SPORTS
8A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2021
Remembering Gary Sather
Former players reflect on life, impact of man who shaped Oregon high school girls basketball
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
JOSEPH — To many
outside Wallowa County,
Gary Sather was the archi-
tect of the fi rst high school
girls basketball dynasty
in Oregon, a coach who,
by guiding Joseph to three
straight state titles and a
79-game winning streak,
became an instant legend
and helped put the Joseph
Eagles on the map.
But to those close to
him, Sather was a father
fi gure. He was a gen-
tleman who had integ-
rity, who never raised his
voice, who was an encour-
ager, someone who led by
example, and much more.
“Everything he ever
said or did was always
kind of done with a smile,
even him getting after you,
although he didn’t do that
very often,” said Julie Jor-
gensen, who started each
game during the Eagles’
three-peat in 1981-83. “He
was kind of fatherly, but
never tried to take the place
of anyone’s father. He had
a presence about him. He
had smiling eyes, because
everything was said with a
smile.”
Sather died in late March
at the age of 84, 40 years
after he led the Eagles —
often referred to as the
E-gals in print at the time
— to their fi rst state title
and undefeated season.
His former players
remember him for his
kindness, for his genuine
demeanor, for being a man
who was the same on the
court, in the classroom and
in his day-to-day life.
Loved by his players
Sather quickly gained
the respect of his players
and students. Pat Mallon,
a senior on the 1982 boys
basketball team that
reached the state tourna-
ment, said Sather’s presence
and demeanor made him
someone you quickly looked
up to or wanted to please.
“He was just a real gen-
tleman, and just (had) a
presence that garnered
respect immediately,” he
said.
Jorgensen said Sather’s
approach helped him earn
respect from players.
“ He had that wisdom
of how to deal with teen-
agers, boys and girls,” she
said. “He treated us well,
treated us with respect so it
made it easy to respect him.
He was kind of by nature a
gentleman.”
They also knew that, if
needed, they had an advo-
cate during diffi cult times,
or when they needed input
on a major decision.
“That’s what I think
sticks with us, is that rela-
tionship stayed over time,”
said Karen Patton, one of
the standout players on
the 1981 and 1982 teams.
“When he found out my dad
passed away, he called, and
we talked. When I coached,
he was a mentor, and we
talked often.”
Susie Coughlan, also a
member of the ‘81 and ‘82
teams, was a neighbor of
Sather’s, and said he took
the players under his wing.
“When it came time for
me to look for a job, I had
a very fi rst job off er given
to me, and I was leery of it.
I had to commit for three
years,” she said. “He just
said, ‘You know, Susie, if
someone saw something in
you this early, someone else
will.’”
Sather’s encourage-
ment reassured her she
wasn’t making a mistake by
turning down the off er, and,
indeed, the right position
ONLINE
Find more photos of the late Gary
Sather with some of his teams at
lagrandeobserver.com.
storm of people at the time.”
“We all trusted him, and
when he said, ‘Here is the
game plan,’ that is what we
did,” Patton said.
The wins started coming
in a fl urry for Joseph during
that fi rst season, but it was
never anything the players
— or Sather — focused on.
Sather instead focused
on every facet of the game,
which Jorgensen said was
vital to the team’s success.
“He hammered us so
hard in the fundamentals
that we were comfortable,”
Jorgensen said. “There
was no need to hype us up.
He never talked about the
win streak. He would say
‘Everyone else is talking
about it. We don’t need to.’”
Jorgensen said with
Sather’s coaching style,
teaching the fundamen-
tals meant starting with the
small things and building up
to a polished product. Every
detail mattered.
And when the Eagles
took the court, “it just
became automatic,”
McCadden said. “We didn’t
make very many mistakes.”
Wins, then championships
Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Gary Sather is shown during the state tournament in 1983. The Jo-
seph girls basketball team, guided by the local legend, won its third
straight state title that season — all under Sather’s watch. Sather
died March 21, 2021.
came her way shortly after.
On the sideline, Sather
didn’t raise his voice,
which the players appreci-
ated, even more so later by
those who became coaches
themselves.
“One of the things that
stuck with me about his
coaching style is he was
not a screamer during the
game,” Jorgensen said.
“I didn’t appreciate that
as much until I started
coaching my own kids
and rec teams. I found
myself being somewhat of a
screamer during the game.”
Jim Hayes, a member of
the 1987 boys third-place
team, put it this way: “You
could always hear his voice.
He wasn’t a yeller, but you
could hear him. You wanted
to be in tune with what he
wanted to say.”
On-court success
Sather coached at
Joseph at the tail end of
his three-decade career.
He spent his fi nal 12 years
in Joseph — four of them
coaching both the boys and
girls basketball teams. He
had a coaching resume that
saw him not only be a head
coach for boys and girls bas-
ketball in Joseph, but even
volleyball.
He got his start coaching
in Oregon at Wasco County
in 1960, where he coached
the boys basketball program
for nine years, then he spent
a decade at Neah-Kah-Nie
— also coaching boys hoops
— before heading to Joseph
for more than a decade. He
wrapped up his career in
1990.
Sather is best known for
his run with the Joseph girls
— a 27-0 season in 1981,
a 24-0 campaign in 1982
and a 26-0 run in 1983. But
he also won more than 300
games across three decades
coaching boys hoops at his
three schools. His best boys
squad was in 1987, when the
Eagles took third at the state
level with a 23-3 record.
And in 1981, a Sather-led
Eagles volleyball team took
fourth at state during one
of his two stints as coach of
the school’s volleyball pro-
gram, which he led for a
total of six years. He even
served as an assistant foot-
ball coach.
“He was a better bas-
ketball coach, but the cool
thing about him and vol-
leyball is he knew he didn’t
know much about it, so
he wasn’t afraid to say,
‘What do we do here?’”
