76ers InsidersIn this special episode, we take a closer look at the remarkable journey of head coach Nick Nurse, tracing his roots back to Carroll, Iowa. Join us as we explore how Nurse's upbringing shaped his coaching philosophy and prepared him for the challenges of the NBA. We’ll dive into personal anecdotes, local legends, and the influences that fueled his passion for basketball. Featuring exclusive interviews, this episode highlights the small-town values and relentless drive that have defined Nurse's career. Whether you’re a Sixers fan or a basketball enthusiast, this deep dive into Nick Nurse’s past will give you a fresh perspective on the man leading the team. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover the heart and history behind the coach!
I'm Sorry's Meg Sie and you're listening to the seventy six Ers Insider's podcast.
This podcast is part of the seventy six Ers podcast network, presented by Stern and Cohen Law search seventy six Ers Insiders wherever you get your podcasts. Suffering an injury at work can cause physical pain, but also great uncertainty about your rights. You need to retain a worker's compensation law firm that is a winner like our sixers, a firm that gets some of the best settlements, but is also willing to go toe to toe with the insurance company. No settling on the cheap. This is Philly. We have grit and fight in us. Call the workers Compensation Law Firm of Stern and Cohen or visit their site Sterncohenlaw dot com. The consultation is free. Stern and Cohen are the official partners of the seventy six Ers. They'll go ring the insurance company's bell. Welcome to a special edition of the seventy six Ers Insiders podcast. I'm Matt Murphy and this is about where Nick Nurse's competitive nature was fueled. An in depth look at the Iowa roots of the seventy six Ers head coach Nurse embraces his hometown of Carol just as it has always embraced him. That's Iowa. Nurse comes home often. This particular trip was in mid August for a week of festivities ranging from a basketball shooting clinic at kember Catholic School, to the grand opening of Carol National Golf Club, and even the debut concert series for a brand new band. Nurse is a Kemper alum. He acquired said golf course last year to enhance the very place he grew up playing and happens to play the keys for the icon's band, which got its name, as he says, because quote, we only play iconic songs. They're led by Max Kerman of the award winning Canadian alt rock group r Kels. The various events benefited the Nick Nurse Foundation, which helps underserved youth in music, literacy and sports. We begin with Nick himself in a wide ranging conversation about his upbringing and coaching journey as we sit down at center court in his high school. Enjoy Coach Nick Nurse were here at Kemper Catholic Here High School in Carol, Iowa. Obviously, sports were a big part of your journey every season. I didn't know they do baseball and softball in the summer. In high school in Iowa, following in the footsteps of your siblings. You are the youngest of nine siblings and the Kemper Knights. You were football, basketball, track and field baseball. But we're going to talk about the big event of nineteen eighty five, the musical Oklahoma. What role did did music play in your upbringing and in high school here?
Well, my mom was big on making sure everybody was involved in music. Her side of the family is very musically inclined. She loved she loved musical, she loved marching bands, she loved everything church music, Oregon. You know, she she really her side of the family's musical.
I was a cowboy. I was just a just kind of a role player, you know, in the in the thing.
But I knew, I knew it was something my mom loved and would be proud that I did it. So me and a cup I talked a couple of my other sports buddies uh into into joining in, and we were.
All cowboys for the for the musical.
Was that What part of the school year was it before the state title basketball run just off the state title basketball run in eighty five.
It was after all that, it was the spring.
Yeah, okay, so you went out with a bang in here guy.
Yes, man. There's so much going on in high school like that, right. It's like we were we were playing basketball.
We were playing getting ready for track and field. Baseball was just around the corner. You sneak the musical in there. I don't know, there's all kinds of things going on.
Yeah, what have been some of your focuses or initiatives with music to get back to music and the arts programs at Kemper Catholic.
Well, there haven't been a ton yet, but I do. I did.
I went directly to the to the head of the band department and made a donation. Again, my mother loved the marching band, some of my brothers and sisters played in it, and I saw the numbers were dwindling, and I basically just wanted to have a conversation.
With her about how could we build it back up?
And usually that's going to take some years and starting at lower grades, you know, how do we build it? Get instruments to those kids, get them teachers and time to practice and all that kind of stuff. But that was the initial thing, and she I just talked to her during the camp.
You might have saw me talked.
She came out to say hello, and she said, the numbers are the highest they've ever been since she's been here this year. So we're getting there, but I know we got to do a little bit more grassroots work on that.
And on the court.
That same year, in nineteen eighty five, was the state championship basketball team. You said that the game was like the movie Hoosiers just came out a year later. What what was Carol Iowa like that whole spring or winter into spring.
Yeah, I mean it's it's, you know, a lot probably what you would think. I mean, there was a.
Home game here in the winter, and this this gym. It was a lot bigger back then, a lot more stands and held a lot more people. Of course, the school was a lot bigger. In generally we had like twelve hundred students back then. There might be quarter of that now right, But every seat was absolutely packed. They were squished in. There were so many people. The lines were I remember when I would come to the games, the lines would be down the street and around the bend. Well before you know they were getting ready to open the door for the junior varsity game, which was or the sophomore game which was going on before our game.
I mean the team was really good.
Three Division one players, which is unheard of from a small school in Iowa. Really at that time, we had the mister Basketball. We had a six to ten center. I mean there, we had a lot, we had a great coach, we had we had I'll bet you five or six guys that weren't even on the team that were or were very good high school level of basketball players. You know, everybody was behind the team. Obviously a good team, and everybody followed. Everybody went to Des Moines when the state tournament hit. For sure, there was a lot of carol people in the in the in the arena of the night of.
