JACK ZIMMERMAN – FORMER PLAYER FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON & MACCABI TEL-AVIV – EPISODE 816

Website – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackzimmerman/

Email – jack.zimmermna@globaldata.com

Twitter – @DaytonMBB

Jack Zimmerman is  a former player at the University of Dayton from 1976 – 1980 where he scored 1,482 points and teamed up with his high school teammate Jim Paxson for the Flyers.  Zimmerman played overseas for 4 seasons with Maccabi Tel-Aviv and Hapoel Tel-Aviv.  Jack eventually settled in Paris where has lived for 30 years.  He currently works for GlobalData.

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Grab your notebook as you listen to this episode with Jack Zimmerman, former player for the University of Dayton and Maccabi Tel-Aviv.

What We Discuss with Jack Zimmerman

• The coaches that influenced him early in his career
• Neighborhood pickup games in Dayton
• How he sharpened his skills as a high school player
• The changes in athletic training and nutrition since he played back in the 70’s and 80’s
• How his coaches blended good people into good teams
• How basketball has impacted his work today in the business world
• Playing with Jim Paxson in high school and at Dayton and the on court telepathy they developed
• The impact Coach Don Donoher had on him at Dayton
• How a college all star tour to Europe led him to play a year for the Washington Generals against the Globetrotters
• His tryout with the Portland Trailblazers and how that led to a playing opportunity in Tel-Aviv
• The story of his contract signing with Maccabi Tel-Aviv
• Immersing himself in Isreali culture and learning Hebrew
• His craziest European basketball story
• Why he didn’t get into coaching after his playing career ended
• What attracted him to the world of technology/business
• “I think knowing how to prepare, I think being disciplined. I think self-motivation, I think teamwork. Those kinds of things. Collaboration, I think those kinds of things are just embedded in the game.”

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THANKS, JACK ZIMMERMAN

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TRANSCRIPT FOR JACK ZIMMERMAN – FORMER PLAYER FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON & MACCABI TEL-AVIV – EPISODE 816

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host, Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to be joined by former fresh professional player, former University of Dayton basketball player, Jack Zimmerman. Jack, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:16] Jack Zimmerman: Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Jason.

Good to be here. Nice to hear your voices.

[00:00:22] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. We are excited to have you on and looking forward to diving into the things that you’ve been able to do throughout your basketball life. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about what you remember your first experiences with the game of basketball.

[00:00:37] Jack Zimmerman: Well, I think my parents exposed me to lots of sports, so I played the three majors at the time, which was basketball, football, baseball I was on the swimming team. I played golf with my dad. So I was pretty active as a kid, but I always liked the round ball, always liked the ability to, it was a nice kind of gathering place for friends in the neighborhood. So I found it both socially fun, but also you could, you could sneak off individually and just, just have fun and shoot all the time. And that’s kind of what I did. So I guess it was early grade school I was quite involved in all the leagues and things like that, I think was probably around seventh or eighth grade where I kind of shifted all my focus into hoops and yeah, that became just a passion.

[00:01:36] Mike Klinzing: What was the summer basketball scene like for you growing up in Dayton? Going and playing in the parks and just. Pickup games, and obviously the situation that we have today with youth basketball is completely different from the way that you grew up in the game or the way I grew up in the game.

And it’s always, I think, an interesting point of conversation that I like to talk with people who are a little bit older like me, that grew up in a different era. So just talk a little bit about what the. The playground basketball scene was like the pickup basketball in Dayton.

[00:02:07] Jack Zimmerman: Well we were in suburban Dayton, so it was mostly our neighborhood friends walking distance was kind of one set of pickup games, and that happened almost every day after school.

And could go you know, deep into the evening. And then we’d also have cross neighborhoods where we had friends in other neighborhoods. So we take. Our parents would drive us to another neighborhood and, and play with us against them or mix up the teams or whatever. I guess in, in high school, there started to be more organized playground games at some of the local high schools, at some of the outdoor venues and so forth.

But it wasn’t, not anything. It was still pickup games. If you won, you stayed. If you lost, you’re out and you may not get back in. So the games were pretty pretty brutal. You earn your way up the chart to get picked into play.

So when you’re starting out to guide you’re picking all the players and you stay on.

[00:03:13] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny that. We have with AAU now, obviously you play, you go here, you lose, you go and play over there, and it’s just a different way of growing up in the game. And I think there are, as we’ve said many times, there are a lot of positives to the system that we have today.

And yet I say all the time that I’m really glad that I grew up in the era of pick up basketball. And I think it made me a better player. And I also think it made me a better person in a lot of ways, just. Having to deal with all different kinds of people and have to figure out how to stand up for yourself and call winners and pick a team or negotiate, and all the things that kind of went along with playing in the park.

And I really feel like that had a big influence on me. When you think about yourself as a high school player, Was there anybody that you kind of looked up to as a mentor or somebody who kind of took you under their wing as a, as a player in that era that kind of looked out for you? Was there anybody that fits that bill?

[00:04:16] Jack Zimmerman: Well, I had great coaches starting with my dad and my uncle who kind of coached myself and my brother and, and, and our kids teams in, in grade school, and then had basket case coach my freshman year. Sophomore, all through the rest of my career. These guys are outstanding hall of fame type coaches, Joe Petrocelli at, at Kettering Alter High School.

But before him, Jim Seawee, who was kind of legendary football coach. But just good people that taught great discipline and they would just make sure that you were doing the right things.  It just continued on into all of my career.

So I guess those guys were the mentors. Of course, I always looked up to like Don Donoher at the University of Dayton. You know, I was in high school, but they were the big college basketball team in town. And then of course I liked Walt Frazier and of course I looked into the NBA and watched some of the great players over there.

But Clyde was a guy I loved to watch.

[00:05:20] Mike Klinzing: I mean, when you think about Clyde Frazier and the sort of the fashion and him as a player and just the, the smoothness with which, with which he played, made him, I think, unique in, in his time and, and probably unique all time when you start talking about guys that he, he in this era would’ve been.

