Life lessons are legendary Coach Kipp's legacy

Mr. Chips, a legendary literary character, was the venerable English boys schoolteacher in the eponymous James Hilton novella. If there was ever a real-life Mr. Chips of the basketball court, it was Derril Kipp, coach of the Maine West girls' basketball team for 35 years.

Coach Kipp, who died recently, was one of the great basketball coaches in Illinois history, a notable accomplishment in a state steeped in basketball tradition. Like Mr. Chips, Coach Kipp changed countless lives for the better.

For better or worse, the lives of basketball coaches are generally measured by the pedestrian arithmetic of wins and losses. Simply by that ledger, he was unquestionably one of the two or three best women's basketball coaches Illinois has ever seen. Only two girls' coaches have won more career games coaching at one school than he did at Maine West, and his amazing string of 65 consecutive victories amassed over three years in the 1980s remains the state record today. He coached Maine West to an undefeated state championship, and the AAU teams he coached regularly won state championships and finished in the top 10 nationally. The girls who played for him in high school and AAU competition walked off the court in victory more than 1,000 times.

His basketball acumen was respected by college coaches, who trusted his judgment implicitly about recruits. Meanwhile, other coaches dreaded playing his teams - his best rarely lost and he often managed to beat superior teams when, as all coaches do, he experienced a "down year" drop-off in talent. In the words of the famous Texas coaching saying that was meant as praise to great coaches, "He could take his'n and beat your'n. Or he could take your'n and beat his'n."

None of that is what set him apart. There are, after all, many coaches who can diagram plays and know when to call timeouts. What made Coach Kipp special was his devotion to his players, of far greater importance to him than trophies and victories. Every girl who played for him mattered. Not surprisingly, many of his players earned scholarships to the nation's top universities or went on to play at Ivy League schools. But he never concentrated his attention solely on his stars; the last player on his bench or the nervous freshman in her first game was just as important as the leading scorer, sometimes more so.

That was not simply his approach to basketball. It was his philosophy of life - and what distinguished him from other coaches with gaudy win-loss records.

In no small measure, this was because of his family, which he considered his life's greatest accomplishment. Not surprisingly, he was surrounded at home by women - a devoted wife of 48 years and three loving daughters, each of whom became successful in her own right. This gave him perspective and a personal understanding of the unique challenges women face, the resolve they must demonstrate to overcome obstacles, and how critical it was to cultivate their confidence.

Over decades, he communicated those lessons to hundreds of girls, helping them succeed on the basketball court, and more importantly in their personal lives.

Coach Kipp adamantly refused to tolerate any manner of cheating. He was acutely aware of what was going on, knew who the perpetrators were and campaigned against their practices, deriving great satisfaction in beating those coaches he believed were cheating. He once said, "You must teach your team how to play, not how to cheat."

The context for that quote was basketball, but of course he was also referring to life. In his storied career, he taught several generations of girls and women values that transcend the scoreboard or box score metrics. At the end of his life, the fictional Mr. Chips noted he had "hundreds and hundreds of children … all of them boys." The real Derril Kipp had hundreds and hundreds of children, too, … all of them girls.

Cory Franklin, M.D., served 25 years as director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Cook County Hospital. He knew Derril Kipp, who coached two of his daughters on Illinois State AAU Championship teams, for 20 years. A celebration of Kipp's life is set for Saturday at Maine West High School.