King of his court

King of his court.

HUNTSVILLE - The gymnasium at Riverside Public School was quiet when George Hoo walked inside last Thursday.
Within the next hour, the place would be a cacophony of bouncing basketballs and shouting players, as the various members for the Huntsville Hurricanes basketball program practiced their skills in preparation for upcoming tournaments, including the imminent Ontario Basketball Association championships.
It is at these championships on the May 5 to 6 weekend in Kitchener that hold a special meaning for Hoo, as the long-time basketball pioneer is calling it quits on a coaching career that has spanned four decades.
“There is one major factor in this decision. My wife Sheila is retiring in June and the agreement that we had made is that once she retired my lifestyle was going to change,” he said with a laugh. “So it is quite simple actually.”
Hoo himself had retired from his teaching position at Huntsville High School eight years ago, but it was definitely a case of gone but not forgotten as he regularly patrolled the sidelines of the school gymnasium, still coaching the various boys and girls’ teams to countless Muskoka-Parry Sound League championships.
The road to his decades on the basketball bench started back in the early 1970s, when Hoo was at the University of Toronto studying at teachers’ college. A former high school player, he said that he didn’t make the university teams, but he was eventually asked to coach the interfaculty teachers’ team, a job he didn’t cotton to at the beginning.
“Some of these players were as old as me, or two or three years younger. I didn’t know if I should be doing it or not, but in the end I said I would do it.”
When he began his elementary school teaching career, he was immediately asked to handle the school’s basketball program.
“It has just gone on and snowballed from there.”
His teaching career took him to a number of places, a journey that ended in 1989 when he came to Muskoka and taught/coached at Watt Public School in Utterson, a stint that lasted one year before he moved to Huntsville High School, where he stayed teaching until his retirement.
He is leaving the Huntsville basketball community with a lasting legacy, including one Ontario high school championship, 13 Georgian Bay titles and numerous Muskoka-Parry Sound pennants (“too many to count”), all hanging from the walls of the high school gymnasium.
However, it is his work in establishing the Hurricanes program that may just be his greatest legacy. He, along with Carl Nelson, Craig Teakle and Clyde Johnson, created the program 19 years ago when Hoo was starting out in his high school coaching career.
He said that the Hoya teams were routinely beaten by schools outside the Muskoka region and felt something had to be done to bolster the high school program.
“We took a look at what was happening here and didn’t like getting beat by Orillia by 50 points. I said to Carl that this was never going to happen again. That triggered the start of the Hurricanes. Without the Hurricanes, there is no high school program. The high school program was very weak at that time. We couldn’t compete against the teams from Barrie or Orillia. Now we are beating them regularly. Teaching these players at a young age to develop their skills has helped the high school program tremendously.”
Ever the caretaker, Hoo served as the program’s president for 16 of its 19 years. He said there are too many highlights for him to choose one from his coaching career, although there are a few that hold a special place for the coach.
“I coached in the Canada Winter Games in 1979 the first group of Inuit players ever to play in those games as a team. I was teaching in the Northwest Territories at the time and started a bunch of programs there like I did down here. I also remember my first trip to OFSAA (Ontario Federation of Athletic Associations) with the senior girls back in 1997 when I had both my daughters Tierney and Tricia on that team and when we won OFSAA in 1999. My son Jarred was at four OFSAAs out of five years, which may never happen again in this town. But winning OFSAA in 1999 was the most memorable I would have to say because we worked our butts off to get to that stage.”
He said he fondly remembers coaching his daughters and his son over the years, a sentiment shared by one of his daughters.
Tierney is the second eldest of the Hoo children, a clan that includes sisters Julie, Kathryn and Tricia, along with brother Jarred. She said that in the seven years her dad coached her from Grade 7 into high school his style of coaching remained the same.
“He’s very passionate, very organized, very hard-working … every drill, every practice was well thought out. He had a good system for his teams. I would say he was hard-nosed in getting the most from his players and sometimes that meant being tough on some players and pushing them to their limits.”
Tierney said her dad never treated her any differently that he did other players, although she admitted he did push her hard at times because he felt she had a lot to offer her teams.
“He knew my potential and I was an unselfish player, and he knew that to help my teams out I had to be more selfish. So from that sense he was hard on me when I wasn’t performing the way I could have performed. But that wasn’t because I was his daughter. I have seen him that way with a lot of players,” she said.
The technique must have worked because a number of Hoo’s players – including Tierney, Julie and Tricia – all went onto to play basketball at the university level.
With May 6 looming on the horizon, Hoo said he is not sure how he will feel when that buzzer sounds on the Canes’ last game of the tournament. However, Tierney said she thinks the time is right for her dad to step away from the game he loves.
“It is good for him. He has spent so much time and energy in his life on doing something he loves. He has been so unselfish with his time, spending it with other people’s children, but it’s great he is going to pursue another adventure in his life.”
For his part, Hoo is philosophical about the end of his Huntsville coaching career.
“It’s time to turn a page. I have gradually weaned myself off. I was president for 16 years and I gradually got myself off that. I have cut down on the number of teams I was coaching as a lot of seasons I was coaching as many as five teams.”
Working with the young players is something Hoo freely admits he will miss when he finally calls it quits.
“When you work hard on something as a group and it all comes together it is like a masterpiece. When you see it happening on the court, you say look at the stage we have got to in this game.”
Hoo admits basketball in Huntsville wouldn’t have reached the heights it has without the support of his wife and family, the players and their families and the Trillium Lakelands District School Board for providing the space to allow the program to grow.
While he is calling it a career on coaching, don’t be surprised that if you do find Hoo offering pointers when he gets to his new home in Elliot Lake. He said he has already been in contact with some basketball officials there about helping out.
“I might do a little bit but I am leery about tying myself in to something. If it works out it works out.”

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