A, a fashion icon without question. Not that he wasn’t back in the day, but said about Mike. What media?

[00:05:43] Jason Sunkle: The NBA draft tonight. Mike, did you see that one I sent you?

[00:05:47] Mike Klinzing: I don’t know what you sent me, but name Hold on. Grady. Grady. Grady Dick.

[00:05:55] Jason Sunkle: Do you see that? I did see that, yeah. Oh, man.

Shining and red. Oh God, God. Scoot was

[00:06:02] Mike Klinzing: Scoot was pretty good. I think what’s funny to me is that, These guys don’t necessarily. Learned the lesson of guys in the past that I, I think, look, I know they want to be a little flashy, but those suits are not going to age well 20 years from now. I think I’d go a little bit more traditional just so I could kind of I, I like, I like what the Thompson twins were, were wearing.

They seemed like they had some. At least semi normal conservative outfits on. But who knows?

[00:06:30] Jason Sunkle: Yes. Going, going traditional certainly would’ve stood out.

[00:06:32] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, that’s in tonight’s draft. But but also in my era, of course even though I did I admired Clyde and the way he played, and of course my brother was a big Earl the Pearl fan, and my best friend was was a Jerry West fan. And Tim Gallagher, he was a Brian Winters fan. So we all had our kind of favorites. But I don’t think any of us were really fashion standouts ourselves in our local, in our local neighborhoods.

[00:06:56] Mike Klinzing:  I can attest to that for myself as well. I don’t think that I, I wasn’t, I wasn’t winning any fashion awards, so I guess I don’t have much room to talk about.

[00:07:07] Jason Sunkle: Well, your shoes though now, Mike, your shoes are pretty.

[00:07:11] Mike Klinzing:  Yeah, I guess I do like to go flashy with the shoes and the socks. That’s where I’ll put my fashion foot forward, so to speak. I’m not much in the way of putting on a suit if I can avoid it.

Let’s put it let’s put it that way. So talk a little about that childhood friend group that. And, and I know that Tim’s obviously talked about, and for those people who are listening, Tim Gallagher is a guest on the podcast. I got introduced to Tim through Kim Otten, who I know from here in Strongsville.

And Kim obviously was part of that. You know that, that group back then, and it’s just interesting how you guys all kind of came together and then you had some good stories with. Card collecting and, and the different things that Tim eventually got into. But talk about what it was like with that, with that particular friend group, and just kind of how you guys bonded together.

[00:07:54] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. I mean, we were just you were buddies from kind of from second grade and, and we all had this passion for basketball also for you know, autograph collecting. And, and kind of in my local neighborhood walking distance we had kind of Vincent, Steve Martin, which were brothers, we had myself and my brother Mike, and there were a couple other friends in the area.

Tim lived up closer to the grade school that we went to and Kim of course, and there’s kind of a neighborhood of kids there. So when I talked about the cross neighborhood we bring our Washington Township team over to.

Real battles, but what was just so nice about it is that. You know, we’d play game after game after game. And of course it was, it was super, super competitive. But when we finished, we’d walk up to the local poor Richards kind of like Dairy Queen Place would’ve a an ice cream and a, a slush and, and sit around and just talk more about life and basketball and so forth that you would as a kid, right?

So you, you would, you would be really super competitive. But then at the end, You just kind of go off what, what a kid would do and just hang out and have fun. So yeah, it was beautiful and we all loved to play. And we loved to play, I think, the right way. You know, a lot of kind of passing and picking and cutting.

And it wasn’t much. It was not that much one and one, of course, we were playing on confined courts these are driveways and so some driveways were really long and thin. Some were kind wide and short. And so you developed your game also along the Kind of the confines of whatever you were playing in.

[00:09:33] Mike Klinzing: When did you know that you wanted to play college basketball? Was that something that, because you kind of grew up very close proximity to University of Dayton basketball, that was kind of always on your radar? Or was it something that you came to realize as you got more into your high school career?

[00:09:50] Jack Zimmerman: Of course you.  The University of Dayton and watching some of the legendary games there and, and you know, it just consumes the town, which was great. I also went to basketball camps. I went to Coach Donoher’s camp I went to Bobby Knight’s camp. You know, I went to Bill Hoskett’s camp in Ohio State.

So I went to a number of camps and started to realize that I could play with most people and I think it was probably between. Eighth grade is kind of when I started to decide that this is really what I like to do. And I think it was between eighth and ninth grade where I started to really sharpen my skills.

And I think the main story that really got me to another level is my, my freshman year in high school we were a white Catholic basketball neighborhood. And we went over and played African American, kind of west side of Dayton, couldn’t get the ball up the court. They must have stole the ball from me seven times before I even got up, up to half court and I was a freshman.

And it just dawned on me that if I don’t sharpen my skills, let’s say how to handle the ball control, just, just basketball, dribbling drills and things like that I’m not going to progress. And that I had a lot of work to do. And from that period on, I just started to accelerate and, and I did it in a very kind of structured way.

[00:11:16] Mike Klinzing: What was that structure? So how did you go about, once you realized, you’re like, Hey, I have to get better if I kind of want to do the things in this game that I’d like to do. What did that process look like for you? How did you structure it?

[00:11:26] Jack Zimmerman:  I would get up I’d go to the local ymca or I’d go out on my own driveway.

And I had built I would build kind of my practice for the day, but it wasn’t like for the day, it was like, I mean, it was for, it was for the day it wasn’t like an hour. And it was drills, it was ball handling drills. It was shooting drills. It was, pretend you know that I was in March Madness and I was I’d build my own lot lottery and I’d pick teams and then I’d be both teams, right?

And so I’d create my own kind of fantasy around games and so forth. And I’d, I’d track all of that. I’d put it on paper and. I just did all the things that I felt that I needed to work on. One of the regrets I guess I had is maybe not investing enough in the athleticism.

