Published: August 02, 2008 09:31 pm      

Sports has always been big part of Woodrow coach’s life

Steve Kidd laughed when someone asked him last winter if being Woodrow Wilson’s interim boys basketball coach made him nervous.

“I’ve coached and been around thousands of games,” he said. “I was more nervous when I was a player.”

Way more nervous, at least one game in particular.

The first time Kidd made the starting lineup for Concord College (now University), he had to guard Sedale Threatt — the 1983 West Virginia Conference scoring leader and eventual player of the year.

“I was a freshman and they threw me into the fire,” he said. “The night before it was hard to sleep.”

Threatt, an All-American, had helped West Virginia (now WVU) Tech beat the Mountain Lions by nearly 30 points earlier in the season.

And now Kidd had to try to contain Threatt and his 25.5 points per game.

“Sedale could do it all — he was a great player,” Kidd said. “I don’t know how he ended up at Tech.”

Threatt would one day play for the Los Angeles Lakers, and he had Tech ranked among the top NAIA teams in the country.

But somehow, Concord pulled the upset.

Kidd downplayed his part in the victory.

“We didn’t win because I started, but because we had a guy named Tracy Poindexter,” he said. “I just tried to keep Sedale in front of me and do what I did best, which was defense.”

That humble, but tough-minded attitude, has served Kidd well.

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He became an assistant coach at Woodrow when his cousin, Ron Kidd, took over the basketball reins in 2000 following the resignation of legendary coach Dave Barksdale.

With Steve masterminding the defense, Woodrow won Class AAA state championships in 2004 and 2008.

“I teach defensive skills. That’s how I look at the game,” he said. “I never worry about offenses. I worry about what we can do better to stop people.”

During games, Steve and fellow assistants Gene and Brian Nabors analyze the game among themselves, but it’s Ron’s show.

“He asks questions and you tell him what you think, but the ultimate decision is the man’s sitting in the first seat,” Steve said.

But in December, Ron had to take a leave of absence for cancer treatments.

Steve suddenly found himself in that first seat as interim coach.

“It wasn’t the way you want to be a head coach,” he said. “You wouldn’t want anyone, whether family or not, to be sick and you take over.”

Kidd knew his veteran club was good enough to contend for the state championship if it continued to work, especially on defensive rebound and defense.

Coaching them was easy.

“I’ve never been around a group that practiced that hard, with that much intensity, every day from the first day until the last day we left to go to the state tournament,” he said.

Despite a few bumps in the road, the Flying Eagles performed well under Kidd and the Nabors brothers.

Cameron Hallcomb was a scoring machine. Vashawn Wood, small for a big man but strong, dominated the boards.

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Woodrow held a 7-3 record when Ron Kidd retook command of the team in early February.

It was a bittersweet moment for Steve Kidd. Of course he was delighted to see his cousin and friend healthy again, but at the same time, he knew he had done a fine job running the team in Ron’s absence.

“It was tough (giving the team back), in a way. I won’t lie and say it wasn’t,” Steve said. “But I know we’re all in there together, and my job is (to be) an assistant. That’s what I was there to do.

“Everybody has a different philosophy. If Ron would sit down and write a practice schedule, and I would write one, and Brian and Gene were to write them, they’d probably all be different. Everybody thinks you have to work on different things.”

“But the ultimate thing was that we won. Those kids won.”

The Flying Eagles survived the loss of both Hallcomb and Wood to academic problems to finish 19-7 and sweep through the tournaments on their way to the AAA championship.

“I had my doubts after (losing) Vashawn and Cameron,” Steve Kidd said. “To lose those kids and still win is a testament to Travis (Parkulo), Ryan (Powers), Mike (Fortune), Joe (Rodriguez) and all those guys.”

Woodrow’s defense shut down three powerful attacks, Martinsburg, Capital and No. 1 South Charleston, at the Charleston Civic Center to claim the prize.

Steve Kidd takes pride in that defense, but no laurels for himself.

“I’ll never take credit for winning a game,” he said. “Those kids really deserved it.”

He’s not adverse to becoming a head coach again one day, but says he doesn’t think a lot about it.

“I’ve had people contact me about coming and coaching, but it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to go,” he said.

“(The interim job) was what I had to do and I enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe one of these days I’ll get my shot.”

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Sports has always been a big part of Kidd’s life.

A Woodrow graduate, he ran first on the Flying Eagles’ 1982 state champion 4x100, 4x200 and shuttle hurdle relay teams. He also finished second to a teammate in the 165-yard low hurdles (now the 300-meter low hurdles).

“Concord didn’t have a program, or I probably would have run track,” Kidd said. “I loved track meets, and coach (Pete) Culicerto was a great track coach.

“They were grueling practices, but Coach always said on Saturdays you’ll appreciate every bit of it and we did. We won every track meet we participated in.”

Kidd knew he wanted to coach one day, even before high school. His father Norman Kidd was his first coach, back when everyone learned basketball at the YMCA.

At Concord he majored in physical education, and after graduation he began coaching at Stratton Junior High, assisting Bernie Bostick. The Bulldogs played in a championship game in six of the seven years he coached there.

Kidd went on to coach track at Woodrow for 13 years and also assisted Bob Bolen at The College of West Virginia (now Mountain State University) for two seasons.

From 1993 to 2000, he also assisted Culicerto with football at Woodrow.

That was the one sport Kidd didn’t play when he was in school.

“I didn’t play and I should have, and I felt like I kind of let Coach Culicerto down,” he said. “I was a better football player, but I liked basketball better.”

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He stayed one year after Culicerto retired, then turned his full attention back to basketball.

In 2004, he took over the City of Beckley’s women’s summer league.

Under his leadership, the league is bigger and better than ever, and key to the continuing success of southern West Virginia girls basketball.

“We’ve got 36 teams, the most we’ve ever had,” Kidd said. “We have two state tournament teams (AA champion Summers County and AAA semifinalist Woodrow), and (current or past hoops powers) PikeView, James Monroe, Wyoming East and Clay County. They’re all getting better.”

Teams as far away as Summersville and Richwood are in the league, and last year Blacksburg, Va., entered a team.

“The price of gas makes it tough, but you have to give the parents credit for getting the kids here,” Kidd said. “Scheduling gets to be a problem with 36 teams and one gym, but Jeff Graham does it for both the girls and boys (at Woodrow) leagues.”

Kidd arrives around 4 p.m. each day and does what’s necessary, from filling in at referee to sweeping bleachers to running the concession stand with a friend, Nelson Ross.

And when someone has a complaint, Kidd hears them out.

It keeps him busy, and he likes it that way.

“I enjoy it. I don’t want an assistant,” he said.

“We have 129 regular season games and about 30 tournament games and I watch every one of them.

“If I wasn’t doing it, I wouldn’t be doing anything but sitting at home.”

— E-mail: dstillwell@register-herald.com