The state state championship.
I've heard this gym referred to as the bowling alley. Do we know why that was?
Yeah?
Well, first of all, you're sitting here, you're seeing the court go this way. When I was here at the court went this way. So they've redone, the redone the gym totally to make the court actually a little bit more regulation size.
And what I played it was narrow.
I don't know by how many feet, but it was narrow, and they had those restraining lines so you you had to stay back bind It's certainly really it really was a tight gym. It had a stage that came right to the side and then the bleachers came the other side. But it was unbelievble atmosphere for a basketball game, like unbelievable.
I imagine. It was pretty hot in here, very hot. It was very hot, and I mean it was just it was really fine, man, really fine.
Your childhood home on South Elm Street, why did you have a pole vault pit in the backyard.
Well, my older brother started pole vault and I think the reason why we had one was something happened at track practice, probably back in the early seventies, as somebody broke a pole and my brother came home with the pole like they were getting right through it away or something, and he decided to bring it home. And the next thing, you know, we were digging a hole in the ground and using that broken pole that whatever was left.
Of it to jump over.
You know, we were just imitating, right, So I guess that started it with my oldest brother and went to my next and all six of us pull vaulted, and we all did it in the backyard. We all started in the backyard at a young age.
You have the school record here.
We saw your name out in the hallway for the highest pull bolt jump, and I mentioned the list of sports that you played in high school. But you've also said that you would have played more sports if you could have. And you're obviously a basketball coach at the highest level. How did non basketball sports help shape your path as a future basketball coach.
I'm not sure exactly, although I know they did right. I'm a really big believer and people playing multiple sports, I don't know what it is.
I can't explain.
You know, what good does playing football do for bat Well, maybe tougher.
I could take a lot of hits and spend.
A lot of time in the weight room getting ready to play football. Right track was a lot of running and sprinting and technique and stuff.
You know. I don't know.
I just think it's as great, even even some of it is putting the other sport now and for a little bit and then coming back to it.
I think is just keeping.
It fresh, right when you're changing sports every season.
I felt that was a big part of it too. I don't know. We just changed with the seasons around here.
A lot of my classmates played all the sports, a lot of work.
Carol, Iowa, town of about ten thousand people. Your your father was in the postal service and painted houses on the weekends here.
Your mom was a teacher.
You had a lot of odd jobs to make some money, detasseling corn, walking bean fields, working at a clothing store. Did you did you have a favorite job or experience, Well, we're gonna have.
The clothing store was obviously the best one by a lung shot. So that place was great place. I'm really really close with the guy that owned it still to this day. In fact, he was just here in the gym earlier today.
Kay. He lives he lives.
In Dallas now, but he came back for this weekend, so I hadn't seen him for.
A little while. Beous, no doubt the best one.
The tasseling corn has great stories, but wasn't much fun. Walking beans was easier than the tasseling corn, not much.
Not many things harder than that. We bailed. Hey, I was part of the painting crew.
Every once in a while we painted some houses shoveled snow for jobs.
Too in the wintertime.
But yeah, we were always trying to well, we were we were brought up to work.
And work hard, and we were brought up that we had.
To try to get to college and to do that we were gonna have to pay our own way. So we always tried to work and save money.
How did you end up with that doctor J poster on your wall growing up?
Yeah, I think I think the one of my brothers, so I believe that it was in the It was in the center of Sports Illustrated and that that was back in you know, they would just take the staples out and the paper would come out good, and they just paid.
You know. It wasn't like we went and bought it or anything I got. But somehow we got a Sports.
Illustrated magazine and believe it was from the center of that, and one of my older brothers put it up. And I don't know, you know, how things go. Stuff stays up in the same house for thirty years, but yeah, it was above my bed in the.
End, I imagine you don't know where it is right now though.
No, we my parents both passed away and they cleaned out the house and stuff, So I'm pretty sure it was there not that many years ago.
Though.
What did you admire about Julius Irving? How is it being able to interact with him so often in your life now?
So, I mean when we.
Were that age, it was just the soaring through the air that that, you know, the finesse and athleticism he played with. You just don't see that around here, right, We didn't see that kind of that around here, And we just we just loved, you know, all that about him and how cool he seemed and all that kind of stuff too. And you know, now I've got to know him, and he's done some work for my foundation, graciously done a lot of a lot of things come to golf and we did some we did some merchandise things featuring him, and all that.
Money went to the foundation.
He's been really gracious, and obviously he's part of some of the stuff we do with Sixers, right, he's right there when we're trying to sign Paul George and all the kind of things like that.
So he's a great alum. And it's pretty surreal.
Man, to think about your little kid and you're looking up to this guy.
Now you see him quite a bit. After high school.
You went to the University of Northern Iowa on a basketball scholarship, So from an accounting degree there to becoming a basketball coach. I want to talk a little bit about coaching connections in your journey. And you're a coach here at Kemper Catholic was Wayne Chanley. How do you best describe We just got done watching you run a shooting clinic. How do you best describe his impact on your focus on shooting the basketball?
Well, that's really where it all came from.
He was, you know, the one of the most fundamental, no doubt, he focused on coaching fundamentals. Practices were not that fun, but they were really good for us, you know what. I sometimes without a ball. Yeah, we would line up almost as a freshman here.
We would come in the door, we'd line up every day.
We'd start practice like me and you shooting here, and I'd have a ball and you'd be standing there and I'd shoot it to you. When we didn't want us distracted worrying about making or missing it. He just wanted to make sure everything in their hands and feet was was right and we just shoot back and forth like fifteen minutes of that. Like when you're you know, when you're ninth grade, it.
Gets old pretty quick. But he just insisted on this doing it.
And every guy on our high school team could shoot the ball, you know what I mean, Like it's it's something that doing that at that age and doing it over and over and over, you know, ended up translating to having so many good shooters on our team.
A lesson you learned from him was if you can shoot, there's a use for you shoot.
You know, I was saving at this camp today. Two things. Man, learn how to do it, then do it right, and we try to like he taught us how to do it, and then just you know, we just kept doing it over and over and just like now I try to teach these kids this is this is what I was taught when I was your age. Maybe a few tweaks here and there, polished up a little bit, but now you've got to go do it and you gotta, you know, do the fundamentals right.
And then you can, you know, you can you can progress much quickly and then obviously a lot better.
The campers were not using traditional orange basketballs. What's the story of the nurses pill basketball and what's on it for so those near shot.
Yeah, the pill's got three different colors first of all, so you can see the rotation.
Backspin's really important. It's got a line down the middle.
We just wanted to What happened was when we started doing these camps, we had a lot of kids like you saw today, and when we try to get them hand placement, it would take them a really long time on the orange ball to like find the air hoole put their hands there. We just wanted to speed up the teaching and learning process so they could just boom, grab it, boom, put their hand there, and then when they shoot it, they can see and get immediate results on whether they're doing it right just by the colors and the line spinning. So again, it really wasn't about making or missing it. It was about doing it right and teaching and the most, you know, the fastest way we can. So's that's part of that.
After you won the finals in twenty nineteen, you had a quote that you would help your your story inspires some people who are in situations like the G League or colleges to keep on working. And speaking of inspiring, you drew some inspiration from the Chicago Bulls they're coaching their players. At what stage of your life and career were you driving from Iowa to Chicago for Bulls games.
That was when I was coaching at Grand View University, and then again when I was coaching at the IOWA Injurest. So I lived in Des Moines twice. I was coaching at Grandma University. I don't know, ninety three, ninety four, ninety five.
Something like that.
You probably your early twenties, yeah, yeah, early twenties.
Yeah.
And then when I came back to the Iowa Energy that would have been O seven, but that was more we were almost working the Bulls were one of our affiliates, and so it was more the first part when I was just getting in my car, going by myself, watching buy in the fifty dollars standing room only ticket and then trying to find a seat in there somewhere, and if not, it just stood way up top and watched the games.
It's not an easy drives. Yeah, it was about four and a half five hours each way.
How do you reflect on that now that you're an established NBA head coach coaching in Chicago and everywhere else on the NBA circuit.
There's a lot of fun, right, I mean, I mean, yeah, it sounds like what are you what are you have nuts to drive five hours, buy a ticket, watch the game, and turn around, drive home ten hours round trip.
I mean most game shows now, Yeah, But I loved it.
I think it was it was in a magical era of of basketball, like in history. It was just something to be there, even when Jordan was just bringing the ball up the floor or just when they were announcing the starting lineups. Man, the emotions that you felt and wanting to be a part of it all. And I don't know, I think it was a I think it was a driving force for me to continue to work hard and work at the game and work at my craft.
Staying on Des Moines, Iowa YEA Sixers are going to play the Timberwolves there on October eleventh in Des Moines in a preseason game, and that the Wolves head coach Chris Finch. And you have history that's been well documented, coaching connections. Why he helped you take the next step through the G League? How did he help you? Like what part of your path was he impactfulon?
Well, the the uh, the Vipers were kind of we're just intertwined.
Man, there's really no real thing in there.
So what started out is we were rivals, pretty bitter rivals in England. He was coaching the Sheffield Sharks. I was coaching the Birmingham Bullets in England. Then I went to Manchester. He was still at Sheffield. I went to London. He was still at Sheffield. But then we became really good friends.
I threw up. I threw up. There was a there was.
A sports illustrated guy writ in a book and about uh, the big game, small world, and he was coming to watch our game because he was going around the world watching like basketball rivalries, and the Manchester sheffielding was pretty anyway. I threw a big party and invited Finch to the game. We were we were kind of adversaries at the time, and I just threw a big party at my house and invited him. And from then on he came to the party, and from then on we became pretty good friends. But then Great Britain got a bid for the twenty twelve. He got the head coaching job. I was his assistant. Then we became really close. We started working really closely together. He left went to Belgium. I went to the D League and then I was in the D League for a couple of years, and I was telling him like, I'm really I feel like I'm really getting a lot better here.
Coaching in this league.
I said, you ought to you want to look, and then Rio Grand reached out to him Darryl, and they hired him. And then he left and I took his job, and I went to Toronto and hired him.
It's just it's kind of hard to explain.
It, all right, but of intertwining and certains turning, Yeah, there you go.
It was enjoyable though it Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now we're really close friends. I really I think he's a world class coach. I really respect him. He's a really funny dude. I really like him.
And for those who don't know, can you give the quick synopsis of the G League the D League team starting in des Moine, we spent four years coaching the ioway there and why were those if you don't mind adding, why were those games some of the ones that you said you've got the most nervous beforehand?
Yeah, I don't know.
I just remember being really nervous before those games, and I guess I felt like I probably felt like a lot like a D League player, our G League player, you know, they're right there.
The NBA is like right out here, you know, like you could you can feel it. And then maybe never playing against like right over here too.
And I think maybe I felt that way a little bit as like I mean, I was like, if I get this.
Done here, maybe I can maybe I can make it. And if I can't, like where am I going? You know from here?
Right?
And the first year was a little bit below five hundred, and we.
Really got to work after that first year and just got really committed to about four things we wanted to do better. And then the next year we set the lequer record for the most wins in the league, and the year after the same then we finally want it. But that was, oh man, that was special because we started that team from scratch, right, and a lot of people put a lot of faith in us to do it and run it and to see it we succeed, to see the people of the city get so behind it. We had you know, like fourteen thousand people at our championship game, eleven thousand at theother you know, like that's that's big numbers for D League minor league basketball. Anyway, good ending because it started from you know, we really started from absolute.
Scratch after seeing the arena, right yeah, they need a basketball yeah yeah, because I think team basketball to golf here in Carol, Carol National. How did this come about? What was your relationship with the Carroll Country Club growing up?
Carroll Country Club is where I grew up playing junior golf, golf everything again, all the family golf, mom and dad and Daulf other son golf tournaments. Actually played in quite a few tournaments as a junior golfer.
But then kind of when I committed to.
Basketball at seventeen or eighteen, I kind of my golf career has kind of coming gone to a play played a lot, didn't play for at all for a few years, start playing again somewhere.
Don't play, don't play at all.
Once I'm the Raptors head coach. And then we go to the pandemic and now all we can do is golf. I played about fifty times in there, and.
Now I'm back playing again. Anyway, who was your group golf in my bubble? Like? Well, I used to play with Kyle a lot. There was some other players there. There was some staff we'd go out and play with as well. From the raptors. How does your come, Kyle out?
Well, I tell you one thing that's good about when you play as a kid, right, you learn how Again, it's fundamentals.
You learn.
Like I can go, I can go a long time without ever playing and still play pretty and still hit the ball right because I learned to get a.
Kind of a decent, decent swing.
Then when I played forty days in a row like I did there, I got a lot better.
It's funny, how funny how that works. Right?
But anyway, the golf course thing, they just reached out to me, I don't know. A couple of years ago now, the club and been struggling and really going downhill, and they didn't really have.
Anyone to turn.
And I ran it by some people that know the golf business, and ran it by a few other people, and everybody thought it was a decent opportunity. Put one of my high school teammates in charge. Put another guy that's a year older than me in high school.
He's my golf pro.
He went a way to Arizona to be a golf pro for a while now, he's back running this. So we got to my Mount rushmore of golf out there. So those guys are great, we're running it, we're turning around.
I think.
I think it's like a basketball team. We've come a long ways and we got a long.
Way to go.
We've made a lot of progress where we still got a lot of things to do.
It's one way that you're giving back to your home community, a community that I understand was really there for you growing up and your siblings and your parents at times during certain challenges. And when you reflect on that word community kind of wrapping up with this, what did this community in Carol, Iowa give to you?
You trying to answer questions like this, people ask you know, what's the key?
And you got to think about it a little bit.
And when I always think about, like I think about the environment I grew up in, right, being fortunate enough to have eight older brothers and sisters, more importantly, five older brothers. Like again you've heard me say this before, but everything was a battle competition like cereal milk spoon bowl like and it goes on like that all the time. And that comes in pretty handy when you're a basketball coach. That you've got this competitive I don't even say it's it's it's certainly a competitive nature or competitive blood, but it's just like a way of being right, and I think it comes in handy.
So that was one thing.
This is a very sports minded, close knit community that you know, you we'd study sports man, we back to pole vaulting. We'd get all the Pomolting books and read.
Them and we'd watch it.
You know, it's like the earliest game film study almost and our and our coaches would watch film and we would you know, we were we were into sports Man, and we were all trying to get better and strive to reach our potential. And one of the things I learned here at this at this uh Kemper Catholic High School was you know they used to I used to.
Remember here, you know, God wants you to use.
Your abilities to the best of your ability, and that's what we were all just trying to do.
Makes an impact on your life.
Yep, Nick Nurse, thank you so much. Thank you.
The word that kept coming up for me during this story was relentless and you can read more about that in a feature article on sixers dot com. But right now, back to center court where I bring in Kemper Catholic School President John stephis class of nineteen eighty two, and he begins with his immediate takeaways after watching the Nick Nurse basketball shooting clinic.
Yeah, especially with where he's at today, to have an NBA World Championship coach in the little town of Carroll Isle, at our little school here at Kemper Catholic High School, what a gift, What a treat it is for our kids to have that. And Nick is such a well known well I don't know if it's well known that he's such a lifelong learner.
He has his PhD in his fifties, picked.
Up music later in life, well rounded, and I think those were important during his formative years that he that he learned that here in Carol, and it's a way for him to give back, and he's proud to give that back and he's just one of us. When he comes back to Carol, it looks like he wants to join us for a pickup ball game down the street, which we did a lot, and it's a treat to have him come back. We really appreciate his service and his to come all the way back to Carol.
What sport does that pick up?
The pickup game in everything? Everything?
I mean, I know, I played a little basketball. I played a lot of pickup games. I didn't get I wasn't good enough to play organized, but I played a lot of outdoor basketball, and even during college summers and breaks. And I think I remember him once even when he was I think coaching overseas and in his younger years, and he was home visiting his parents and he lived in a neighborhood down the street, he pulled around the corner and join.
