Ask Jerry Savage to recall some of his more memorable games as boys basketball coach at Loyola High, and he's likely to start with an overtime defeat in Cumberland nearly 20 years ago.
This may appear odd coming from someone who is approaching 500 wins during a career that spans 27 seasons with the Dons, but "tough losses seem to be the ones that hang on, for whatever reason that might be," he says.
Savage is doing more than just hanging on at Loyola. He ranks third among active coaches in the state with 498 victories, though he deflects whatever praise accompanies them by saying, "It just proves I've been around a long time."
He never imagined staying in one place for so many years when he started out, but a family that includes three sons and the kindness and comfort he found at Loyola have given him roots.
"When you get into coaching, you don't know how often you're going to move or what the situation is going to be," he said. "My high school coach told me, 'If you want to get into college coaching, you've got to get into it when you're young.' But by the time I got here, I already had two young children, and my wife [Pat] had our third during my first year here. You just feel, in that situation, it's hard to move around. And I never had a tremendous desire to do so, which is a credit to the school.
"The situation here has always been good. The kids, the administration, the faculty -- they've all been good to me."
And Savage (498-312), who will turn 57 in May, has returned the favor.
He arrived at Loyola in 1968 after seven years at Mount St. Joseph, where he coached the junior varsity. Since then, with an emphasis on aggressive, man-to-man defense and patience on offense, his teams have won five Catholic League regular-season championships and five tournament titles. Two of his top talents were Pete Budko (Class of '77), who went on to play at North Carolina, and Tony Guy ('78), who played at Kansas.
The Dons have made the tournament final seven times since their last championship in 1978, and Savage says, "When you've been there that many times, you figure it would be nice to win it once more."
He came close to winning a national championship as a senior at Mount St. Mary's College in 1961. The Mount, with Savage at shooting guard, lost in the semifinals to Wittenberg (Ohio). The next year, the Mount won the title.
He was recruited by Mount coach Jim Phelan after graduating from Clifford Scott High School in East Orange, N.J. An inductee in the college's Hall of Fame, he ranks as its 22nd all-time leading scorer with 1,159 points.
"That '61 team was actually better than the '62 team because of Jerry," Phelan said. "He was a dynamite player. He could really fill it up. He was always so dedicated to the game. He worked very hard at it. And with that kind of dedication, it doesn't surprise me that he became a student of the game and would be a successful coach."
And one who, despite often being described as easygoing, "wants to win just as much as anyone else," said Calvert Hall coach Mark Amatucci.
"I'm sure his kids work hard and his practices are demanding," he said. "He wants things to be done right. He may be easygoing on the outside, but once you walk inside the gym, he's as demanding as anybody else."
Among the players on Savage's first Loyola team was Reggie Boyce, now the Dons' JV coach.
"Jerry was very cool. He made the game a little more fun," Boyce said. "He's a player's kind of coach. He used to play with us, going one-on-one and showing us things, and it made you believe what he was saying could be done.
"I thought he'd go on to the college level. I'm still amazed he's at a high school. Not too many people know more about the game than him. But I'm happy he stayed."
Archbishop Curley coach Dan Popera was a member of Savage's first Mount St. Joseph JV team. He remembers how Savage emphasized "team offense and team ball. We ran that shuffle-cut until we were blue in the face.
"The thing he influenced me the most with was the way he could shoot the ball," Popera said. "He was an excellent jump shooter, and he had a great hesitation move."
Much about the sport has changed since Popera played, which explains, in part, why Savage still attends a couple of coaching clinics each summer.
"I enjoy listening about basketball and always pick up something," he said. "The game is changing a lot, like with the three-point field goal. I never thought that would have such an influence. And with the speed and quickness and athletic ability of the players today, fundamentals suffer a little. The three things kids like to do are dunk, block and reach in and steal the ball. And those are three things not everybody can do, yet everybody tries it. The exposure of basketball on television influences a lot of young players to the point of them trying things they're not capable of doing."
There have been other adjustments to make, the kind that drive some coaches out of the game.
"What you learn down through the years is that X's and O's become less and less important, and your dealings with and handling of young people become more important," said Savage, who coached sons Michael, 29, and Kevin, 25. "The people who have survived in this game are the ones who can keep things in perspective. You've got to be able to relate to kids on this level and keep them foremost in your thinking."
Anyone thinking Savage's only contact with the sport is as a coach should have seen him the past five summers playing with his sons in Hoop-It-Up tournaments, or in the Senior Olympics last October, when his three-on-three team won the state championship in the 55-59 age bracket and qualified for the nationals in San Antonio in May. He also took second in the free-throw competition and fourth in floor shooting.
Savage even stays late at Loyola some nights to officiate in a lawyers league. Anything to remain active.
"I've been blessed with pretty good health," he said. "I enjoy coaching basketball, watching it and playing it, though my game has been reduced to half-court. But I've always been pretty much a half-court player anyway."
No one, including Savage, knows how much longer he'll continue coaching. He sees no reason to stop as long as it remains fun and he still can help the program.
"If I get to the point where I feel I can't do that anymore," he said, "then I'll know it's time to leave."