A Front Row Seat: A Father and Son and the Bond Forged Through Basketball
Friday, December 23, 2011 | Men's Basketball
By Chris Harry
GatorZone Contributing Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The image is a mainstay in memory banks of the first family of University of Florida basketball.
Grammar school. Boys Club. Catholic Youth League. Middle school. High school. Didn't matter. Bill Donovan tried to make every one of his only son Billy's games. And once there, he didn't take a spot in the bleachers with his wife or with other parents. No chance.
Instead, Donovan would find a secluded spot -- a wall to lean on; a doorway; the stage steps at St. Agnes High; some place, any place alone -- to soak in every shot, screen, pass or pick without distraction.
“In the stands, the moms and dads would yack, yack, yack, and he just couldn't stand it,” said Joan Donovan, Bill's wife of 48 years.
Added Bill: “They'd talk about what movies they saw and what recipes they're making or where they went out to dinner. I was there to watch the game.”
When 18-year-old Billy Donovan went off to Providence College, where he'd become one of the greatest point guards in Big East Conference history, mom dared to suggest that he wouldn't be able to go off and sequester himself any longer. Not in a college arena.
Well, guess what?
“He never sat with me there, either,” Joan said with a smile. “Sure enough, he found a spot.”
Bill Donovan could always find a spot to lose himself in the game he loves, but when it came time to lock in on UF he didn't have to look very hard to find the perfect to place to watch the Gators.
That's because more often than not he's on the bench. With the team. And his son.
“It's absolutely meant the world to him,” daughter Susan Donovan said.
The Donovan Family If Christmas season is when families come together, then for the beloved patriarch of the Donovan clan the basketball season is one big holiday festival.
Check out the UF sidelines, be it before home or during most away games. The silver-haired guy toward the end of the bench has a place alongside the trainers and managers at almost every road game. He never gets in the way. Never sticks his nose in huddles. Never shares what's on his very astute basketball mind. What an opportunity.
The best part: Bill Donovan, 71, has a front-row seat for Florida basketball because Billy Donovan, 46, wants him there.
“These last 15, 16 years for me -- oh my gosh! -- have been phenomenal,” Bill Donovan said. “I played basketball growing up. When Billy was young, we'd watch games on television and I'd take him to see the Knicks. And now, to be able to be around the team and go to all the games and knowing Billy wants me to be a part of it all, I'm just so blessed I can't even tell you.”
Imagine having an all-access pass to watch your son guide his team to back-to-back national championships. Think what that must be like for a father.
“My dad loves basketball,” Billy Donovan said. “The relationship we have has really been great and for the sacrifices he and my mom made for me growing up, you know, to have them down here in Florida and to be able to have him with me and take him on road trips and have a place for him with the team, in some ways I think I've been able to enrich his life. Just the same, in many ways, he put me in position to what I'm doing now.”
Bill Donovan was a basketball star at Boston College, where he left in 1962 as the school's No. 3 all-time scorer with 1,012 points. The Celtics had his territorial rights, but they also had Bob Cousy, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones and had just drafted some guy named Havlicek.
“Red Auerbach suggested I should go do something else,” Bill Donovan laughed.
So Bill went into the Army for a couple years and along came Billy in 1965. Dad was coaching seventh- and eighth-grade boys when and he'd turn his 2-year-old toddler loose for underhand shots after practice. After that, the kid was hooked.
But Bill Donovan was never a father who pushed basketball on his son. He didn't have to.
“I loved the game,” Billy said. “With parents, there's such a fine line between destroying a kid's confidence and having them think they're better than they really are. With [my father], it was never like that. He was very straight and direct with me. He'd say, 'You're a 6-foot white kid. They're a dime a dozen, so if you want to play the game you need to figure out a way to separate yourself.' When I wanted advice, I'd ask and he'd give it to me.”
The bond was forged, not forced.
Bill Donovan in front of the basket he built in front of their house in Long Island in 1978. “Basketball was in Billy's blood,” said Joan, who recalled when the family moved into a new home on Long Island in 1978 that one of the first things her husband did was put down a basketball court for their 13-year-old gym rat. “God forbid I get a new dress.”
The bouncing ball was a great release for the elder Donovan, who was in the midst of a nearly three-decade career in the textile business, working his way from sales trainee to president of J.P. Stevens, a $500 million corporation. As cut-throat as corporate life could be, though, his son's outings on the hardwood were agonizing in their own way.
“If Billy had a game at night, my dad would never eat. His stomach and his nerves would just be turned upside down,” Susan recalls. “I guess when you're passionate about something, you get worked up and excited about it. Basketball was that passion, for sure.”
At age 53, Bill Donovan retired from J.P. Stevens to branch off with his own textile brokerage business. The year was 1994 and his son was on the verge of getting his first head coaching job at Marshall.
Bill Donovan made as many Thundering Herd games as he could, but when Billy got the Florida job in March 1996 it was just too perfect. With their children gone, the Donovans downsized from their home in Rockville Centre, N.Y., and got a second place in Gainesville to stay during the winter season.
Winter season being basketball season, of course.
In the years since, a parade of UF stars have come through and come to know Bill Donovan as one of their own. From his seat next to Billy on the team plane to his participation in shoot-arounds, his gregarious personality and unmistakable laugh, to the outrageous socks that one player compared to the footwear on the curling toes of the Wicked Witch of the West, everyone has embraced the coach's dad as part of the program.
Joakim Noah even lovingly referred to Bill Donovan “Mr. Two-Bits.”
“He's a cool guy who's full of so much energy,” senior point guard Erving Walker said. “It doesn't matter who you are, he's going to be friendly, he's going to be outgoing ... and he's going to be loud.”
Ah, that laugh.
“I just love being around it all,” Bill Donovan said. “It keeps me young.”
The family loves what it's done for him, too. Every member has a video copy of the night the Gators won that second NCAA title. Amid the post-game celebration, one CBS camera showed a close-up of Bill Donovan with a smile as big as the Georgia Dome.
“My dad's emotions are always in check, but that smile said it all,” remembers Karen Reilly, youngest of the three Donovan siblings. “The look on his face, well, it was like he was jumping up and down inside. My dad was never the kind of father who constantly was telling his kid how great he was. But that look on his face that night, it was like, 'My gosh, he did it again!' You could just tell he was so happy and so proud.”
Almost like he was part of the team... which he was.
And always will be.
“I think Billy has many coaching years left in him,” Bill Donovan said. “And I can do this as long as he can.”