So if I would do it over again as a kid, I would probably learn how to run better, jump higher be more limber and stretch. I mean, I put more effort into the physical part of it. But at that time it was really just about the joy of playing and just working on the, on all the aspects of the game.

[00:12:33] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I mean, completely different era when you think about athleticism, right? You look at the players who were playing in the b a or playing college basketball, and you look at their physique compared to the physiques of players who are playing in the league today. I remember this, this stood out for me.

I can’t remember exactly when I saw this photo, but it was probably, I don’t know, within the last five or six years, I saw a picture of like Doug Collins from his rookie year after he was the number one pick out of Illinois State. And Doug Collins. Seriously, his body looked like he could have been a freshman in high school.

Yeah. Today. And you’re looking at him and you’re saying, this guy was the number one pick. And he just, again, he wasn’t muscular, he wasn’t big. He just was looked like a skinny little kid. And today, obviously it would be far, far different. Somebody who reached a level of basketball that you were able to reach, which we’ll eventually get to here.

Was going to put a lot more time into their body today than somebody back at that time. Cause it just wasn’t something that, I mean, I think I was sort of at the beginning of, my dad was an exercise physiologist at state, so had me doing like lots of. Client metrics and weird stuff. I always say I couldn’t jump no matter what I did, but I, I, maybe, maybe the ply metrics really did work and I could only jump like three inches off the ground if I hadn’t done them.

But it certainly, it certainly did not turn me into a plus athlete, all the work that I did on that, but it, it was a completely different. Era compared to today when you have kids that are going out and working with trainers both on their basketball skill. But the athleticism side of that is I think that business has exploded and one of my theories about that is that kids just don’t play outside.

So like you and I learned to run by running and running away from people and chasing people and doing all those things. And then I heard an interesting theory today, Jack, let me hear. I’d be curious to know what you think and Jason, you could maybe even jump in on this, but. I was talking to Mark Anderson, who he coaches in the TBL for the Owensboro Thoroughbreds, and he’s working at basketball camp with me this week.

And he said that one of the things that someone told him, like a medical professional that kind of works with their league is that he thinks that they, you get a way more hamstring injuries today than. People used to get back in the day, because nobody’s riding their bikes like kids don’t go up riding their bikes the way you or I did.

And so therefore, their hamstrings are weaker than kids’ hamstrings used to be in the past. And obviously as you grow up, you just don’t develop that same strength. And he thinks that’s maybe led to more hamstring injuries, which I never, I had never heard that before and I thought that was kind of an interesting theory.

[00:15:23] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I mean it, it’s possible. I mean, certainly there just wasn’t that much consciousness on. The body that much until, until you realize you wanted to jump higher. And then you do things like we, we tried the leap and we tried all kinds of things. Yep. Oh yeah. Spent a lot of

[00:15:39] Mike Klinzing: Oh yeah. Spent a lot of time on that machine.

[00:15:42] Jason Sunkle: I was going to say, I don’t really see like a lot of hamstring injuries, but I coach middle school basketball, so it might be a little bit different. Like, I don’t remember.

[00:15:52] Mike Klinzing: I think they’re talking about like, as you get, I think he was talking about more as you get into like college and pro basketball, that it’s, it’s sort of a trickle down.

Again, I don’t even know if the theory’s right, but I just found it to be interesting. It was something that I had never heard before.

[00:16:03] Jack Zimmerman: I would’ve definitely spent much more time I, I really learned a lot when I got invited to try out for the Blazers, Jack Ramsey was the head coach and Jim Lyons was the assistant coach.

Again, two stellar people, legends in their own right. But Jack Ramsey was a big physical fitness advocate. So, I mean, before practice we would be jumping rope and we’d be doing lots of stretching and kind of yoga, stretching and, and all of that. And again, it was one of the first times I kind of woke up and said, man its about your body getting your body.

It’s not just about the, the kind of the slide drills and the sprint drills and things like that. You need to do other things to get your body ready. And you know, when I grew up, there were rumors. Like Kentucky was a big weightlifting team for basketball. And, and, but you know, we were always told, don’t lift weights. You know, it’s going to screw up your shot and things like that. So we were late to that part of the game, really the physical part.

[00:17:05] Mike Klinzing: What about on the nutrition side? Did you think at all about the things that you were eating back then?

[00:17:09] Jack Zimmerman: Nothing. No. Absolutely zero.

[00:17:15] Mike Klinzing: I’m right there with you.

I often look, and I think about, and I’ve told this story a couple times, but when I was playing at Kent, we used to, in the preseason, we would have practice, whatever all during the week, and then on Saturday in the preseason we’d have like an scrimmage practice. 10 30, let’s say on Saturday morning, and then we would have Sunday off and wouldn’t practice until Monday and literally we would leave practice at 10 30.

Whatever, take a shower and we’d go right to Ponderosa and then we’d sit in Ponderosa for like three hours and probably drink a gallon of soda and eat chicken wings and steak and greasy spaghetti and all this stuff and just college student, it was whatever, the $9 buffet. And you know, you just think about, God, what if I was actually.

Eating well while I was in college and somebody had told me like, Hey, maybe you should lay off of this, or maybe you should eat a little bit more of that. And to your point, I, I spent zero. Never once ever did I have a conversation with any adult coach, nutritionist, strength coach, about any of that stuff.

And it certainly, I didn’t think about it in any way.

[00:18:25] Jack Zimmerman: No, I mean, we lived near ud, university of Dayton. We live near big Boys. So it was two big boys and fries and a milkshake on a regular, so there, there you go. It wasn’t part of the regime at the time.

[00:18:42] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely not. What’s your favorite memory from being a high school basketball player?

[00:18:48] Jack Zimmerman: I think we had some tremendous. Local high school rivals against teams like Fairmont West against teams like Roosevelt and Dunbar and so forth. So we would fill the UD arena or pretty close to fill the, the arena.

