Only a year and a half later, however, Westhead was ousted as coach 11 games into the 1981-82 season. Undone by a player revolt given voice by Johnson, he was replaced by Pat Riley.
Westhead, who has maintained a home in Palos Verdes Estates all these years, retains "strong feelings" about that time.
"On the one hand, it ended disappointingly," he says, noting that he had never before been fired. "But in the time I was there I helped coach the best team in the world and I walked away with a ring. You don't get many rings in your life. I realize that because it took me [27] years to get another one in the WNBA."
In between rings, Westhead embraced a breakneck style of play while mostly winning at Loyola Marymount and Phoenix . . . and mostly losing at George Mason and with the Bulls and Nuggets.
"Every coach has a game in his mind that he wants to play, that he thinks he can win with, and Paul was smitten with this theory," says former NBA coach Jack Ramsay, a Hall of Famer who coached Westhead at St. Joseph's and is cited as a mentor by his former player. "I think he enjoys being a different coach and likes creating all kinds of problems and turmoil for his opposing brethren. Nobody likes to play him. He's a pain in the butt."
And when Westhead's style is clicking, as with the Gathers-Kimble teams at Loyola Marymount, the coach's up-tempo, beat-the-defense-to-the-other-end strategy can be engrossing.
"What I do is kind of a special way to play and when you can get it going and it works, it's really exciting and captivating and the players and fans really seem to get involved," Westhead says. "When it doesn't and you lose, you wind up out.
"It's kind of clear-cut. With my deal, you're either good or you're bad, no in between. It either works or it doesn't."
Oregon, of course, is hoping that it works and that Westhead's hiring will create a ticket-buying buzz while also enabling the Ducks to reach the NCAA tournament more often than once in eight seasons, as they did under former coach Bev Smith. Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny knew Westhead through Carlesimo, a mutual friend, but says he had no prior knowledge that the former Lakers coach would be interested in the job.
"But in terms of what we were looking for," Kilkenny says, "he was a perfect candidate. The culture of Oregon athletics is about innovation, entertainment, the student-athlete experience and winning, obviously, and you put a check mark next to Paul Westhead on all four of those characteristics."
Equally important, perhaps, the nonconformist coach with a need for speed was ready to take on another challenge.
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jerome.crowe@latimes.com
