One more farewell

The damn thing was always in the air, in my memory. Strange how it works when someone you know passes from this earth.

The damn thing was a folded towel, and it was prop and cushion and instrument of displeasure for the man who gripped it. His name was Norm Held, and you can find him in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame now. In 31 seasons as a high school basketball coach, he won more than 500 games, coached the Indiana All-Stars, won 343 games at Anderson High School, where he roamed the sidelines, towel in hand, from 1975 to 1993.

He died Thursday in Florida, his winter home, at the age of 85.

But back to the towel.

Norm used it to cushion his knee from the hardwood where he spent so much time kneeling, because he was never one for sitting still. He was an antic coach who was the perfect fit for an antic program at Anderson, where they began every home game with an elaborate ritual that involved a darkened gym, a spotlight and the Indians' mascot doing some sort of fertility dance around a kneeling Indian maiden.

It was just about as politically incorrect as a thing could be, and of course it always whipped the 8,000 fanatics cramming the iconic Wigwam into an absolute frenzy. And then the lights would come up, and the Indians would take the floor, and Norm would indulge in his own brand of theatrics -- most of which involved railing at the injustices being done his Indians by the men wearing whistles around their necks.

He was the king of the ref baiters, Norm was. And every once in awhile, when baiting wasn't enough, Norm would fling that towel of his skyward over some particularly egregious wrongdoing.

Which is why it's always in the air, in my memory.

I spent the first 10 years of my sportswriting career in Anderson, showing up at the dear departed Daily Bulletin two years after Norm showed up at Anderson High School. Somehow we always got along pretty well, Norm the already-veteran coach and me the kid sportswriter. And lord knows he took all of us on some great rides in those 10 years: Four state championship games between 1979 and 1986, epic battles with Marion and New Castle and city rivals Madison Heights and Highland, and of course the most epic battles of all against Muncie Central was across the floor.

It was Norm against Bill Harrell, and the best way I can encapsulate how it was between them is to bring up two back-to-back years.

The first year, Anderson traveled to Muncie Central, the Bearcats won and Norm was ejected.

The next year, Muncie Central came to Anderson, the Indians won and Harrell was ejected.

So it went.

So, too, did it go this way for Norm: He was forever close, but he never got the cigar.

There is something entirely proper about Norm passing in the month of March, because he always pointed his teams toward that month. On more than one occasion, he said publicly he didn't give a hang (never "damn," because Norm, for all his passion, didn't swear) about games in December. He cared about the games in March.

This didn't always endear him to the Indians faithful, the fiercest group of true believers anywhere. But it worked, to a degree. The Indians were always ready in March.

Unfortunately for Norm, they never were quite ready enough to take the final step.

Those four championship games, for instance: The Indians lost three of them by a total of seven points. Harrell and Ray McCallum and Muncie Central got them 64-60 in 1979. Gunner Wyman and Doug Crook and Vincennes got them 54-52 in 1981. And Basil Mawbey, the Heineman brothers and Connersville got them 63-62 in 1983.

In that one, Troy Lewis had an 8-footer to win in the dying seconds. Troy Lewis never missed 8-footers, at least that I can recall. But this one spun out.

Norm got one last shot at it in 1986, coaching the Indians to the state title game against Bill Green and Marion. That was one of Green's Jay Edwards-Lyndon Jones teams, and the Giants won by 19. But that year they beat pretty much everyone by 19.

I don't know how much those near misses gnawed at Norm. But I suspect they did a bit.

The last time I saw him, oddly, was the calling for Phil Buck, his old coaching rival from Madison Heights. I introduced myself, since we hadn't seen each other in 30 years. A huge grin immediately split his features.

"Of course I remember you, Ben Smith," he said.

And, today, I remember you, Norm. And that damn towel. And, most of all, the splendid ride.