And then kind of one half would be in purple and the other half would be in black and gold would be in red. And the other half would be in brown.

Really high intense very close games, lots of skilled players and, and, and so I remember that a lot. I also remember kind of we knocked off some great teams on the, on the way to the state. We lost in the state semi-final. We got knocked off. We were upset in the semis, as was Phil Hubbard’s team.

You know, we were the kind, the number one and two teams were supposed to meet, meet each other. But we did knock off Middletown that had Butch Carter. We did knock off Roosevelt that had just loaded with talent on our way to the, under the way to the, but we lost. So when you lose your second or third place, doesn’t get, get remembered very well.

[00:19:57] Mike Klinzing: Only by you, right? Only the losses stick with you. That’s more than anything else. I say that all the time, like those losses, you can win a lot of games, but, Man, the losses I’ll never forget, and I’ve told the story, I’m not even going to bother telling it again, but we lost in our, when we were we lost in the district semi-finals.

So Lorain Admiral King, who ended up going all the way to the, they lost, I think in the, in the state semi-finals and you know, controversial ending and a whole bunch of other things, and played against the guy that eventually became my teammate. And just the whole, and, and I can still remember.

Almost everything about that game versus games that we won. It’s like, yeah, I don’t know. I think we won that game, but I don’t really remember, man. Those losses. Those losses. Sting, man, they sting,

[00:20:40] Jack Zimmerman: We were powerhouse in high school. I mean, we just rolled teams and we had four, you know well three division one players, one four actually division one players.

And then fifth, they could, could have easily played division one and we full court pressed, we ran. I mean, we were just really, really good. And so it was fun also, I mean, what I liked about it was just we were a team. I mean, we passed the ball and it was great.

We had a great coach and yeah, it was a good, good time.

[00:21:13] Mike Klinzing: When your team shares the ball, there’s nothing better. Yeah, I mean, that’s it. I think from a, from a fan standpoint, certainly from a coaching standpoint, and more than anything else from a playing standpoint, when you play on a team that’s unselfish, you play with unselfish guys.

It is just more fun and let’s face it, you’re going to win more. I mean, you just, I, I think it’s, the nuggets kind of proved it a little bit this year with the way that they played. And I think you could see it year in out, year in and year out on the college basketball level, on the high school basketball level, that the teams that are unselfish and share the ball.

There’s so much more difficult to beat and it’s just it’s just a much more fun way to play basketball. And now you, nobody can ever convince me otherwise.

[00:21:54] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, and I think a lot has to do with players that clearly the coach and kind of he sets, he sets the direction and like I said my coaches were all great mentors along the way, so yeah.

I respected them. I paid attention to what they said I listened to and tried to learn. And they helped blend good people into good teams. What’s

[00:22:18] Mike Klinzing: something that you’ve taken away from, and you can pick any of the coaches that you’ve had over the years, but what’s something that when you think about it in your life, you attribute it directly back to one of your coaches?

[00:22:34] Jack Zimmerman: I think teamwork and I think this being disciplined, I think taking responsibility, being self-motivated. I mean, there are a lot of little subtle things as well that you don’t think about, but it’s all kind of becomes inherent as part of the process of working with good people and being firm.

So knowing you can push the line, but there are things that you have to give up for the team, right? There’s a blend of things and each coach is a little bit different. I mean, my coach in Tel Aviv he spoke seven languages and he could be quite emotional, but he also knew how to blend lots of different personalities and as I got older the personalities became more robust. You know, as you get older, of course, you get your own wings, and not everybody’s kind of cookie cutter, high school Catholic type of player.  So it’s really interesting.

[00:23:40] Mike Klinzing: Good coaches are really important. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s interesting I love when you said that it kind of becomes inherent, and I think that’s true. That you just, you, you absorb all those things and they sort of become a part of you.

Like I look at my life and I say that basketball is just, it’s a part of me, and because it’s a part of me, there’s all these things that I’ve learned along the way that just. I take them for granted almost that the reason I am the way I am is because of some of the things that I got to experience through the game of basketball.

Whether it was through my experiences playing pickup basketball, whether it was through my experiences with the coaches that I had at each one of my different levels, and I think you put it really well and that you, you kind of learn all those things along the way and they just sort of, they just sort of seep into who you are and then eventually you look back and.

I really don’t know or remember what I would be without the game of basketball. And it’s just interesting how the influence that it has on us.

[00:24:45] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. And you know, I take it to my world today, which is more in kind of sales and working with customers and there’s just so many lessons you learn about you know, building relationships about about being supportive, about being prepared, about being direct about the trying to win together.

I mean, there, there’s so many things that you, again, you’re not even really thinking about, but it becomes a more second nature.

[00:25:13] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I agree. Could not agree more with that. When you think back to your decision to go to the University of Dayton, obviously you grew up around Dayton basketball, you.

Went to camp with Coach Donoher. So you’ve been around it for your entire life. Was the decision to go to the University of Dayton, an easy one? Did you consider going anywhere else? Just tell me a little bit about the process of making that choice to go to Dayton, to attend college and to play your college basketball.

[00:25:41] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I think it was in the end, it was an easy one because. Coach Donoher in the program wanted me to come. It was clearly a class program in a big arena, playing as an independent at the time against the best schools around America, which was fantastic.

I wasn’t highly recruited. I mean, had offers maybe from Miami and West or you know West Virginia and Army and. That tier of college. But I just was pretty zoned in on Dayton. It made sense to me. And so, yeah, when, when I was asked, I was pretty much ready to sign.

And I’d also had my teammates, Jim Paxson had just gone there. So we’d been back court teammates for already a couple years and yeah, it just felt good and I felt like I had a chance to play Johnny Davis, who, who ended up going to the Portland trail blazers, was going to leave on hardship or yeah, guess a hardship and go early into the nba.

And so that opened up a spot for me as well to get more playing time or to earn that. So yeah, it was a good situation for me.

[00:27:00] Mike Klinzing: Talk about the relationship that you had with Paxson and what it was like playing with him. Obviously a guy who reached a tremendously high level in the game and not everybody gets an opportunity to play with a player like that.

So what was that like for you growing up, going through high school and then continuing on to play with them throughout your college career.

[00:27:23] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, it was great. I mean, I didn’t know Jim in in grade school, so of course when you, you kind of merge into one high school, then you kind of meet everybody and, and I just remember kind of one of the first games in the gym is we’re getting together with, with different schools and kind learning to play with each other and so forth that this guy he posted me up.

Like he had spun on me so quickly and laid it in. I didn’t know what happened. And you know, I felt like I was pretty good and. You know, he just left me in the dust. I’m like, wow, this guy can play. I wonder who this is. And so but anyway we ended up playing he was a year ahead of me, but we played you know, I was a junior.

He was a senior. And then we went into high school and, and I started as a freshman and, and played all my years, my three years with him until, until he graduated. And. We just had a we were kind of on a string together, so I could just look and, and we would match eyes and he was great at Backdooring his man, so he’d set up his man backdoor cut and I could put it right on the spot under the basket where he could lay it in.

And it was just telepathy communication. So and it was fun to watch him play because we played a passing game at Dayton, which really is kind of pass and pick away it. Bobby Knight. Methodology. So we didn’t really learn at Dayton to drive to, to take it to the hole. But Jim had a kind of a special so he could, he could play that game, but when he saw an opening, he’d cut to the hole and lay it in.

And that was, that was kind of NBA like right at the time. And he had, he had the body to be an NBA player. He had the smarts he was athletic and the skill sets and yeah, it was fun to play with him both high school and college.

[00:29:08] Mike Klinzing: The first thing I think of when I think of Jim Paxson is I think of, I think of ball movement and moving without the ball.

Mm-hmm. And just being a guy that would’ve been really, really difficult to guard in the sense of, man, this guy is just not going to stop. And when I think of Jim Pax, and that’s the first thing, that’s the first thing that comes into my head when I think about his game and what I knew about it.

[00:29:30] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. He was a master at that.

And it wasn’t herky jerking. He wasn’t just running around without purpose. He would take you out and just kind of lull you sleep and then boom, he’d be backdoor and he’d be a layup or he’d be cutting off picks and you can see it in the NBA as well. He was known for that and that’s why he was a two time all star.

And one of the top scores of all time in Portland is because he could get open and get his shots and he wasn’t super, super quick, but he was really clever. And deceptively you know, agile And very, very smart with and without the Ball.

[00:30:08] Mike Klinzing: Talk a little bit about the influence of Coach Donoher and what he meant to you both as a player, just and as a person.

[00:30:14] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. I mean, he’s one of the great legends both, both as the person and as a basketball coach and just growing up, knowing him you know, under his influence, knowing what he did for the Dayton community putting Dayton kind of basketball on the map and it was just inspirational.

So I Still when I’m in town try to seem I’m friends with the family and yeah, you just, somebody you look up to. And so he’s just got the respect of the whole community. And I’m one of them, I’m a disciple.

[00:30:50] Mike Klinzing: As you’re going through your career at Dayton, are you focused in on, Hey, I think I’m going to have a shot to have a professional career. What are you studying while you’re at Dayton? What do you think you want to do with your life beyond basketball and kind of where were you in balancing out those two in terms of pursuing maybe your dream of playing professionally versus a what career am I looking ahead to in my adult life?

[00:31:16] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. I think I was pretty all in on hoops to be honest. I mean, I didn’t think about much else. Most of the time, so I practiced all the time. I watched games. I’d watch film, I would, yeah, I would just be, yeah, I was pretty much over overcome by it. And it wasn’t really until at the end of my senior year, When you kind of face reality and you go, okay now what’s next?

Absolutely. Cause I didn’t get drafted. I thought I would, there were kind of rumors. It could be second to seventh rounds and, and all of that, but I didn’t get picked. So that was quite disappointing. And so then you’re like, okay, what am I going to do with my life? And, and I still you’re still young, so you’re like, gosh I can still play.  I want to still play.

[00:32:11] Mike Klinzing: And so how did you pursue that? Like how much knowledge did you have about what might potentially be out there in terms of European basketball? Because I think now when you think about kids who graduate at all different levels, and it’s not just limited to division one, I think there’s just way more opportunity to play overseas.

And I also think that it’s easier. To get information, and I’m a few years younger than you, but I know even when I was coming out, it was kind of difficult to figure out. Where do I have to go? Who do I have to talk to? Who can help me? Where should I be? Who should see me? And we didn’t have the internet to be able to go and just try to figure that stuff out the way that kids do today.

And I, I think that, I’m assuming that for you, you had to find somebody who kind of could help you to, to navigate that. So just what did the process look like for you, trying to find a job in professional basketball.

[00:33:06] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I would say Mike, I was really lucky because basically I guess going into my senior year, I was invited to be part of a I think it was called the US Inter Intercontinental Cup team. I think it was a FIBA sponsor team or whatever, but it was Ed Badger from Cincinnati was the coach. We had people like Albert King and, and, and Eddie Lee and Steve Johnson from Oregon and Lavonne Williams. And it was basically an all-star team.

It was all pre, cause the Olympics were going to be played in Moscow in the eighties. And so they were kind looking at maybe who might make those teams. And so we went to France, we went to Yugoslavia, went to Czechoslovakia, we went to Russia, Ukraine and we played all the kind of the top international teams over there.

So that was my first exposure to international basketball. We went to Telaviv. But I didn’t really connect the dot between myself going back there and playing. You know, it was a, it was an avenue to go back and try to make the nba. But after the, after I did not get drafted, then I had some choices to make.

And the question really was, what am I going to do? And, and Coach Donner suggested maybe I become a grad assistant. Get an MBA and hang around and do some coaching and things like that. But my uncle who was the pre he was a priest and also the, the team chaplain had a connection with the Harlem Globetrotters the Washington Generals.

