Laron Mann thought Scott Lang only needed to take a breath.

Lang, the former head coach at La Roche College in Pittsburgh, was more intense than usual during practice on Dec. 10, preparing his players for their upcoming game against league-rival Carnegie Melon. He had been working out with the Redhawk forwards in drills, so when he stopped for a moment and said he needed a brief break, no one thought much of it.

‘At the moment, we thought he was just out of breath,’ said Mann, the La Roche guard and co-captain. ‘He really hadn’t played basketball like that in a while. We thought he needed some time to catch his breath.’

But it was more than that.

The players and coaching staff watched as Lang fell to the floor at half court. Assistant coach Harry Jenkins and an athletic trainer performed emergency CPR while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. It was then that the players were told to leave the gym, leaving a lasting image of Lang lying on the ground engrained in their minds. It wasn’t until a few hours later that they were informed of the devastating news: Their 41-year-old coach had died of a heart attack. For the night, they mourned.

But since then, they have turned their attention back to basketball, the way Lang would have wanted them to. Playing in his memory — playing the way he taught them to play — the Redhawks are 16-1 on the season.

‘The thing that we told all our teammates was that if we pull back at all, if we take our foot off the gas at all, Coach Lang would be mad if he was alive,’ guard and co-captain Nate Wojciechowski said. ‘We’re not going to change any of that now that he’s gone.’

The ability to stay positive in the face of the tragedy that struck the small community of La Roche has gotten the team to this point. The Redhawks have played under Jenkins, the interim head coach, while keeping Lang’s message and philosophy alive as if he had been in the gym with them for every practice and game.

Every player remembers Lang’s constant message of positivity. So on the night of Lang’s heart attack, as the players went to dinner and waited for an update on their coach, they assumed he would only need to spend a night in the hospital.

‘Everybody thought that Coach was a strong man, he’d pull through,’ Mann said. ‘This won’t hold him back. He’ll be there tomorrow at practice.’

The players never let the thought that they wouldn’t see Lang again cross their mind. Lang may have been dying, but his message was alive more than ever. Mann and the rest of the team thought this would be nothing more than a small hurdle for Lang to overcome.

After the team dinner, the players were called back to the locker room. The coaches delivered the news that no one wanted to hear and no one expected. Every player broke down and sobbed. A brotherhood Lang created mourned his loss.

Perhaps no one felt the pain as much as Mann did, who viewed Lang as not only a coach but a father figure. When Mann needed support at the toughest time of his life, he knew exactly where to go.

‘He was one of the first people I talked to when I found out my father was diagnosed with cancer,’ Mann said. ‘He was there for me. Telling me it’s not as serious as it could be right now, but the doctors will see. He was basically being there to calm my nerves.’

For Mann, those words meant everything. Hearing them from Lang reinforced the need to stay positive and never let the thought of the worst-case scenario enter into his mind.

Lang commanded respect from his players. In every game, they played up to the level he expected of them. Anything less would’ve been unacceptable. For the way he helped them through any struggle they were going through, playing hard was the least they could do.

‘He was just a wonderful leader of men,’ Jenkins said. ‘I don’t think that anybody who went on the floor to play for him ever played below the level he expected them to play.’

Lang may not be there anymore, standing along the sideline and barking out calls to his players. But for the Redhawks, he doesn’t need to be.

They keep on playing the Scott Lang way. Play hard and stay positive, all the way to 16-1.

‘I think that’s what’s really done it, is continue to do what Coach always drove them to do,’ Jenkins said. ‘And I think that has an unbelievable amount of impact on what has happened with us.’

cjiseman@syr.edu

Published on January 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman