Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 3, 1992 TAG: 9203030072
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Now if the little tyke likes heaving the old ball around, fine.
The idea is, don't pressure the kid. Let the game come to him or her. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be.
Of course, sometimes parents aren't so enlightened to the mysteries of modern child psychology.
Jack and Teresa Maher were enlightened.
They also had basketballs hanging around the house. So what are they supposed to do? Tell little Jon, their first-born, not to play with them?
"He could dribble when he was 2," Teresa Maher said.
You might decide that a kid who dribbles anything besides his cereal at that age could have a promising future in the game.
And you would be right, as Maher has proved many times for Blacksburg High School.
But arriving at that future had its own pressures - pressures similar to those felt by a kid who brings home shabby grades to his parents the educators.
Jon Maher could tell you all about that (the educator parents, not the shabby grades).
He also can tell you a little about struggling out there on the court, maybe making a knuckleheaded play or a disastrous pass, in front of parents with some expertise in the game of basketball.
You'd never fool Teresa Maher. She played NCAA Division I basketball, as well as field hockey, before transferring to a smaller school to get married and play some more basketball.
Nor is there much that gets past Jack Maher. He plays in two adult leagues - the high-test Blacksburg town league, which his team won two years in a row, and the graduate-student-faculty league at Virginia Tech, where he is an assistant professor of accounting.
He has coached teams of various descriptions for the past 14 or so years. He has played and coached professionally on distant shores.
Jack Maher also was the most valuable player at the 1976 Division III Final Four. His team, Scranton University, won the national championship that year.
How'd you like to gag on a layup in front of parents like that?
Jon Maher will tell you they're cool, though. No big deal.
"It's made it a lot easier for me," said Maher, a senior forward who stands 6-feet-5 and was the New River District scoring and rebounding champion. "It gives me somebody besides my coach [Bob Trear] who can give me some criticism.
"It's really helped my game."
By extension, it has helped Blacksburg, which plays tonight in a Group AA Region IV tournament opener.
Of course, it hasn't been that long since Jon could even beat the old man in a game.
Jack, 37, says Jon would prevail these days.
However, that has not been clearly established. They haven't played in a while. Even people who have half their back yard paved over for a basketball and general-use kid's playground facility have busy schedules.
Among his many other pursuits, Jack Maher, the father of four, is coaching a kids' team in Blacksburg.
"He's a pretty demanding coach," said Jon Maher, who should know. "He gets into it. He's not the type who yells or screams, but he's very active in games and practices."
Teresa Maher's basketball playing has been limited in recent years.
"I play with the neighborhood kids," she said. "They think I'm pretty tough."
Teresa Maher, who considers her age classified information, has teaching and coaching in the blood, too. She got a masters' degree in education when Jon was a toddler and Jack was a player-coach for a club team in New Zealand. She also has coached her share of youth soccer teams.
Jack got the job in New Zealand right out of college. It was a terrific way to wind down after a heady four years.
How many guys get to marry their high school sweetheart, have their first child and win the national basketball championship, all before graduating from college?
Jack, a 6-foot-2 guard, had the background for playing, coming out of Philadelphia's rugged parochial school leagues.
"A great Division III athlete," said a Scranton teammate two years ahead of Maher. "A real tough nut. That kid was the best player on the team as a freshman."
The teammate developed into something of an evaluator of talent, himself. Joe Cantafio is now the basketball coach at Virginia Military Institute.
Teresa was a product of the same Philly parochial school background. When she played basketball, the girls' game still used six players.
She continued to play after transferring from Penn State to Scranton and marrying Jack. Hoops was not a big deal at that level. The team never played farther away than about a two-hour bus ride.
That was fortunate. She had other responsibilities.
But "Being a mother on a college campus is pretty easy," she said. "You can always find a babysitter."
Jon did his share to make make life less taxing for his parents.
"He was a very healthy baby," she said. "He was never sick."
The basketball program at Scranton was pretty family-friendly in general (one of Jack's teammates also had a wife and child). Teresa and baby Jon watched his father in many a game from the window of the coach's office, which was right off the basketball court in the gym.
You might says the game just oozed into little Jon's pores.
"I've been around the game all my life," he said. "I grew to love it."
Jon would like to play college basketball. Division I interest has been lukewarm, at best, though.
One scout from a lower Division I program says Maher is an excellent shooter, but his size and speed could be a problem at that level.
"He'll play somewhere," the scout said.
That may be Division III. Wherever it is, he won't have any trouble getting into school.
He has a 3.7 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale and scored 1,250 on the college boards. He wants to be a chemical engineer.
If he does play Division III basketball, he'll never have to worry about getting all the information he needs about the sporting life at that level before he enrolls.
His parents can tell him all about it.
by CNB