And so I ended up playing one year with the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters for one year. And so that kept me in the game. And After that, I basically came back from that and again, I’m faced with what I want to do. And then I had an invite to try out with the Blazers as a free agent.

So I. Portland they had 10 draft choices and 10 free agents. They, after the big last kind of red and white game full, full out arena, they walked in and said, ok, you’re cut. You go to la you’re cut, you go to la And I made the cuts. They took 10 of us to LA for a month in the summer leagues, and that’s where I was discovered by an Israeli team to come over and play professional basketball.

I didn’t pursue it. They saw me and apparently the somebody from the Knicks had recommended me and they knew Coach Donoher. And next thing you know, I got a call and said, how would you like to go play professional basketball in Europe, in Tel Aviv? And I’m like, well, gosh, I didn’t know they really played there, but if you give me a round trip ticket, I’ll go over and see what it’s like and then boy, then I’m suddenly European pro basketball team playing against the best European teams in the world.

So it was fascinating, totally lucky Mike. Totally lucky.

[00:35:54] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny how that works. I mean, it really is. Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time, and it’s cool that you had the Globe Crowders and Generals experience. So I, I have experience with the generals too. I played one game Oh, with the generals?

No kidding. Yeah, I won a, like a radio contest. They had like a. Tryout, you had to go to this high school and they were going to pick one person from this thing to go and play for the generals. And somebody had called me up, one of my friends said, Hey, they’re doing this thing, you should go do it. And I showed up and there was all different kinds of people.

I mean, it was crazy. There was people who were basketball players, there were people who weren’t basketball players. There was. Guys doing, like you had to do like a one minute whatever, they gave you a ball and said, okay, go do something for a minute. So I just went out and shot and just did whatever, just like I was doing a basketball workout and then there’s other people doing cartwheels and flips and all kinds of stuff.

But anyway, I ended up getting selected and so I played out at the Richfield Coliseum. I played one game with the. Generals and I got into the, the circle where you have to kind of have to run behind them as they’re flipping the ball around. They’re like, you have to stay right on your globe trotter’s shoulder.

And apparently I didn’t, cause I got hit in the head with the ball, but they did follow me and got me to the line. I went to for two out at the Coliseum for the awesome, for the, what year was that? So that was, oh boy, that was probably pretty shortly after I graduated from college. So I’m thinking it was probably, it had to be 93 or 94.

Somewhere. Somewhere in there, I guess. The Cavs new arena opened in 95, so it had to be, I graduated in 92, so sometime between 92 and 94, I would guess.

[00:37:31] Jack Zimmerman: Okay. But yeah, that’s kind of fun. Yeah. That’s wild. Well, I flew to New York City, met kind of the teammates in a bar in New York City.

We bus to Portland, Maine. We ferried over to Halifax Nova Scotia, and that’s where the tour started. Okay. And my first game so I didn’t start in my first game and they put me in kind of midway through the first quarter. And you know, Curly’s out there dribbling the ball and I take it from him a couple times.

I didn’t know anything. I mean, they didn’t tell me anything about how it all works and so forth. And the third time I somehow, I went down and I missed the layup. And so I’m running back, everybody’s running back and curly stops the game. He completely stops the game in front of everybody.

And he kind of fingers me back to the other end of the court and he’s pointing up at the hoop and he’s saying, ok. You know, put it in the basket. Put it in the basket. And so he gives me the ball to do it. And as I try to do that, he blocks me. You know, he just embarrassed me. My first experience

[00:38:35] Mike Klinzing: There you go. With the traffic. I mean, I don’t think people who. Like today, if you’re under the age of 40, like even Jason, I don’t know how much, but you think about how impactful the GlobeTrotters were in an era when we were kids and ABC.

[00:38:52] Jason Sunkle: I went to the Globe Trotters with my grandpa every year when I was in middle, like elementary school, all right.

Until he passed away.

[00:38:58] Mike Klinzing: I still feel like their cultural significance had declined. By the time you were.

[00:39:06] Jason Sunkle: I used to watch the Scooby Do episode with the Harlem Globe.

[00:39:09] Mike Klinzing: Okay. So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe their influence extended further than what I thought. So my apologies, J.

[00:39:14] Jack Zimmerman: No, they’re pretty worldwide, at least. Of course. Yeah, you’re right, man. I mean, at least in my era, they left their imprint everywhere around the world. Now, if you ask kids today though, about who the Harlem Globe Trotters are, I’m going to tell you that it’s going to be way lower percentage though now.

[00:39:30] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, not many. What, what was the best, what was the coolest place you went with them, Jack?

[00:39:34] Jack Zimmerman: I stayed on the North American tour. I didn’t go to Europe and I didn’t go to South America. They had two teams at the time. They had one that did kind of the East coast, west Coast, Midwest, Canada, and they had another one did kind of like Southwest and Latin America and so forth.

So, but you know, we played all the big hockey arenas in Montreal and Toronto and things like that. We played Madison Square Garden, Boston Gardens Chicago, the LA Forum. So those were always really great experiences and those were always doubleheaders on Sunday. So we started, gosh, I think the tour started, early September and we played literally every day.

Doubleheaders on Sundays. And I think we had Thanksgiving off Christmas off for a day or two, and then it, it went all the way through like the middle of May. So it was a long, you’d get up at 10, you’d hop on the bus, four hour bus ride. New location, you’d go out and give your two tickets away come and play, go out at night, get up again, 10 o’clock.

It was yeah, it was, it was an interesting tour. And of course we were the generals, so we stayed in the budget hotels and we had act on our bus and all of that where the Trotter stayed in the, the nice hotels. I mean, that was the gig, right. Right. But it was good people.

And we really played serious except for a couple of routines each quarter where, where we really we were never instructed not to do anything, but you just. You’d mess up a routine. Either so, but you were so we were basically spotting them, kind of 16 points a game. Right. And then we would, we would play hard and we’d have our trash talking during the games and stuff.  It was fun.

