By Francis Martinez

Over the past seventeen years, one man has become synonymous with the Mendocino High School basketball program.  That man is Jim Young, who recently retired from his position as head coach. I sat down with him at his chiropractors office and discussed his retirement, as well as his career as a coach and as a player.  

Jim began his coaching career when his son Jerry was in the fifth grade.  After having no prior experience or interest in coaching, Jim decided to start coaching his son because Jerry was passionate about playing collegiate basketball from a young age. Jim, a former college basketball player himself, knew what it took to make it to that level; therefore, he believed he could pass that knowledge onto Jerry and his teammates.  He described most middle school coaches as essentially being a ‘babysitter’ for the kids; he wanted to provide a consistent system for these kids rather than unorganized ‘daycare.’ From fifth through eighth grade, Jim coached Jerry and his teammates.

When I inquired about the reason for his abrupt retirement, Jim responded by saying, “After Jerry left, nine years ago, that would’ve been the logical time to quit.”  “I don’t know why I quit now, and I don’t know why I kept going then.” It did not come down to any particular reason for his retirement; it was merely a matter of him feeling that he had served his time at Mendocino High, and it was time for a new coaching regime.

During our talk, we also discussed his high school, college, and professional career as a player.  He played in Jamestown, New York, in the Buffalo league. His high school team was ranked 3rd in the state during his time there.  After high school, Jim took his talents to a division three private school, St. Lawrence, where he was recognized as a college all-american player, as well as having the record for most points in a game, 50, and the highest free throw percentage throughout a season, 91%.  At their peak, his team made it to regionals in the division 3 NCAA tournament.  

Three years after his college graduation, Jim received an offer from a professional team in England.  Receiving an offer from a pro team three years out of college is rather uncommon. Jim put it as, “They wanted Americans.”  The reason Americans were so sought after was because basketball was not popular worldwide at the time.  Jim describes it as “Before the dream team, before basketball was popular in the world,” Jim jumped at the chance to play in England professionally and shipped himself off to Europe.  During his three year tenure in England, Jim amassed a sixty-eight point game and lead his team in scoring.

Jim Young posed far left with his high school team

“I was a runner and a gunner,” Jim says.  His play style consisted of mainly pull-up jump shots and slashing to the basket for layups and dunks.  “I was getting the ball on the move and shooting.” He played in the era prior to the addition of the three point line, where as Jim puts it, “The pull up was king.”  He likened his style to that of Jerry West and John Havlicek. At six foot two, Jim was quite the leaper and even went on to say that, “Dunking was part of my game…I could easily dunk in traffic coming up under the basket, using the basket as a shield.  This goes to show that Jim Young was no average joe on the court, but a real life baller.

What I was most curious about while talking to Jim was about how his career as a player influenced him as a coach.  One of his most prominent influences came from his college coach Paul Evans. This is where Jim learned a style of offense called overload, which he ran throughout his entire career at Mendocino High.  This is an offense geared towards beating a zone defense, where one side of the court is overloaded with players, which leaves an opening on the weak side of the court for cutting or a corner three. Jim was also influenced in how he learned to value the players at the end of the bench.  “He showed me how important it was to have the 10th and 11th players, for us the 8th and 9th.” This was very apparent for me while Jim was my coach. He would always preach that playing time in games was not the only measure of value and that there were other ways to contribute to the team than on the court.  

Overall, Jim Young’s seventeen years at Mendocino High included many successful seasons and deep playoff runs.  Jim coached and mentored some of Mendocino High’s finest players, such as Nakai Baker, Sean Symonds, Nizz Badgett, and Mendo’s all time leading scorer Cody Call.  When it came down to Jim’s fundamental goal for coaching, he simply put it as, “I just tried to make kids play basketball better:” This Jim succeeded at, whether it was waking up early before school to personally train his players or taking time out of his summer to coach summer league, Jim was always geared up to coach his players.