The Teachings of a Legendary Soul—Dr. Stephen Carp
Stephen Carp, PT, PhD, GCS, Assistant Professor
I treated a legend in the hospital two weeks ago, and last week that legend died. His name was John Chaney.
John was the Temple University men’s basketball coach for 24 years. I have long admired him as a coach, teacher, and civil rights activist.
He followed the Salesian philosophy of identifying one’s God-given gifts, working to improve them, and then using them to serve the poor, sick, vulnerable, impaired, and those in prison. His work, and his words below, are fine examples of DeSales University’s core values of gentleness, humility, and wisdom.
John’s gifts were coaching basketball and teaching. Many of my years at Temple—and there were many, with 12 years as a student and 10 as a faculty member—paralleled his, but I had never met him. I had often seen him on campus–black suit, white shirt with open collar, tie askew, or, white Temple golf shirt and khaki pants. The man had two outfits!
Two Mondays ago, on my clinical day at a hospital in Philadelphia, I was assigned to perform John’s physical therapy consultation. I knew this was the correct “John” when the first line in the attending physician’s consult was: “This 88-year-old retired basketball coach…” That line is misleading in that he was so much more than that. Even though he won two coach-of-the-year awards and placed many players into the NBA, he was a teacher and civil rights activist.
Born into poverty in Florida, his father moved the family to Philadelphia to find work. John became one of the best high school basketball players in Philadelphia history. Due to his skin color, he did not matriculate at a major college. He was educated and played basketball at Bethune Cookman, a small historically black college. After graduating, he played a few years for the Harlem Globetrotters, and then accepted a coaching position at Cheyney University, a small college outside of Philadelphia.
Peter Liacouris, the president of Temple University, (and ironically also my patient 10 years ago), later chose him to coach Temple.
After reviewing the EMR notes, I entered John’s room. Protecting John’s privacy, I will not divulge his many ailments other than to say he was a very sick man. The room was dark and the blinds closed. As my eyes accommodated to the darkness, I noticed John’s eyes were open. This is never a good “clinical script;” typically, alert and oriented persons do not lie awake in the dark with no television or radio playing at 11:00 AM.
“I need oxygen,” he said. I looked at the monitor. His saturation was 98% on room air; he was in normal sinus rhythm, and his blood pressure and heart rates were stable. I scanned the room. The running IV’s were vancomycin, a potent antibiotic, and saline. A foley catheter bag hung on the lower bed rail. The breakfast food tray was undisturbed, another concerning sign.
My examination revealed a very debilitated man. His strength was 3+/5 proximally to 4/5 distally. His major joints were stiff at the ends of the ranges of motion. He was an apical breather, and I heard worrisome rhonchi in his mainstem bronchi. He was cachexic with marked decrease muscle mass. Both legs had a number of small vascular ulcerations due to peripheral vascular disease related to his diabetes. A relatively large sacral ulcer attested to the fact that he had primarily been in bed for weeks. I was able to move him from supine to sit with moderate to maximal assist; he struggled to maintain sitting and could not sit unsupported. Initially, he was very disoriented but soon became a bit more talkative and aware.
When I completed my exam, I asked if he would like to sit in a chair. He told me he was tired. I placed him back in bed, covered him, gave him the call bell, and lifted the bed rails.
Readying to leave the room, I looked at him one last time. His big eyes were bright. He looked alert and oriented. He managed a smile. I sat down.
His mind had cleared. We talked about his rehab future. We talked about people at Temple we both knew. We talked about his surgeon, Dr. John Scanlon, who is one of my dear friends. Finally, I sensed him tiring and simply said, “I cannot speak for anyone but myself but you made such an impression on my life. You entertained me for decades with your basketball teams and your coaching methods helped teach me to be a better educator.” I continued, “Some say you deserve to have won a national championship.”
John summoned the energy to prop himself onto his right elbow. In that scratchy voice we loved he said “A national title was never my aim. If we won one that would have been good, but I have no regrets. With such powerful teams at Temple, I could have recruited players who would have brought a national championship to Temple. For me, that would have been the easy way out and counter to my role in life. My aim was to give basketball scholarships to the poorest of the poor—to give them a chance to move out of poverty through a good education, and actively teaching them to act the right way. How hard those kids had it.”
At this point he stared ahead obviously thinking of the difficulties those children of poverty endured, perhaps matching them to his own years of poverty.
The Herman Hesse quote comes to mind: “Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else…. Knowledge and experiences can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. We need to live it first.”
He continued, “If you or I had grown up in such abject poverty, we would most likely be tempted by the same evils as they. I saw my role in life to give them an opportunity, a chance, which no one else could give them. They were good players—some great like Aaron McKie and Eddie Jones—but so many were just kids who needed a break. That was what was important to me, to help those poor kids with my gift of being head coach at Temple.”
As I write these thoughts, I can’t help but think that this great soul is continuing to teach us through our reflections and memories of him.
Dr. Stephen Carp is an assistant professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program.