[00:41:16] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That’s fun. It’s fun. I have good, I have good memories of that. Experience like the generals guys were good to me when I was in the locker room with them. Yeah. And that kind of thing. Yeah. And they were all good dudes and you know, obviously the Globetrotters had to kind of be in on like, here’s this not only are we going to these, the generals, but now we have to incorporate this guy, which I’m sure they were doing in other cities too.

I’m sure. It wasn’t just my experience, but anyway, it was, it was fun. It was definitely a fun experience. Something that I’ll never remember. I still have the, I got to keep the uniform, so I got the General’s uniform, although, It was teeny tiny when they gave it to me. And I mean, now that thing’s have to be, I mean I think if I pulled it out, some fourth or fifth grader might be like, I don’t even know if I want to wear that thing.

It’s pretty small. So but good. But definitely a good, a good memory without, without question. Let’s get back to, all right, so you finish that year with the, with the generals, you get spotted in la you get a chance to go over and play in Israel, as you said. Big time European basketball. And what was that like when you first get there?

Like, are you overwhelmed? Does it feel comfortable? Just, what was your initial reaction when you got over there to play and then also just adjust culturally and being away from home?

[00:42:34] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah. I mean I arrived at the airport and they kind of whisked me past security and they were hiding me actually.

Which I didn’t know, but because what had happened out in LA is when I was running off of the court, Somebody had asked me, I think we were playing the Knicks and you know, I was running the halftime and somebody just out of clear blue said, are you Jewish? And I’m like, I don’t know. Why would you ask me that?

Not, no, I’m not, but my name’s Zimmer, but I’m not Jewish. And, and that was it. And so in the end what happened is when I went to Israel, Maccabi Tel Aviv bought me. The number two team, they were afraid other people were going to find out that I was there. So they kind of whisked me and they hid me in their coach’s house and so forth.

So that was already kind of an experience. But what I didn’t know is, is I hadn’t like, made the team I, I thought they were bringing me over, but we had kind like a tryout. So the coach worked me out a bit and then went over, played with some of the other guys, and next thing you know, I’m signing a contract by the swimming pool on handwritten contract and paper. So I didn’t really kind of know I was naive. I didn’t know what was really, how it was all really worked, to be honest with you. But what I did realize quite quickly was that this was really a big deal in this country. You know, there was one television channel on Thursday nights, it was Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball, and so I went out on a trip in the desert more than less than a week, let’s say.

When I was there and people already knew me on television and things like that. It was people come up to me in the gas station and say, Hey, welcome. So it was pretty it’s like being the Lakers in la. At the time it was a big deal. And so, and then I realized that the competition was fantastic.

You know, maybe less so in the league at the time, but in the international leagues, you were playing against the real madrids and the top Yugoslavia teams, the Russian teams, the Italians were fantastic at the time. The Spanish, it was great.

[00:44:34] Mike Klinzing: From a cultural standpoint, did you feel comfortable right away?

[00:44:36] Jack Zimmerman:Yeah, I did.I liked the Israeli culture. They’re very direct. So when you do something great they’ll lift you on your shoulders. If you if you miss a shot or you screw up a game they’ll you idiot they’ll slap your face.

I mean, so they kind of tell you like, it is, it’s not like, kind of nice try you know, go get them next time. It was like, you idiot. So it was kind of refreshing in some ways. And yeah, I was really embraced. I also worked hard to integrate because what I didn’t do is go over there and kind of sleep all day and eat and go to practice and then go out at night and do that again.

I got up and I learned Hebrew because I wanted to learn it, and so I, yeah, I just got involved with the community a little bit and built some Israeli friends and things like that. And so it also made things become much culturally, much more attuned. Yeah,

[00:45:32] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. And I think taking advantage of that opportunity to have to be about more than just basketball. Clearly that’s something that I’m sure when you look back on, you’re really glad that you did. Because I’m sure there are other guys that probably didn’t do that, that went to practice and. Took a nap and laid in their apartment and didn’t get as much out of the experience as you did.

[00:45:54] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, that’s right. And of course there were a lot of political tensions at that time, middle East, political tension. So when we would travel we always had bodyguards and in the hotels at each of the hallways, security guys. And we would play in In Yugoslavia, and they would have Raffa posters and they’d be screaming at you and things like that. It was quite intense. But yeah, it was really enriching. I mean, it was a beautiful experience.  

[00:46:23] Mike Klinzing: What’s your craziest European basketball story?

[00:46:26] Jack Zimmerman: Oh gosh. I guess let me think I know we played in. Kind of Olympic venue, very small arena in Greece.

And one of our players, Earl Williams, he played in the NBA five years. He played for five different teams. But apparently Kareem Abdul Jabbar called him the best rebounding player his size he’s ever played against. And he’s the guy, he would come to the court and  he could put his chin on his knees without stretching at all. I mean, he was just flexible. He was just athletic, but he was also quite quite crazy. So he went after a loose ball, got the ball, the, the crowd was just on top of this with flares and all of these kinds of things, and, and he walked about 10 feet, turned around and just threw the ball at this guy, this fan, and just right in the face and, and just we just had a riot that broke out.

So it stopped the game for about an hour. We finished the game, we left the game on our knees on the bus because they were rocking our bus with the curtains closed. You know, there were rumors that a couple of the stewards were, were missing. I mean, those kinds of stories, there were a few of those kinds of stories.

[00:47:42] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, that’s the question I love to ask anybody who was fortunate enough to play overseas, everybody has one, if not multiple stories of things that just, you look at it from an American sports perspective and it’s hard to kind of wrap your head around some of the experiences that that guys who have played overseas have had.

When you think about that, the totality of your experience overseas, And getting obviously a chance to extend your career beyond the college level. As your experience in the game was starting to come to an end and you realized that, hey, maybe my playing career is going to come to a close, did you ever have any thoughts of coaching or figuring out some way to stay involved in the game as.