Us for a pickup basketball game.
But he played everything, you know, he was the famous story of his pole vault team Mattress in the backyard and digging their own pit, and football, baseball. You know, he was doing everything. So the pickup games means all sports outside. That's what we did back in the nineteen seventies.
A lot you yourself are are Kemper Catholic class of eighty two, Nick Nurse's class of eighty five, which was a big year for the school athletically with the basketball team. What do you remember about Nick coming into the school and starting to play sports here.
Yeah, I was a senior when he was a freshman. He was pretty little, but he developed obviously, but everybody knew this is the baby.
The nine nurse kids there.
I think there were six boys, six or seven boys, and this is the baby, and everybody talked about wait till this youngest nurse comes up up the ranks. I'm sure he had lots of battles on the driveway with big brothers, and I think he became a well known floor general on the basketball court. And I remember some coaches years later saying in football, when he was a quarterback on the JV they were calling out plays and he was already a step ahead of them, saying we're going to do this right, coach, and the coach yeah, you know, So they knew early on.
I think he was a coach in all.
Sports, and of some of the football big football games still eat that coach nurse. I heard him talking about there was one where they were the better team, but some weather came involved and a coach got struck by lightning on the sidelines.
It was a playoff game and they played through the rain and the lightning. Back then, they changed the rules a lot today, but and some say that was one of the turning points of changing the rules. Was that game back in the I think it was in the fall of nineteen eighty four, So yeah, it still bugs him, meek and he knows all the fine details of those ball games back forty years ago.
And the basketball team got it done against Waterloo West in eighty five, the state title game. It was in Des Moines, the town of Carol here where the school Kemper Catholic is. They were out in full force in Des Moines. What do you remember about that about that time period of that big game.
Yeah, I was in college.
I went to Northern Iowa just like Nick did you and I so I'm a panther as well. So I didn't get to see the team a lot during high school, but I did get to that game, and so it showed a leaven. A lot of alumni in Kylee of Kemper alumni went to that game. And we had the largest by far, had the bigger crowd, even though we were the smaller sized town, and we were down the whole game, even entering the fourth quarter, and it was just a very deliberate comeback and we ended up winning by twelve.
I think so.
But Nick was always known to be the floor general and Waterloo West was so fast and so.
Running gun. But I know.
Nick was kind of was well known to keep the team calm and kept it bringing it up. The court had very few turnovers, So I remember that really well.
I imagine there are some similarities between like people following that team and people following his championship NBA team. And in twenty nineteen with the Raptors, what were you feeling when you saw everyone that gathered at Kerp's tavern in Town to follow the twenty nineteen NBA Finals run.
Yeah, I do remember that watch party. It was it was game five. I think I think the Raptors lost, but they wanted in the six game Game six, but I think a lot of us knew we were still had a lot of confidence. And yeah, that was such a memorable year with his first year, and everybody talked about Kawhi.
Leonard, but the record was pretty impressive.
When Kawhi sat out, I remember, so I think that easily led. It was a big factor of his following year without Kawhi Leonard was when he won Coach of the Year. So and it was fun to see on the TV with Charles Barklay and Shack and him getting the news. Nick received the news from his high school coach here at Kemper, Wayne Chanley.
That was a treat to watch that.
That was really cool.
I think everybody in the sports universe saw that clip of Nick's high school coach, Wayne Chanley surprising him with the NBA Coach of the Year award on the television broadcast. Nick Nurse has had so much success winning at every level. I mean state championship as a player, but then all of his coaching stops, he wins championships. What makes Nick Nurse a champion coach?
I think it was his work ethic and he learned it early on in his formative years, being the youngest of nine. I'm the eighth of ten kids. You know, if you didn't need everything on your plate and didn't have enough food at the end, too bad. So he talks about that grit growing up in a big family, small house. And obviously he loves the game, just has a passion for the game. He always talks about every position he had in his journey. He loved every job, He loved everyone. So it's really a vocation, which was what we preach at our Catholic school.
Your God's call.
And you know that he's a coach and building relationships with his players and coaches, I'm sure is at the top.
I know this is just one example of it. But what do you think that Nick giving back to the Carol community with the golf course means to the community.
Yeah, it means a lot. And he has a lot of great memories. Another example of playing multiple sports and being outside is what we did so much. So he has great memories of golfing with his dad especially, and he's and so he's got a lot of great memories of growing up here. So a way to get back and invest in the community. I didn't get a chance to talk to him about this, but I think I'm not sure if I talk to you about the Lakers court here in Carol.
I wanted to ask you about it. We're going to use you as our yeah Carol historian. Yeah, because the NBA in Carol, Iowa is coach Nurse, coach Nurse and the Lakers Park. So for those who don't know, what is the story that involves the Los Angeles now then Minneapolis Lakers And.
