Flipping a coin is a game of chance, but for Lonnie Porter it led to the opportunity of a lifetime.
The year was 1977. Porter and Floyd Theard, two young black basketball disciples with ties to Denver and Colorado, were searching for ways to make their dreams of becoming a college basketball coach come true. There wasn’t a lot of opportunities for young black men almost 40 years ago. So when word reached them at the NCAA Tournament in Atlanta that the Regis College job in Denver was open, their interest perked up.
“Floyd was my best friend,” Porter said. “Both of us wanted to be a head coach, but we agreed that we’d never apply for the same job. We flipped a coin, and I won.”
Porter got the job and now, 38 years later, he’s approaching his last season as coach of the Rangers. Over the years, the little college nestled in the heart of north Denver has grown from a college to a university. While its notoriety has been swallowed up by the attention-grabbing professional game and major universities in the state, Porter stayed the course. He said he has no regrets.
“It has been a beautiful journey,” Porter said. “A journey from a little kid playing basketball with no shoes or a shirt and shooting hoops at crate baskets in Indianapolis to the most moving experience of being named to the (NCAA) rules committee about 10 years ago. There I was helping to make rules for the game in a meeting not more than four blocks away from where I grew up. I had to cry.”
Porter’s devotion to the game of basketball and playing the game as it should be played is undeniable. When he gives up the coaching chair after the upcoming season it’s appropriate that he will become an ambassador for Regis University. He also will continue as a director of the Porter-Billups Leadership Academy, along with Denver’s Mr. Basketball, Chauncey Billups.
The academy is designed to support the needs of inner-city youth. Porter can relate his experiences of growing up in Indianapolis.
“Our family was very poor,” Porter said. “There was trouble all around me where I grew up. I was at risk of getting involved. I spent some time in the principal’s office when I was in school, but I came through without any serious problems.”
Porter could lay claim to being Colorado’s Mr. Basketball. He came west to Adams State College in Alamosa and became the school’s first All-American in basketball. He became the head basketball coach at Denver’s Manual High School for the 1971-72 season, and the Thunderbolts won the state championship. Memories of the previous three years weren’t as satisfying. He was an assistant coach at Manual when the Thunderbolts lost to Denver South in the state title game, triggering some spectator problems outside the Denver Coliseum.
At Regis his teams are 533-482 overall. He won four conference championships, and he was named coach of the year four times.
“I always wanted to be a coach,” Porter said. “I took a little bit from everyone I was around.”
His mentors ranged from Francis Carter, his grade school coach; Murray Wier, his high school coach; Adams State coach Jack Cotton; John McLendon, an early coach of the ABA Denver Rockets; and Olympic and college coach Henry Iba.
“It wasn’t my intentions to stay at Regis this long,” Porter said. “I was going to be the big-time Division I college coach. But the more I stayed, the more I didn’t want to leave.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296, imoss @denverpost.com or twitter.com/irvmoss
Lonnie Porter
Born: July 31, 1943, in Goodman, Miss.
High School: East Waterloo, Iowa
College: Adams State
Family: Wife Sunny, daughter Staci
Hobbies: Golf, flower gardening
Bucket list: Play Augusta National
Residence: Denver
