Anthony Tavares stalks the tiny space along the sideline in front of his team’s bench, pointing fingers, shouting directions and stomping the hardwood for emphasis.
His forehead is doused with sweat.
His voice is grinding its way to oblivion.
And during timeouts, he crouches in front of the players, his head swiveling from face to face as he barks instructions.
The scene at Newark’s East Side High is similar to that of most boys basketball teams except for one detail: Tavares is an assistant coach. The
head coach, Bryant Garvin, sits during games and whispers in the players’ ears during timeouts while Tavares shouts at them.
This quirky coaching configuration seems to be working at the school in Newark’s Ironbound section. In a decade together, Tavares and Grant have won two Essex County championships, two sectional titles and a state crown, making East Side arguably the most consistent team in Newark. Today, the Red Raiders (17-8) open the state tournament as the No. 2 seed in North Jersey Section 2, Group 3.
“They absolutely do not have the ego,” said Liz Aranjo, the former East Side athletic director who now is director of health, physical education and athletics for Newark public schools. “The players are definitely the focus, and that’s what these guys care about.”
Tavares, Garvin and the six other coaches in the East Side program each has a specific job. Dan Sharpe sets up the SAT tutoring program. Troy Long handles college recruiting. Robert Cole oversees feeder programs. Uron Hawkins keeps track of grades. John Thomason and James May coach the freshmen.
And no coach is more important than the next, prompting them to pool together their coaching stipends and split the money evenly eight ways, Tavares said.
To see Tavares, 32, and Garvin, 40, during a game is to see something that feels like a perfectly timed symphony of shouts and screams. They often instruct in concert — Garvin, from his chair, often using one-word instructions between Tavares’ constant chatter.
“It’s kind of natural for us because we just have to listen to both coaches,” East Side center Aaron Bodie said. “Coach Gar inspires us and Coach T motivates us. It’s like a team effort.”
• • •
As crisis counselor at East Side, Garvin has seen his share of altercations in the hallways, but the one in 2000 was different. A student believed to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol was attacking his father.
Garvin, a former college football player, tried to restrain the student, but felt something almost immediately as they tangled. He had collapsed two vertebrae that pinched against nerves in his spine, causing him to lose feeling in his legs.
Four screws would be inserted in his back to stabilize his spine and Garvin missed almost four months of work. The injury changed his lifestyle.
“If I do anything wrong, moving the wrong way, I can have some major issues where I could be out for a while,” said Garvin, who still looks fit and trim but moves with a slow gait. “I have to keep myself still and keep my blood pressure low.”
Despite his back problems, Garvin took the job in October 2001 at the urging of the East Side administration, which thought his stern approach would help quell the negativity surrounding the program. Garvin knew he would have to sit during games because of his back, but that was only one of the challenges he would face trying to turn around a program mired in scandal.
Ed Leibowitz, the previous coach, had been suspended indefinitely and the program was put on two years’ probation by the state’s governing body for high school athletics after an investigation into the sudden appearance of foreign basketball players at the school.
“There was just no order. There was a lot of chaos,” Aranjo said.
When Garvin was hired, Aranjo urged him to bring on board Tavares, a former East Side player. First Garvin wanted to meet Tavares.
“He sat down with me and he said, ‘I’ll do anything and everything you want,’ ” Garvin said. “I told him if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this together.”
In their second season, Garvin and Tavares led East Side to the Group 4 state championship.
• • •
During a Feb. 15 game against Columbia, the animated Tavares earned a technical foul for arguing, restricting him to the one place he never wants to be: the bench.
Even though it’s mandatory for coaches who earn technicals to sit the rest of the game, Tavares crept out of his seat several times, sometimes crouching low and slamming his chair against the ground to get his players’ attention.
“If Coach Garvin wants you to do something, he’ll pull you to the side and talk to you about it and make sure you try and apply it,” Bodie said. “Coach T, he just tells you in front of everybody. He’s just always amped.”
Garvin, on the other hand, is a man of few words and his players know it’s important when he speaks. It’s all part of the plan at East Side.
“It takes a village to raise these kids and we definitely have a nice support system,” said Tavares, who is now a vice principal at East Side. “We’re all in the building. We all stay on top of the kids so they can be role models for all the other kids in the building.
“All eight of us complement each other tremendously. There’s no ego. It seems to work pretty well.”
head coach, Bryant Garvin, sits during games and whispers in the players’ ears during timeouts while Tavares shouts at them.