In nineteen sixty the Minneapolis Lakers got lost. They just got beatn St. Louis Saint Louis Hawks flying back to Minneapolis and an old restored World War two cargo plane, a DC three. The electricity went out, everything went out, communication, The engines were still running, but they were flying blind in a snowstorm in nineteen sixty, hopelessly lost in the dark, and they finally saw some lights below and the torch lights gradually slowly came on and twinkled on, and it was like a safe haven for them, and they flew around the town multiple times and finally landed in a frozen cornfield. Elgin Baylor was on that plane and the town of Carol came to the aid of the Lakers and to helped bring them safety. There were only eight teams in the NBA back then, and they came extremely, extremely close to crashing that night, so obviously the Los Angeles Lakers. They went to Los Angeles the following year with Jerry West his rookie year, but obviously the Lakers would not have They would have ended that night. So and the NBA was not very successful in nineteen sixty. In fact, there were stories of the Lakers in Minneapolis, the team owner, the kids would talk about the ponies in the backyard. The ponies were for the raffles at halftime to get people to come to the games. So the NBA was struggling, and so if the Lakers would have crashed, if Carol would not have helped save the Lakers. We say Carol helped save the Lakers, obviously, but we also in many ways helped save the progress of the NBA. So we say to all the NBA people out there, you're welcome from Carol Isle. So yeah, we have coach Nurse and that amazing Laker landing in nineteen sixty.
I mean, it's a fascinating story that I don't think as many people know then maybe should.
And now there's Lakers Park. It's an outdoor.
Basketball court on the spot really really close to the spot where the Lakers touched down in nineteen sixty. There's a basketball court in the purple and gold colors with a little blue trim and nod to the Minneapolis Lakers colors. For the fiftieth anniversary, Genie Buss came back to help dedicate the court and Nick I think sometimes I forgot about it, and Nick may have forgotten about it that he helped put me in touch with Genie Buss in twenty ten, which was the fiftieth anniversary, so she really knew the history of it. The Lakers just finished winning a championship that year, so they were in a great mood. I had asked for them to sponsor that basketball court and they sent us a nice check. But Nick helped line me up I think through an email or phone number to get me in touch with Genie. He was in the D League, G League, the Eye with Energy at the time.
Speaking of anniversaries, were about to hit the fortieth of the eighty five Yes basketball team right next year.
I didn't think it next year, So we need to have him come back.
Yeah, when he does come back here, I just want to end with this. When Nick Nurse is in Carol, how do the people treat him? Yeah, his word get around. Do they stop him on the streets.
He'd be surprised. I think a lot of people. He's just one of the you know, he's just one of the one of the guys here in Carroll, and and I think he enjoys coming back to Carroll. But yeah, hopefully with the fortieth anniversary of his state championship, maybe the Sixers have come here and have an exhibition game here at Kemper.
And you have a hat on, which is of course since it's about to be his second season coaching the Philadelphia seventy six ers. Are there going to be a bunch more Sixers fans around Carol? Is that number growing? Can we help you recruit people?
Yeah?
I would hope so sure.
Well, I know a lot of people follow him, and I have fond memories of his mom, Marcella, who's passed away. Wow, she knew every detail of the game the night before. So he really came from a sports family and a great family that everyone knew, the nurses and.
They were living here all that time.
Yep.
Well, when she was still alive.
I know he brought his whole Raptor staff here the year before I think, and they all got out of the.
Team bus and visited her at the nursing home.
Well, John Stephis, thank you so much. We are going to go out and convert some Carol people to Sixers fans. Thanks again, thank you, thanks again to school President John Stephis. After that, he and Nick Nurse were still wandering around the court, looking up at the banners in the gym and going down memory lane, the championships that maybe should be or could be right up there alongside. We end with this interview one of Nick Nurse's five older brothers, Steve Nurse, he's four years older than Nick, says that he's never seen anybody so passionate for so long about becoming better. And we start with Steve fresh off the golf course where he was surrounded by plenty of family and friends.
Oh, it's awesome.
Our parents have been gone for you know, like five and eight years or something, you know, around there, and so we don't really get together like we used to, so something like this, and Nick was pretty adamant about making sure everybody made an effort to come.
Back, and we had.
We've got a couple of cousins, first cousins from on my dad's side that we didn't see if they've lived in California for their whole life and they're still out there, but they came back for this just because they knew everybody was going to be here and it was their chance to that wasn't a funeral or some type of you know, sadder event or something that they would have to come back for.
So they came back to this.
And then My mom grew up about thirty miles from here, and she still has a brother that's alive, and a lot of our relatives around Iowa, and a lot of them made the track here too, And then my immediate family went from North Carolina made it, and a couple from my brother and sister in Kansas City that came up. And I came in from Des Moines, which is only an hour and a half from here, so I get back in. My wife's from around here too, so I get back a little more often than anybody else. I have a brother, Tom that lives about twelve miles from here too, so he's always around. But yeah, it's it's great, especially to see him out having fun with nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews and stuff like that, out in the golf carts having a good time.
What do you remember about those Fourth of July family celebrations.
It was about the only time we got together.
As you know, as we got older, everybody had their own kids, so they had Christmas with their families and we never really got together except for the Fourth of July. Because you know, Nick was overseas for a bunch of years or he was. You know, since he's been in the NBA, he's been busy in all the years except for you know, or all during the year except for in the summertime. So you know, it's been kind of good to be able to get together. And since my parents died, we haven't done that anymore. So this is kind of is going to take the place of that. I would be surprised is a annual event.
Did Carol Country Club now Carol National play for you and your your brothers and your siblings when you were growing up in Carol.
Basically learn the game of golf out here, and they have a pool here, and a number of our sisters and stuff had jobs as lifeguards here, and I had one of my first jobs in high school other than the tasseling, was I would work as a bad guy.
You know.
We'd wait for guys to pull up, and we heit so and so's here, and we'd relay it down to the next You'd grab the bag and we'd run it out and somebody would run and get their cart and you know, pick up range balls and you know, practice our putting while we're waiting around for guys. And also it's kind of a place we would come and practice our game and enjoy time with our friends in grade school and high school and stuff.
