to figure out he was right. Even if it's 1 percent out of 100 percent, he's going to figure out that one little inch where he was right. That's what makes him a unique person.

"You can be completely wrong, but when you're the head coach, everything you say is right."

Reggie Theus, assistant coach

"He'd be a sarcastic one. He's really sarcastic. The kids would go home not knowing if they liked him or hated him."

J.B. Bickerstaff, assistant coach

"He would have been really good because his demeanor and the way he critiques isn't in a negative, beat-down way. He's got the ability to critique and teach in a way where guys aren't offended. As you're learning, that's huge so that you don't put up that defense wall right away, so that when the teacher's talking, you don't hear the Charlie Brown voice. When Kurt talks, you hear his message clear because it doesn't feel like you've got your guard up."

Dave Wohl, assistant coach

"He would have been demanding, but you would have enjoyed taking his class. The thing about him is, he can laugh at himself."

Rambis himself

"I would pretty much be the same way I am as a coach. There'd be discipline and organization in my classroom. I like to teach. I like to see a light go on in students. My dad [Mike] was a teacher. I can't tell you how many nights he came home late because he was working with a student. He really wanted kids to do well and succeed. That's kind of who I am as a coach. That's who I would be as a teacher.

"You reach them all in different ways. They don't all respond the same. They don't all learn in the same way and at the same pace. You have to be patient, but you have to be persistent."

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