Coach's impact: Former Timken player hears of Larry Gerzina's death, 'cries like a baby'

Boisterous Larry Wilson and smoldering Larry Gerzina expressed unforgettable personalties in their separate ways.

This spilled into years of memorable Perry vs. Timken basketball when they dueled as head coaches.

"The last time I saw him was at a gas station on Fulton near the Hall of Fame," WIlson said. "He yelled at me, then we spent 40 minutes going down memory lane."

Wilson has lived out of state for years. Gerzina, a Stark County lifer, died this week at age 86.

"I used to kid him pregame that he had a $1,000 suit on and by the end it looked like he had stolen it from a homeless person," WIlson said. "It was always a great laugh between us."

Charles "Red" Ash was one of the great characters in Stark County sports history. Gerzina came from the "school of Red."

"If you follow Stark County sports, you know the history of Stark County coaches is pretty good," said Dave Cady, a Canton Lehman graduate who became a head coach at McKinley. "We've had a lot of great high school coaches. I think Larry Gerzina could match up with any of them.

"Red was in a class by himself. Larry was a very good disciple."

Gerzina played for Canton South in the mid-1950s under Ash, a 6-foot-5 genius who, with theatrical flourish mixed with creek-side charm, won big for decades. Gerzina was a bit older than one of Ash's two NBA players, Howard Joliff.

"Larry was a senior at South when I was a sophomore," said Dan Brooks, a lifelong friend of Gerzina. "He wasn't one of Red's scorers, but I'll tell you what, he was fierce on the boards. He got the ball for the Wildcats."

Gerzina went from high school to the military before coming home, a newlywed. His wife's name was Carol Shew when they were together at Canton South.

He spent seven years at the Timken Company while grinding out a teaching degree at the University of Akron. He was a decade removed from South and out of the public eye when Ash coached his best run of players, including Dick Cunningham and Ron Young.

Gerzina slipped back into the local sports scene as a football/basketball coach and science teacher at Hartford Junior High. His coaching life grew from there.

"We competed against each other as freshman coaches," Cady said. "Larry was at McKinley. I was at Timken. We practiced together at old McKinley high school, which had a couple of gyms.

"They were brutal places to practice. There was no heat most of the time. We scrimmaged against each either almost every night.

"One year the roles were reversed. Larry was freshman coach at Timken. I was freshman coach at McKinley. We played each other in the Field House on a Saturday morning.

"In the tradition of Red Ash, Larry liked to work the officials. He was upset with a call. An official came over and Larry had a water bottle in his hand.

"Larry claimed it was by accident, but he squirted the official. I didn't think it was an accident. I yelled at the official to call a technical, and he did, but he called it on me.

"Larry never let me forget it."

Gerzina and Cady had front-row seats to the all-time drama in Canton City Schools, when four high schools (Lehman, Lincoln, McKinley, Timken) were pared to McKinley and Timken for the 1975-76 school year.

"It was a strange time," said Tony Armstead, who was a freshman athlete at McKinley in 1972-73, transferred to Timken in 1973-74, played for Timken in 1974-75, and was a senior at "new Timken" in 1975-76. "When it went down to two schools, you had a choice to go to either one."

Ken Newlon, who had been head coach at Lincoln, became head coach at "new McKinley." Don Everett, who had been head coach at McKinley, became head coach at "new Timken."

Gerzina shifted from McKinley to "new Timken."

"I first met Larry when I was a freshman," Armstead said. "He was down to earth. He built personal relationships with everyone. Then he became a head coach."

Gerzina was near 40 when he replaced Everett, at the urging of former Timken coach Fred Harold, who rarely missed a game during Gerzina's 22-year run.

One of Gerzina's better players was Steve Doss, Timken Class of 1984.

"Larry made us very competitive," Doss said. "I don't mean to curse, but at practice, he kicked our ass (laughing).

"If Larry had to come out on the floor and demonstrate during a drill, somebody was getting an elbow. I caught a few. He would go at me. I gave it back to him. He would laugh. Larry wanted tough players.

"He advocated for his players in everything. He preached doing the right things in school, doing the right things when no one was around."

Preacher Gerzina's standing sermon: "To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, and to be late is to be left behind."

Doss later coached for 10 years on Gerzina's staff.

"It was eye-opening," Doss said. "He went into players' homes. If a family's electricity got turned off, Larry gave them money to get it turned back on. If the family ran out of food, Larry bought food. Larry gave me money to go get food.

"One time he said, 'Hey, Doss, I need you to take this wrapped box to the post office.' It was addressed to a prison. He said, 'That's a guy who used to play for me.'

"Larry did that on into his 70s. If he found out one of his players needed something … boots, shoes, coats … he'd send them stuff. Is that crazy?"

This week, Doss phoned a former teammate in his 50s with news of Gerzina's death, at age 86.

"He bawled like a baby," Doss said. "He told me, 'My father was not in my life all the time. Larry Gerzina was like a father to me.' He had to pull his car off the road."

Kevin Henderson recalls exactly where he was — Room T-100 at Timken High School — when Gerzina surprised him one day.

"I coached football at Timken a couple years," Henderson said. "Larry walked in and said, 'You ever thought about coaching basketball?' I said, 'Coach, I don't know a lot about basketball.' He said, 'I'll teach you. I like the way you handle kids.'

"Larry gave a lot of kids an opportunity to excel at basketball, and he gave guys an opportunity to coach."Henderson spent most of the 1990s on Gerzina's Timken staff.

"McKinley was always loaded back then," said Henderson, who, at 66, rescued St. Thomas Aquinas a few months ago when the Knights needed a head football coach. "We were up against it. Larry told us we could compete against McKinley and possibly beat 'em.

"Coach always put high expectations on the players we got. He didn't look at our players as any less.

"We faced McKinley in the district finals when we had Jimmal Ball, Troy Robinson, Landon Watkins and a pretty good team. We had 'em but let it slip away."

Ball, a magical guard, wound up playing 14 seasons of pro basketball. McKinley fans constantly told him he should have been a Bulldog.

Ball's older brother played for Gerzina, who was a big reason Ball chose Timken and stayed there.

"Coach Gerzina always talked to me about leadership," Ball said. "He told me I was capable of things I was not showing, that I was just being a good basketball player.

"He had an interesting way of getting things across. He touched a deeper part. He wanted me to affect other people's lives, and that's something I really didn't have as a laid-back, soft-spoken kind of guy. We had many conversations about that.

"We became close. When I was older and would be home in the summer, I appreciated going to his house and getting to know him away from basketball."

Dave Hoover arrived from the Columbus area as head coach at McKinley the year Ball was a Timken senior.

"My first game was against Larry's Timken team," Hoover said. "We were behind at halftime. I wondered if there would be for-sale signs in my yard.

"We came back and won, but Larry had a really good team, and we faced them again in the district finals."

Hoover eventually piloted McKinley to state championships in 2005 and 2006. He and Gerzina shared Memorial Field House across four seasons in the late 1990s before Gerzina retired.

"I was thinking about Larry today," Hoover said. "This never occurred to me until now, but he probably was a little bit like (former Michigan State head coach) Jud Heathcote.

"Like Jud, if you watched Larry sometimes on a bad night, you might think he's a gruff guy who grunts at you a lot.

"Larry wasn't the type to come up and start a conversation if you didn't know him. He had a little surly look on his face from time to time.

"He actually was a very funny guy. He was caring. He was passionate about Timken and about his players. He would do anything for anybody.

"I always appreciated the work Larry did at Timken. We got along great."

Gerzina was 63 when he handed the Timken reins to Rick Hairston in 2000.

"My first two years in Stark County were at Hartford Middle School," Hairston said. "Then Larry put me on his staff at Timken.

"Larry was very demanding, really getting after guys. Every time somebody made a mistake, he made everybody do pushups. He'd do the pushups with everybody else.

"By the end of practice Larry would have done 200 or 300 pushups. He did that every single day, and this was at the end of his career.

"I pattern my practices the same way he did, although I can't do pushups the way he did. All of our players got that toughness from him."

Gerzina coached somewhat in the Fred Harold tradition.

"Larry wanted get get after you defensively, press you, trap you, and then he wanted his teams to get up the floor and get a quick bucket, so he could turn around and pressure you again," Hairston said.

WIlson, the former Perry coach, recalled, "His teams might press you or drop to a half court man-to-man and just jump in your face. It was always a fight to the end.

"He was a gracious man and a good coach who stuck to his principles."

Hairston was head coach at Timken until it closed, when Canton City Schools reduced to just one high school, McKinley. He then spent three years piloting McKinley before taking some time off and resurfacing as head coach at GlenOak two years ago.

Steve Doss remained close to the family as Gerzina dealt with Alzheimer's in recent years.

Doss has developed a deep respect for Larry's wife of 66 years.

"Carol's a saint," Doss said. "She was the perfect person for Larry … great wife, great mother, great mother figure to guys on the team.

"She made sacrifices. Their daughters made sacrifices. Coaching is time-consuming. Carol probably made Larry a lot better. Without that home support, Larry couldn't have done what he did, bro."

It seems fair to suggest Alzheimer's is a wicked disease that saps the victim's outward personality and leaves friends and family not knowing how to respond.

Prayer was and is a common response among Gerzina's friends.

Calling hours were earlier this week at Kreighbaum Sanders Funeral Home, across the street from Canton South High School, a mile from Gerzina's longtime church, North Industry Christian.

Hairston paid respects on Wednesday.

"Larry came to see GlenOak play at McKinley last year," Hairston said. "He sat at the end of our bench. I have only respect and love for him.

"I'm just glad that he gets to go to heaven now."

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Larry Gerzina dies; obit for Canton Timken High School basketball coach