1982 Joseph graduate Dixie
McCadden said.
Sather had two decades
under his belt when he
took over as the girls head
coach prior to the 1980-81
season. The Eagles had sev-
eral players back from a
team that took fi fth at state
in 1980.
“I think that we had the
skills,” McCadden said. “I
think we would have been
good no matter what coach
(we had, but) I don’t think
we would have been what
we were without him. We
were faster, taller, deeper in
the bench. It was the perfect
Joseph completed its fi rst
undefeated season with a
40-38 win over Pilot Rock
in the title game when
Patton hit the winning shot
in the closing seconds.
“He had called a tim-
eout, and he told us to run
our off ense and said to
me, if I get a chance, drive
baseline,” she said. “Cindy
Turner is our point guard
and made it happen. She got
the ball to me. I remember
thinking, ‘I have to do this,
it’s what he said to do and it
has to work.’”
Along the way, the
Eagles knocked off a team
in Corbett that became a
rival of sorts come playoff
time. Corbett won the state
title the previous year,
edging Joseph in the semifi -
nals by a 41-39 margin.
In 1981, the Eagles took
down Corbett 61-52 in the
quarterfi nals, then won a
low-scoring battle, 33-24,
over Yoncalla in the semifi -
nals on the way to the title-
game win over Pilot Rock.
It was the start of a spe-
cial time on the court,
though for some players it
didn’t immediately register
how special the run was.
“I knew we had done
something really important
in ‘81 when the whole town
greeted us after we won.
That was pretty touching,”
McCadden said.
The streak hit 30, then
40, and reached 51 when the
team won its second straight
title in 1982 in a game that
didn’t come down to the
wire — a 56-39 blowout
over Sacred Heart.
“I don’t know that there
was a lot of thinking about
it back then,” Patton said of
the streak.
Win No. 50 came against
Corbett in the semifi nals in
yet another showdown, with
the Eagles hanging on for a
43-40 victory.
That 1982 run also
was special in that Sather
coached the boys team
to state, though their run
ended prematurely with two
straight losses.
“We never really excelled
until we got to district and
regionals,” Mallon said. “It
was really magical, to tell
you the truth. I don’t think
any of us had an expectation
of winning districts. We
were going to play our best,
run the system.”
Exceeding expectations
The streak was supposed
to end following the 1982
season.
“We lost the size on
our team, and I think a lot
of people thought it was a
big drop in talent, which
it was,” Jorgensen said. “I
never felt stressed going into
a game feeling, ‘Oh no, we
can’t be the one to lose the
streak.’ He kept us focused
on our job.”
The team faced
numerous challenges in the
playoff s that year, but over-
came them all.
The fi nal four wins
Joseph earned — which
moved the winning streak
to 77 games — came by a
combined eight points, and
included one-point wins
over Wasco County (41-
40) and Crow (58-57) and a
three-point victory against
North Douglas (43-40) to
reach the fi nal. The bat-
tle-tested Eagles fought off
a fourth close contest to
complete the title trifecta by
defeating Harrisburg for the
1983 crown, 50-47.
The run fi nally did end
with a 30-26 overtime loss
to Wallowa on Dec. 10,
1983, in the third game of
the 1983-84 season, capping
the streak at 79 games. That
season saw Joseph go 11-9.
Sather stepped down as the
girls coach following the
season.
In 1987, the boys team
made a run to the state
semifi nals before slipping
by Portland Christian in the
third-place game, 74-72, to
take third and go 23-3. To
date, it’s still the best run
ever by a boys basketball
team at Joseph.
Hayes, one of the seniors
of that team, said Sather was
the same as he was when his
cousin, Patton, and brother,
Blane Hayes, placed in the
early ‘80s.
“He was completely a
straight-shooter in the class-
room and when he was
coaching,” Jim Hayes said.
The standards were always
the same.”
Sather coached the boys
three more seasons after the
1987 run before hanging up
the whistle in 1990.
He fi nished his career
with a record 302-378 in
31 years as a boys coach,
and 88-9 as a girls coach.
His combined mark was
390-387.
Refl ecting
After retirement, Gary
Sather and his wife of 65
years, Jeannine, remained
integral parts of the com-
munity until they moved
out of Northeastern Oregon.
It was during a class
reunion about two decades
after the fi rst championship
that the court was renamed
after the local legend.
“He was very humbled
by it,” Patton said. “He was
very surprised, humbled,
and that was really when he
spoke to all the factors that
went into those successful
years, that it wasn’t him.
We would all argue that
maybe not, but he was a big
part of it.”
Sather’s passing left a
hole in the basketball com-
munity in the city of Joseph
— especially those whom
he aff ected the most.
“He still means a lot to
me personally,” McCadden
said. “I don’t have a nega-
tive thought about him. The
last time I saw him was at a
reunion a few years ago. He
was still the same guy. He
was a positive, caring guy.
He wanted to know how we
were doing, and when he
asked it he meant it.”
McCadden said she felt
lucky to have had Sather as
a coach.
“I played three sports
in high school and in col-
lege,” she said. “He was
by far the best coach I had
in any sport.”
Grande Ronde Hospital and Clinics is
pleased to announce that Blue Mountain
Associates, an outpatient mental health
treatment center, will become part of the
GRH health system. The transition to the
new GRH Behavioral Health Clinic takes
effect June 1, 2021. For more information,
visit grh.org/behavioralhealth.
GRH Behavioral Health Clinic Providers (back row from top)
Joel Rice, MD; Mary Goldstein, LCSW; Jim Sheehy, LCSW;
(front row from top) Brittany Pryce, LCSW; Heather Holland,
MSW, CSWA; and Gloria Turner, LCSW.