ATerry Garner's coaching career led him to do some summer coaching and help conduct some basketball clinics on the island of Maritius, about 500 miles east of Madagascar.
Garner, then the men's basketball coach at Lyon College, encouraged his friend, Hendrix coach Cliff Garrison, to get involved with the NAIA-sponsored clinics.
"Maritius is like Hawaii," Garner said Monday during an appearance at the Arkansas Sports Club. "It's where a lot of people of South Africa vacation. Cliff signed up and they sent him to Mali and Chad (two third-world countries). I think he lost 30 pounds and came back looking like he had BeriBeri. I won't tell you what he called me when he got back from Africa."
Garner is familiar to many old Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference fans because he coached men's basketball and later served as athletic director for 27 years at Lyon Collge (formerly Arkansas College). He worked alongside and coached against several Arkansas coaching legends including Garrison, Don Dyer and Bill Vining.
"I remember one game against Dyer against when (the University of Central Arkansas) came up to Becknell Gym at Arkansas College Scottie Pippen's senior year," Garner said. "We had a good crowd, and we're playing pretty well the first half, a two- or three-point game. At halftime, a security official came to me and said we had a bomb scare and we had to clear the gym. I sent our guys to the library. Dyer's players got on the bus. After checking things out, the security officials came to me and said it was OK to resume the game. I went out to tell Dyer, and that bus was gone. They'd left. We had to make up the game later, and I think Ronnie Martin beat us on a 3-pointer at the buzzer."
Garner grew up in southwest Little Rock and played for former UCA coach Don Nixon at the old Mabelvale High School in 1961.
"We'd practice before school at 6 a.m.," he said. "My ride was Don Nixon. He'd be a mile from the little store where I waited and he would be blinking those lights and honking the horn to make sure I was awake. As soon as I got in the car, he started talking basketball. A lot of times I had not idea what he was talking about. I appreciated what he did except when he bounced volleyballs off my head when I didn't make a proper screen or something."
He played college basketball at Little Rock University (now Arkansas-Little Rock).
"It was a very good place for me," he said. "They were just restarting their basketball program and it gave a lot of people like me who were not that talented a place to play college basketball."
He coached began his coaching career at Cloverdale in Pulaski County before taking head coaching jobs at North Little Rock Northeast and served as a assistant to Vining at Ouachita Baptist.
His AD when he coached at Northeast was Dick Hendrickson of Conway.
"I understood a lot more after I became AD at Lyon," he said. "I think all coaches ought to be AD's before coaching. They'd get more of a perspective."
He said he was better prepared to become a college coach after serving under Vining.
"After the games, it was hard to tell whether he won or lost," he said. "He was the same guy."
He then headed to Lyon College.
"I didn't know much about the school, but I was looking for a head coaching job and there was an opening," he said. "It turned out to be more of a coaching stop for me. The college and Batesville was a great place for my family. The early 1980s were good to us as far as basketball. We were able to get a special group of student-athletes. They had not won much before that. I don't know if it's what I did especially, but we were able to get these players."
He also played summer senior league softball at one point with Faulkner County softball legends Bobby Tiner and Carl Roebuck. Retired from coaching and living in North Little Rock, he remains a close friend of Garrison's.
"When I coached, if I had a question about doing something, I'd go to the Cliff Garrison book on what he'd do," Garner said.
