Learning from Defeat: How George Bergen Built a Basketball Powerhouse
By Bandits Contributing Writer: Grant Vassos • June 3, 2021
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Langley Times (Black Press)
Before he became one of only two individuals to win the B.C. provincial high school championship at the highest level as a player and coach, George Bergen had to learn what it felt like to lose first.
In his Grade 11 year at MEI Secondary, Bergen and the Eagles were upset by the Oak Bay Bays at the 1969 AA senior boys’ provincial tournament in double overtime. The near taste of victory Bergen experienced that game would appear again 43 years later as a head coach. That year, Bergen's Walnut Grove Gators lost to the Terry Fox Ravens in the final seconds of the AAA championship game. Then once again in the 2016 AAAA semi-finals by the talons of the Kelowna Owls.
With each of those three losses, he made sure to come away with a lesson. Each of the following three seasons, Bergen and his team went on to win the provincial title.
The legendary retired Gators head coach is reminded of those lessons through one of his quotes. Initially coined by Winston Churchill but tweaked to his liking.
"Success is never final, and failure is never fatal," Bergen said. "It is the courage to compete on every play that matters."
Bergen's desire to coach began at MEI when his head coach asked him to help with a Grade 7 boys basketball team at South Poplar Traditional Elementary. He resisted accepting it at first but agreed to take on the responsibility with another teammate.
Initially, Bergen thought of it as another way for his coach to recruit young players to come to the high school. But he also remembers his coach as a smart man who taught him how to be a leader, and allowed him to dip his toe into coaching.
"I didn't really have a clue what I was doing. But because we were good high school players and actually won a provincial championship, the kids looked up to us. So, no matter what we did, we could do no wrong," Bergen said with a laugh.
Bergen went on to coach a local Grade 8 team while attending the University of Manitoba, before arriving at Walnut Grove Secondary in 1991 after leaving his previous position as a teacher and coach at Aldergrove Community Secondary.
Entering his first season, the Gators had only eight players on the roster. Four of which were offered to him after he reached out to the high school's rugby coach to lend him players. In the team's inaugural season, the Gators mounted only one win to go along with 32 losses, with players – mainly from the rugby side – fouling out of almost every game.
"I wanted to teach those players to compete for every single inch of ground," Bergen said. "Every single play that happened, we were going to try to compete."
Competition was Bergen's favourite word when it came to how he ran his teams. Every day, he expected his players to compete in practice. An emphasis was placed on player and ball movement, team chemistry, strength and conditioning, accountability, and keeping the style of play simple.
They travelled frequently to the U.S. for tournaments and became regulars at Gonzaga University's Men's Basketball Team Camps held in June. While Bergen's teams often lost by a significant margin the first few games, he remembers those trips as a turning point in making his players more competitive when they returned home. Another step towards Bergen’s long-term plan to build the culture of excellence he envisioned when he first came to Walnut Grove.
More importantly, they were going to have fun doing it. Bergen remembers one practice where he instructed his players to race around the four-hundred-meter track outside the school. The winner would receive a jug of chocolate milk. Among those players was Jadon Cohee, the Gators' talented star point guard who eventually went on to play for Team Canada.
"I didn't think Jadon Cohee would win, but he dominated," Bergen said.
His teams also featured vital leaders such as De'Sean Monsanto, the 2012 provincial tournament's top defensive player, and who Bergen believed could have also been a safety in football. As well as Ethan McKean and Charles Luu, whom Bergen recalls making "some of the smartest plays I've seen in basketball."
His two sons, Jared and Paul, grew up to be members of competitive teams at Walnut Grove under the tutelage of Bergen. Jared went on to play two years for Cascades men’s basketball coach Pat Lee at the University of Fraser Valley before transitioning into a job in forestry. During those seven years, he also rejoined his alma-mater Gators to split time as an assistant coach for his father.
Bergen remembers him as a pillar of strength: with the voice and experience to connect with his players and their tendencies and who could challenge them to embrace what was needed to become better. Today, Jared works as a Vancouver firefighter.
“He had a really good understanding of my mind . . . and he’d always totally understand what I was trying to do, and he’d explain it to the players because, in the heat of the battle, there’s a lot of things to take care of as a coach,” Bergen said.
The following years had players like Ty Rowell, who possessed an unrivaled work ethic when it came to his craft. And James Woods, a terrific leader and a winner who understood the identity Bergen wanted his teams to have.
Bergen retired from head coaching in June of 2017, a few months before Woods was set to enter his Grade 12 year. Looking back, Bergen thinks it would have been fun to coach Woods' final season – whose heart and skill more than made up for his small frame.
"He never really was all that big in high school. I measured him at five-ten, and he always wanted me to list him at six feet,” Bergen said. “But he was five-ten.”
Nowadays, Bergen stays involved in the B.C. basketball community by consulting with coaches interested in learning from him. He took up officiating games and found enjoyment behind the position that made him go "crazy always trying to get the right call" when he was behind the bench. In addition to volunteering with the Gators’ basketball team, the annual provincial tournament and being a part of the all-star committee, Bergen also works as a Teacher on Call (TOC).
While he remained a committed father throughout his career, Bergen’s grateful for the extra time he’s been able to spend with his family and six grandkids after devoting so much time to his work. There’s a part of him that still believes he could have kept coaching until he was 70.
"There's something so satisfying about (coaching) that it's very difficult to just drop it and let it go. Even the schools that I go to as a TOC now, I say, 'Hey, how come you're not playing basketball? You're in Grade 8. You should be out there.' And usually, the kid will say something like, 'Oh, I'm no good at it.' And I go, 'I don't believe that. I think you could be good at it. It's my way of recruiting kids, and I've always done that," Bergen said.
Even after a lifetime of mentoring high school players, the passionate coach inside of him lingers on proudly the same way it did for 26 years at Walnut Grove. As a builder and as a teacher, passing on the lessons he learned never to forget.
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