How does it feel to see Nick take over the course when you know, part of the story is that the course was struggling a little bit. Somebody reaches out, So.
Yeah, I mean it's it's it's awesome. I mean, it's nothing better for the neck to. You know, he does these camps here all the time, and and uh does the you know, he's gonna get the golf course going again. Another thing that he likes to give back to a community that I mean whenever the teams he's coaching he is playing somewhere nearby, Like when he coached at Ioway Energy, a lot of carol people would go down and cheer him on. And you know, and a lot of people became NBA fans since he's been an NBA coach, and they'll go to Chicago or Minnesota or you know, watch watch those kinds of games and stuff, and they'll I think they've taken buses up there before. You know, let's get something together and go celebrate our you know, our hometown boy. You know, so he likes to get back to those guys because he still was up there talking to a bunch of his classmates that came back from this too. There's some of his basketball team they played in high school, came from his Nashville, Atlanta, Oregon places like that. They flew back for this event because it's you know, Nick say hey, I'm having this event, and then you know, and they you know, they're paying a lot of their hiring money to to come back and get together and get to see their classmates and our family again because you know, we saw a lot of them, watch a lot of them grow up through the sports.
And through kem for Kemper High sports a big part of it. But there's also a music component to this twenty twenty four version of the event other than golf and basketball camps. In fact, Nick is going to be with the icons. And your thoughts on Nick Nurse the music, Yeah, yeah.
That's a little more surprising to me than all the you know, I don't know how he finds time sometimes to you know, jump into all that, but he just he's really passionate about it. I mean, he likes to a release from a way to get away from from, you know, the hustle and bustle of basketball season, and you know, when he'll take his guitar on the road or you know, he's got a couple of pianos at his house, and I think he's got wanted to practice facilities. I can always you know, just maybe once you get maybe a way of meditating or somewhere just to get away from it, he'll go, you know, work on that. And he's kind of thrown together a few guys that are have bands of their own that that's part of their life, and they've you know, let Nick jump in there with him and play a few songs. And he's really takes you know, every like everything. He's pretty competitive about that stuff, and he doesn't want to be halfway decent at it, you know. About I would say golf is about one of the only things he doesn't invest more time in because it takes up so much time.
But he's still a really good golfer.
And and if you just decided he wanted to do that, he probably get really good at that too.
You know.
Yeah, It's it's pretty cool because he's met a lot of really famous people and you know, he'll catch dinner with them, you know, and he's on the road with the basketball and it's just a way not to you know, be totally washed up, you know, totally basketball guy, or you know, just not uh concentrating on some a release to get away from it.
These are all really talented musicians that we're talking about. In some cases, like you run on the course, you're saying, like the r Kel's a big Canadian band that the lead singer.
I saw Max Max to be part of this.
So is it kind of surreal to see your brother play with professional bands and musicians or do you just kind of expect.
It like that and how it is and it isn't you know, It's like I didn't realize he could you know, catch on with with that level. But you know I've seen him anything that he puts his mind to, he seems to, you know, really be able to adjust to. And he's kind of like that as a coach too. You know, if somebody's doing something different, he makes an adjustment and you know, figure something out. And he's that way with his music. I think he just works at it until he can fit in with it, you know, because that's what he wants to do. So it's pretty cool actually that he you know makes time to to do that and he thinks it's really important too, and he's always he's always been an advocate of that of playing multiple sports and doing multiple activities, and that's kind of kemper It was a smaller school, and that's kind of they you know, take pride in that on that kind of thing.
They're you know, trying to make sure you.
Can get it it as many activities as you can and still get the education that you want to get.
That includes pole vaulting. The backyard pole volt hit the family home on South Elm Street. What memories do you have of that pole vault hit in the backyard.
Yeah, I think even our oldest brother did some pole vaulting, and I think one day one of them had a broken pole and he brought it home and you know, it was perfect size for us when we were in junior high or younger, you know, and we just had watched them do it, and we're like, oh, it's just like all the other sports that kind of always went to their games as soon as we could walk, and this kind of mimicked what they did. And so yeah, we threw some doug little hole in the backyard and that's where you stick the pole and then you know, if mom wasn't home, we'd grab a couple of couch cushions and you know, fill up some pillowcases and throw that to land on and you know, try to get a few other people together, and pretty soon we'd have we'll do the fifty yard dash out on the street. We'll have the pull vault back here, and we'll you know, put some obstacles up and do hurdles and have our own track meeting. And we did that with every sport.
Neighborhood kids around. Everybody.
Yeah, we had a couple of broken arms, I think, you know, from kids that were just trying it out, but you know, it's kind of how it was, and you know, the whole neighborhood would jump in and do whatever everybody was doing.
So you graduated Kemper Catholic High School the year before Nick came in as a freshman. You saw him as an athlete around what time did you first consider that he might become a coach.
Yeah, I don't know. I think he went to you and I too.
I mean he was always you know the quarterback, kind of little leader in football.
He was a good pitcher for him.
They had a good, really good baseball team when he was, you know, in high school, and he was one of the main guys for that, and he was basketball point guard, so he was, you know, all he's kind of setting up the plays for what they were.
Going to run.
