By Kathi Stearns, Staff Writer

ATLANTA – When fans watch Lenny Wilkens, the coach of the Atlanta Hawks, they see a well-mannered gentleman who lets his experience in the National Basketball Association (NBA) rather than his emotions determine his coaching decisions.

With arms folded he calmly paces back and forth, observing and orchestrating his team’s next play.

Evidence of his success lies in the fact that Wilkens, a parishioner of Cathedral of Christ the King, is 13 victories away from passing Red Auerbach as the all-time winningest coach in basketball.

Yet no matter how many games he wins and how many awards he receives, Wilkens says he will always place his career behind the two greater priorities in his life.

“My belief in God is number one, then the needs of my family and finally my work,” Wilkens said. “That must be the priority because I know everything is possible through Him.”

“My faith has reinforced everything that I’ve ever done,” Wilkens said in a preseason interview. “Faith makes everything else possible. I’m not here to convince the world or to force my beliefs on anyone else, but it works for me.”

He and his wife, Marilyn, have three children, Leesha, Randy and Jamee. Their first grandchild, Ashley, was born Sept. 17, to Leesha and her husband Craig Lipp. And while his career demands travel and creates scheduling conflicts, Wilkens depends on “quality time” with his wife and each of his children. He hopes that he has instilled honesty and integrity in his children, the qualities that he values in friends and family.

“If you give your word about something, then you have to be man enough or woman enough to stand behind it,” he said. “I don’t ever try to put myself on a pedestal because if I do that I’ll never know what people think or feel because I’m too removed. If I remove myself I might as well disappear.”

Even though his schedule makes it difficult to be an active member of his parish, Wilkens attends Mass two or three times a week and is involved in numerous community service organizations. “With the amount of time that I travel it is difficult to become an active member of the community. But I try to do what I can in different ways whether it’s making an appearance, going somewhere or encouraging young people, I just have to do my part.”

Wilkens, who joined the Hawks in June 1993 after seven seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has successfully resurrected a team that had finished fourth in the Central Division and ranked 21st in scoring defense in the NBA in 1992-1993.

Under Wilkens’ guidance the Hawks clinched the Central Division title in 1993-94 for the first time since 1987. The top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, the Hawks set a team record with 36 home wins, the second highest in the league and won 21 games on the road, just one win short of tying the club record. It was the seventh time in his career that Wilkens had coached a team to 50 wins in a season.

For his efforts Wilkens received the Red Auerbach Trophy as the IBM/NBA coach of the year for the 1993-1994 season, the first time in his 21-year NBA coaching career that he had received this honor. Wilkens received 71 of a possible 101 votes from a nationwide panel of NBA broadcasters and writers.

Leonard Randolph Wilkens was born Oct. 28, 1937 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, N.Y. His mother, Henrietta Wilkens, was a white Irish Catholic; his father was an African-American chauffeur. His father died of a bleeding ulcer when Wilkens was five, leaving a wife and five children.

Mrs. Wilkens worked at a candy factory and did odd jobs to support the family after her husband’s death. Wilkens explained that because of their financial situation, material items were not important. Paying the rent and making sure that his sister’s tuition was paid to a Catholic high school were the family priorities.

Wilkens describes his mother as a devout Catholic. “I never saw anyone pray as much as she did; she went to Mass everyday,” he said. “I’m sure some of her prayers have been answered because God certainly has been good to me…There’s always someone greater than we are. It’s just that we don’t always recognize it or want to give testimony to it.”

While a student and altar boy at Holy Rosary Elementary School in Brooklyn, Wilkens met Father Thomas Mannion who encouraged his interest and enjoyment of basketball. Father Mannion told Wilkens that if he were interested in basketball he would have to practice and continually strive to develop his skills. The priest would line up chairs on the court and have Wilkens dribble around them repeatedly to improve his ball handling.

“He was like a big brother to me…. He had a huge influence on me,” Wilkens said. “If I went 10 blocks one way or 10 blocks the other way I could run into some gangs…My mom would ask Father Mannion to look out for me because she was afraid I might get hooked up with one of them. One time he saw me with some guys he didn’t think I should be with – and he let me know it.”

As a freshman Wilkens tried out for the Boys High basketball team in Brooklyn. The coach kept 15 players, but Wilkens, realizing that he was the 15th decided that he didn’t want to ride the bench. He left the team and returned to play basketball with the Catholic Youth Organization. Wilkens felt that if he didn’t commit to play high school basketball he would be able to work at a grocery store and help with the family’s financial obligations.

During his senior year Father Mannion and a classmate encouraged Wilkens to try out for the Boys High basketball team one more time. Wilkens tried out and became a starter for the varsity team. However, Wilkens graduated early in January and only played on-half season of basketball. “I needed a job, not another semester of school,” he said.

Knowing the family’s financial situation, Father Mannion wrote Providence College in Rhode Island and asked basketball coach Joe Mullaney if a scholarship might be available for Wilkens. Coach Mullaney had never seen Wilkens play, but his father had watched him in a basketball tournament in Flushing. The elder Mullaney asked if this was the same young man who had inquired about financial help. Within a week Wilkens was offered the last available scholarship.

While in college the 6-foot-1 point guard averaged 14.9 points a game and was named Most Valuable Player in the 1960 National Invitational Tournament (NIT). Wilkens led Providence to a second place finish in the 1960 NIT Championship. He earned All-American awards from several organizations.

The idea of a professional basketball career never entered the mind of the Providence graduate. Wilkens was considering accepting a fellowship at Boston College to teach economics while he worked on a master’s degree. He had also been offered a job with the Technical Tape Company at a starting salary of $10,000. He was astounded when the Providence athletic department notified him that he was a first round 1960 draft pick of the St. Louis Hawks. Wilkens accepted an $8,000 offer, with a $1,000 signing bonus, to play with the hawks.

It was at this time that Wilkens was exposed to prejudice in a way that he had never experienced. He and some black teammates went to get dinner at a nearby restaurant. “They (the restaurant owners) told one of my white teammates that we can’t serve your friends,” he said. “I kept saying to myself, ‘You want me to play for the city…yet you don’t want me to eat in your restaurants.’”

This was not the only racial conflict Wilkens encountered. “When I first came to the league there were a lot of things that I had to overcome,” he said. “It is funny how people are: they assumed that all blacks were good athletes who didn’t have any intelligence.”

Wilkens played a total of 15 years in the NBA and ranked among the all-time leaders in assists, games played, minutes played and free throws made. He was named the Most Valuable Player in the 1971 All-Star Game. In 1990 he was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

Wilkens has served as the head coach for the Seattle Supersonics, where his team won the NBA Championship in 1979. He was also head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and the Cleveland Cavaliers before coming to Atlanta. Wilkens was one of the assistant coaches for the 1992 Dream Team when the U.S. won the gold medal in Barcelona, Spain.

Wilkens knows what it is like to be a player and treats his players with respect and dignity. “When I first started out I was a player/coach and did what everybody else did; I screamed and yelled when the guys didn’t do things right. I learned that is not the most effective way to communicate. I learned that if I were able to teach them and communicate with them on an adult level they would understand me better, and the concept I was attempting to teach them would be more meaningful. That’s what I decided to do. I want everyone communicating on the same wave-length.”