Retiring teacher winds down 4 decade coaching career with undefeated season

With his 42 year career windingdown,teacher and coach Gord MacLeanmade sure that the Elementary Basketball Championship gameon Thursday was going to be one for the history books.

With 12 seconds to go in the game, the St. Barnabas Blues were up only one point. If they won the game they would win the city championship and go undefeated for the entire year.

• Meet the first Indo-Canadian head coach of the national men's basketball team

"Hang tough! Be big! Hang tough!" Maclean shouted over the din of St. Patrick Catholic SecondarySchool gym in East Yorkon Thursday night. "Next ball's gonna be ours!"

The opposing team, a group of 12- and 13-year-olds fromSt. Bernard Catholic Schooldescribed by MacLean as "well coached, talented" and "a lot bigger than we are," was under the Blues' basket ready to take the lead, and the win.

St. Bernard's shot was blocked, and the Blues tookthe ball. The last few seconds on the clock ran out and the Blues won the championship, undefeated, sendingMacLean off with the 20th championship of his career in basketball and volleyball combined.

'A second father'

MacLean'scoaching is only part of why he'll be remembered by the students and parents he's worked with over the years. Many of the students, former and present, describe him as a father figure.

"Mr. MacLean was one of the most influential people in my life taught me how to be a productive member of society and how to be a man," said Hurell Lyons in a video shown to the team in the locker room moments before the game. "Mr. MacLean, I love you like a second father."

Coach Gord MacLean receives message from former student

7 years ago

Duration 0:24

The St. Barnabas Blues basketball team receive a special message before their championship game.

Lyons was part of MacLean's first undefeated year, when he was coaching for St.Geralds in 1992, along with David Butler, who attended Thursday's game.

"Coaches like this don't come around every day," Butler told CBC Toronto. "The man's a legend."

The physical education and health teacher says his long career has never once been boring, citing a willingness to keep learning as the way to stay engaged.

"I've enjoyed every second of it," he saidbefore the game that night. "It keeps you fresh, makes you want to wake up in the morning."

Although he will continue coaching with other teams until the end of the year, because the undefeated record was hanging in the balancethis game was "the big one."

"I'll tell them straight, I love you," MacLean says, describing what his final words will be to the team before they take to the court.

A retirement gift

Sheen Yusay has played for two seasons under MacLean with his brother Shaun. They both follow in their two older brothers' footsteps, who both played for the coach and told the boys "how great he was."

"This is probably our last game with him," said Shaun. "I'm going to try my hardest for him and we're going to win this game."

Sheen jumps in, adding: "I'm trying to send him his retirement gift as a city championship win I love him as my coach, he's like a father to me."

MacLean says his work with the kids transcends sports and actually helps shape them into the adults they will become.

"I can assist these men and... girls as well, to become great citizens one day," he explains. "And learn from what they pick up in sports and apply it to everyday life."

He said he can tell, just by looking at a student walk down the hall, whether they will be an athlete one day. He already has plans for a student in senior kindergarten at St. Barnabas.

"He is going to be a superstar... it may not be with me, but he is going to be amazing."

His plans for retirement include you guessed it more coaching. He'll be working with his daughter's high school basketball team next year.

And, he says with more than a little hope in his voice, if the next phys-ed teacher at St. Barnabasisn't willing to coach, he'll happily jump back in.