And the coaches always knew kind of that he was a coach on the field and on the court, and you know, they pull him aside and kind of, you know, hey, you got to be me out there. You got to think like me, you got to operate like me, and get everybody, you know, working like me. And they had really a lot of success in their class going through high school, and that's probably where he first saw it. Like all of my brothers were active and stuff and all of this kind of My dad was a coach, coached a lot of us, you know, in junior high. He coached at the Catholic Junior High and they didn't have a separate coach, you know, they had teachers that he looked like, you could coach or something. And so when our kids were in there, my dad wanted him to have a good coach, so he jumped in there and coached, and you know, so that's kind of a lot of a lot of our family ended up coaching either little league baseball or a couple of them became teachers and coached high school for a few years, and you know, played some college sports and stuff, and then he just you know, it was always part of our life. So he went to school where I was going to school up at you and I and he was going to be a baseball player there, and then a scholarship opened up for basketball, and he went there for basketball and ended.
Up starting for four years.
Starting for four years, they had had a coach, a new coach after his freshman year, and you know, Elden Miller was his coach, and he was just a great role model as far as who was you know, how to treat people and you know, help them become the best they could be and you know, learn more each year, and it just really excited Nick. He got his accounting degree, but as he likes to say, he's never accounted for anything. So he's but he never did get a job in a county. And he's used his business background with a few other you know, his camps and.
And you know, stuff like this and things that he but.
Yeah, he really decided to be a coach and and when he after he was done playing, he said, I'm not done with sports. You know, I don't want to go sit in an office, and I want to keep things going and let other people experience what I'm experienced and then what I experienced because it's been awesome. And yeah, so that's kind of where it all started. And it just you know, he seemed like he was winning everywhere he went, every level he went, and and he was just always trying to get better and learn more and and move up to the next the next level. And so yeah, we used to always tell each other, you know, we werexigular fans. We read a lot of motivational books, and we'd whenever we'd be sayd by to each other, we'd say, see at the top. And then he won the championship, and he said, made it at the top. But you know, he's still striving to take the sixers to the top now. So that's a yeah, it's it's exciting me. I mean, I've never seen anybody so passionate for so long about becoming better and.
Being really the top person at what he does.
In just reflecting on all of this, like even just being here this this weekend, what are some of the reasons that you're proud of your youngest brother.
I think one of his dreams was always to go back to you and I and be a coach or something, you know, and then that didn't work out. So he's like, well, the only way I'm going to get to be better, I'm going to go somewhere and be a head coach and be more get more coaching experience. And so he went overseas where they were playing three times as many games as they do in college. Here he was, you know, playing coaching professional and he'd get a ton of games. They'd be traveling all over and he'd experienced a ton of things, you know, from driving on the left side of the road to you know, driving the van full of the coat of the players and his assistants and you know in summer league over here, he's just trying to gain experience and great knowledge and become you know, better than you know, all the other anybody else by gaining more experience. And it's just the fact that he you know, started out not making any money basically as a coach too, you know, get to the highest level of being a coach, it's just amazing, you know that it's kind of shows that if you really want something and it's you're passionate about it, and you stick to it, and you know, you can do whatever you really want to do.
And he's you know, pretty.
Much proven that and still trying to prove it every day, you know, and everything he does, he you know, they didn't think this wouldever get going and or have an event like this at the country club, and you know, the Iowa energy was basically non existent before you put a bug in some people's ear and said, you know, this G League thing is kind of picking up. So he got some guys I with Cubs owners and stuff together and they said, yeah, it sounds like a worthwhile shot, and if you're involved in it, I think we might be able to make it go. And then you know, a couple of years later, they're winning the championship and and you know, having to sell out at the arena that had nothing going on there a few years before, you know.
During that time of year.
So yeah, it's just it's been pretty awesome. But I can't say that I'm surprised, you know, because anything he puts his mind to it, he works until it gets going.
You know. This is another example.
I mean everybody said it not not that he you know, going to make make a ton of money out of doing this, but he's going to make the Carol people happy. And that's what his ultimate goal is, to get it back to where it was when we were growing up. And so people and Carol can enjoy it the way we did, because I mean we came back last summer, me and him and played it when he was considering the whole deal, and it looked like a pretty dawning task, you know, and he's already invested a lot of time and money and Carol people, I think are appreciating that. And it's it's, you know, today's pretty awesome. And I think the whole week events is going to be even cooler as we go on.
So yeah, it's just truly a great story of determination and one of community in general with determination next part in community with Carol Isle.
And I think he knows that Carol has the heart to make this work. And you know, they've got the community that will band together for stuff. But it might be kind of slipping a little bit. You know, Rural Iowa is is not what it used to be, you know. But you know it's like if your team goes to State, the whole town goes down and watches them at State.
And that's kind of how Carol.
You know, they embraced his group when they did that, and he wants to, you know, get him back on that wagon and you know, embrace the country club, the old country club, Carol National now and uh, you know, get her get her rolling and get some events here and get people fired up about coming out to play golf every day or just coming out to grab a snack or.
Jump in the pool or something.
You know, I not feel like I gotta go out there or something. You know, he likes to make people stay positive about stuff.
And more of the story to be told. Steve Nurse, thank you so much.
For Hey, you got it.
Thank you guys. Is great to have you in town and hope you enjoy your stay. So great playing golf to you to.
Good way.
The Sixers will play the Minnesota Timberwolves in a preseason game on October eleventh. The game will be played at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa. It's the very building that's presence alone. First and fired Nurse to contact local officials about starting an Iowa g League franchise and the same building where he later celebrated his first G League title in twenty eleven. Neither happened overnight. For more on that part of it, please check out that feature article on sixers dot com. Until next time, I'm Matt Murphy. Thanks for listening.
