Montgomery Bell Academy's gym is empty save for five men in sweats, a line of red rubber balls at midcourt, and one tired coach. Jan van Breda Kolff was supposed to have started practice an hour ago, but half of the Nashville Broncs have yet to show.
Van Breda Kolff—VBK to his squad, or Jan Vandy to West End undergrads in the early '70s—stands off to the side while his players chat. At 57, the 6-foot-8-inch former Commodore player and coach has aged into a thin-lipped, wet-eyed visage of a Raymond Chandler detective, or a near dead-ringer for Mr. Big of Sex and the City fame.
"Most of these guys have full-time jobs," he says, motioning toward his players, a grab-bag of local college stars turned clock-punchers. "Finding time to practice isn't easy."
The Broncs have the court today because their starting guard doubles as the assistant coach at MBA. But as a long line of ankle-biters snakes through the gym doors, it's clear the team, and VBK, have run out of time.
A decade ago, a blast from his whistle would have sent a dozen of the Southeastern Conference's best athletes sprinting down Memorial Gym hardwood. Now he's being forced from the floor by a dodgeball camp.
"Alright guys," he says in his off-court voice, a perpetually even tone of neutral gray Eeyore. "Looks like it's not happening today."
VBK is coaching royalty. His father was Butch van Breda Kolff, a legendary vagabond who coached Wilt Chamberlain and the Los Angeles Lakers and died in 2007 as one of only four men to reach both the NCAA Final Four and the NBA Finals.
After winning the SEC MVP award at Vandy in 1974, VBK played 11 years in the pros, bouncing from the Denver Nuggets to the New Jersey Nets before finishing in Italy. He landed his first assistant's gig at Princeton in 1987. Later he spent six years patrolling the sidelines for the Commodores.
That he now finds himself in this position—coaching in the far-flung American Basketball Association after once holding the best gig in Nashville—is the end result of a scandal.
In 2003, VBK was fired from western New York's St. Bonaventure. His crime: Playing Jamil Terrell, a junior college transfer whose only academic bona fide was a welding certificate.
VBK professed innocence: In 18 years of coaching—from Princeton to Cornell to Vandy to Pepperdine—he'd never so much as hiccuped out of turn. An NCAA investigation backed up his claim, pointing blame at then-president Robert Wickenheiser for clearing Terrell to play. But the taint of scandal followed.
"For the next five years, that's all anyone wanted to talk about," he says.
An assistant's gig with the New Orleans Hornets lasted one season, followed by four years running a basketball camp in Cool Springs. Then, last August, Broncs owner Scott Lumley came calling.
"I begged him to take the job," says Lumley, a former rodeo star who earned his modest fortune reselling damaged electronics on eBay. "Jan gave us instant credibility."
And in a league where franchises cost as much as a Subway restaurant, credibility is hard to come by.
In basketball terms, the ABA is a step below a Slovenian club team. The Broncs' last two leading scorers were poached by squads in France and Saudi Arabia.
At Municipal Auditorium, the Broncs' home arena, large-scale reproductions of Loverboy and Lawrence Welk Orchestra tickets line the mezzanine. On a Friday evening, a late-career Elvis look-alike in a white pompadour mans the stadium's only concession stand. Tonight's take: four souvenir T-shirts sold.
"Better than kicking yourself in the ass with a frozen boot," he says. "But not by much."
Inside, Broncs PR claims a crowd of 700. It's a figure that could only be true if 500 people were waiting in line for the bathrooms. A velvet rope separates the 7-dollar-a-ticket commoners from the leather couches in the V.I.P. section. But Lumley and a small entourage of lithe, bottle-blond hotties are the only Important Persons in attendance.
Sitting in a padded fold-out at midcourt is VBK. Normally, he spends the pregame watching his opponent's warm-up; scouting reports and game film are an unavailable luxury in the cash-strapped ABA.
"We're going into every game blind," says Mario Moore, ex-Vandy star, current Broncs' point guard and fifth-grade teacher at Antioch's Apollo Middle School. "Coach acts as our eyes."
Tonight, however, VBK is just waiting for an opponent.
The Atlanta Vision are stuck on I-24. Their bus left late in the day because they're a last-minute replacement. The Broncs were originally scheduled to play the West Virginia Outlaws, but the franchise folded earlier in the week.
Broncs' assistant Pax Whitehead played for VBK at Vandy. He's uniquely qualified to gauge how different his boss's life is now that he's coaching before crowds measured in the dozens.
"Had you told me back then that he'd be here today, I would've been surprised," he says, before offering a wry smile and a Let's leave it at that.
Still, for the man who once knew the pleasures of a roster full of scholarship athletes, there's reason to be hopeful.
Last year VBK was runner-up for the top gig at the University of California, Riverside. And his reputation can only be buffered by the Broncs' current 22-4 record, scattered as it is with blow-outs. The man, after all, can still coach.
The Vision finally arrive 15 minutes after the scheduled tip. As they form into a lay-up line, VBK assesses their weaknesses.
"That guy's got no handles," he says of one guard, yelling to be heard over the hip-hop blasted throughout Broncs games.
Sure enough, within two minutes of opening tip, the Broncs have stripped the ball three times for a quick lead. The pattern repeats itself so often, the team announcer runs out of synonyms for "steal." The game is a laugher, the Vision so thoroughly outmatched that VBK actually has time to crack a smile now and again.
Who needs practice, anyhow?
Email channan@nashvillescene.com, or call 615-844-9410.