Profession or when it was over, were you ready for it to be over and move on the next chapter?

[00:48:37] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, it’s hard to let go. Probably anybody in, in our position knows, and especially when you’re still young and feel like you can play, but at some point you have to rationalize everything.

So it wasn’t easy to stop playing. I didn’t really want to be into kind of any formal coaching at a higher level. I didn’t like I’d been asked. I didn’t really like the recruiting aspect. I did a lot of the recruiting at Dayton and it was great, but I didn’t want to go out, off and travel into people’s homes and try to do that.

I loved coaching kind of at the kids’ levels, so grade school. Early high school. And so I also, in Dayton during the summer, would run a summer camp with one of my ex coaches. And I love that kind of thing. So I did a little bit of that in Israel for a while, but at some point I felt like I had to get into a more professional world on a business world and start building a different life.

And so that’s what I did. I went back from Tel Aviv to the States and got involved in high tech. In the early eighties when it was just the PC was just coming out. So I wanted to be in something kind of fast and dynamic like sports, and I wasn’t an engineer and I had no tech background, but I wanted to figure out how to get into that world. And that’s what I did.

[00:50:02] Mike Klinzing: What’d you major in in college?

[00:50:03] Jack Zimmerman: I majored in business and business marketing yeah, business management.

[00:50:10] Mike Klinzing: When you look back at your experiences with the game of basketball and you think about all that it’s done for you, if you could boil it down to, I know we talked about this a little bit before, but if you could boil it down to maybe just one or two things that you think.

What basketball has given you in your life. And you could probably take this question a million different directions, but when you think about the one or two most important things that basketball has given you in your life, what are those things?

[00:50:38] Jack Zimmerman: Yeah, I think I think knowing how to prepare, I think being disciplined.

I think self-motivation, I think teamwork. Those kinds of things. Collaboration, I think those kinds of things are just embedded in the game. And yeah, I think I, I take away that, I mean, certainly my experience has shaped my life because I’ve ended up living in France. And that’s where I’ve been there now 30 years.

So my international experiences in basketball got me excited about seeing what it’s like to live in, in other parts of the world. I think now when I go to business meetings I’ll have around the table a Dutch person, a German person, a Spanish person, an English person, whatever.

And so being able to excel in that kind of multicultural environment. I mean, that’s certainly come from my basketball experiences over time. So all of that’s contributed to kind of who I am. And it’s also given me a great appreciation to travel. So I love to get out and see the world.

And, and all of that came, yeah, ultimately from picking up that little orange ball.

[00:51:48] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny isn’t it? It’s crazy when you think about it. Well, since we’re recording on the night of the NBA draft and we had a Frenchman go number one. Give us your Victor Wembenyama take. Is he going to be the great player that everybody thinks he is?

What’s your 30 second evaluation of Victor?

[00:52:05] Jack Zimmerman:  I mean, I’ve seen the highlights like everybody else. I haven’t gone to see him in person in France. I think clearly every, everybody knows he has to his body and stronger. He looks, he reminds me a lot of Ralph Sampson.

[00:52:20] Jason Sunkle: He does. I agree.

[00:52:21] Jack Zimmerman: Ralph was obviously a fantastic player and an all star and all of that. his durability didn’t last as long as he’d hoped. And I just, I kind of hoped that Victor can build that durability over time and just become a legend something we’ve never seen before in our life.

And I think that’s all.

[00:52:45] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, the skill level is off the chart. For a guy his size, he moves. I think Sampson is a really good comparison because I think if Sampson were to be teleported into this era, he would’ve played a lot like Victor plays. I think he was capable of moving in that way, but of course, basketball was played much differently back in the early eighties when Ralph Sampson was playing as opposed to how the game is played today.

And so it’s interesting to see how the game has evolved. And even hearing you talk earlier in the pod about, The type of offense that you ran at Dayton and you running the Bobby Knight motion. And that was a lot of what we did when I was playing. And I’ve told people that I think in my entire career as a college basketball player, that I may have defended or participated in on offense, five ball screens.

Yeah. Maybe in my entire career. Yeah. And now that’s basically what the entire game revolves around. And it wasn’t even a part of the game that. Probably you or I played at the time. And so it’s just interesting how the game has evolved and, and the way that it’s taken on a new form and it’s going to continue to evolve and change as we go on.

That’s what makes it so, so great. And I think that’s one of the things, Jack, that I love about the podcast is just getting to talk to people who. Have experienced the game in so many different ways, whether it’s like yourself as a player at the high school, college, and then eventually the professional level or coaches and at all different levels.

That’s what’s been really, really interesting to me.

[00:54:25] Jack Zimmerman: I was going to say to your comment, is that, What, what’s really interesting as a kid all we played pick and roll. I mean, in our two and two games and three and three games in the neighborhoods, I mean, I was really good at pick and roll.

I knew how to do that. I knew how to fade. I knew how, I mean it was, but then when I got to college and in high school became much more about pass and pick away. So we lost all of those skills. And now it’s back in the nba. I mean, everybody’s doing pick and roll everywhere, So it’s maybe back to the purity. Even they’re doing the kind of the Harlem Globetrotter weave. I mean that that’s embedded in a lot of offenses.

[00:55:05] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It’s funny, my son’s AAU team, We run that weave constantly. You know, and just keep trying to break down the defense and get closer and closer and closer to the basket, till eventually something breaks free.

And yeah, you think about that, it’s old school basketball, and yet just kind of a new modern twist. And I think again, that’s what makes the game so great is that it continues to evolve and it gives all of us who love it, just a way to continue to appreciate what basketball has done for all of us.

And again, Jack, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to join us tonight. I’m thankful to Tim Gallagher as always for. Connecting us with people who like yourself, who have influenced him, but also people who just have great stories to tell. And again, thank you for being a part of it.

We really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on our next episode. Thanks.