Hawaii Circle of Honor inductee Alvin Saake died of cancer of the pancreas yesterday at his apartment at One Kalakaua Nursing Home. [ ALVIN SAAKE / 1915-2003 ]
‘Father of Division I
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Basketball in Hawaii’ diesBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comSaake, 88, put in 42 years of service for University of Hawaii, nine of them as the coach of the basketball team. His imprint on the program is still felt today.
"He was as good a friend as I've had in basketball, I consider him the father of DI basketball in Hawaii," Hawaii coach Riley Wallace said. "He will be missed."
Saake was 94-122 from 1951-1954 and 1957-1963., but the players on the floor say that it was in no way an accurate measure of the kind of coach he was. They say his ability to take a group of small Hawaii guys and upset Southern California, Oregon State and Washington are more indicative of his ability than the overall record.
"He was real smart, a super intelligent person," former player Allan Yokomoto said. "He had his own system that worked for us."
Saake did it by drawing up a 2-3 zone defense before every coach in the nation was schooled in it. Wallace and others credit him with being a pioneer of the scheme, which he expounded on as the senior member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and frequent contributor on theories of the game to its magazine.
"I think I probably was on Al Saake's first varsity team, the one I call the last of the local boy teams," Tom Yasuhara, who played for Sakae in his first stint, said. "He was the master of the zone defense and getting the most out of his players. We played a number of mainland colleges and our center was 6-foot-5 and he devised his system that allowed us to seal off the inside and compete with the big guys. He evened things out for us."
Saake's nine years as head coach were just a small part of his life, though, as he served as a batboy for the Brooklyn Dodgers when he was 11 and roomed with Paul 'Bear' Bryant in his only year as a football player at Alabama. He served in the military at the tail end of World War II before settling into UH's physical education department. He transferred from Alabama to Ithaca (N.Y.) College, where he was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1991.
Retired Hilo coach Al Manliguis remembers Saake as a smart man who dispensed advice all the way to the end of his coaching career.
"Every time we (Hilo) went to the state tournament I would go sit and chat with him," Manliguis said. "We were watching this ball handler from Saint Louis and I said. 'look at that kid, coach, he's cocky, isn't he? He said: you were just like that. That isn't cocky, that's confident.' He was quite verbal, articulate, never at a loss for words. We always thought he should be a trial lawyer. "
Saake requested no service.