Nobody in the sports-crazy Wood River Valley loved organized athletics and team sports more than 18-year Elkhorn resident John Caine.
Caine passed away peacefully Friday, July 9 at age 85. He had been suffering the effects of Parkinson's Disease for 10 years and had taken a recent fall to make things harder.
One of the most reputable college athletic directors in the U.S. until his retirement in 1990, Caine could be found most mornings enjoying breakfast with his wife Marilyn at Perry's Restaurant, Ketchum.
If there had been a game on television the night before, you can be sure that John and Marilyn had avidly watched it.
"He was my rock. We shared everything," said Marilyn, who would have celebrated her 63rd anniversary with her husband Aug. 31. "We were a team. He loved people and had a way about him. And he stayed very interested about everything."
Besides his beloved wife and his family, Caine's main love was basketball. But he was knowledgeable about every sport and well respected throughout college athletics.
He was proudly "Old School," through and through.
But Caine was always open to new things. Last winter, he eagerly attended a Community School boys' basketball game to watch 6-9 Senegalese college prospect Daniel Gomis. Afterwards, he communicated his "scouting" to the Boise State University basketball coach.
A native of Ashland, Kentucky and U.S. Army veteran of World War II in the European theater, Caine played college basketball for the University of Louisville in 1946-47 and then transferred to UCLA.
Caine transferred to UCLA because he and his new wife Marilyn of Fullerton, Ca. "didn't have any money" to return to Kentucky after their marriage, she recalled.
The couple met when she was 19 and Caine was stationed in southern California near Marilyn's home of Fullerton. They met through Marilyn's brother, Herb Bergen, who was John Caine's Army buddy.
At UCLA, Caine was a redshirt basketball player on the first Bruins team coached by coach John Wooden, in 1947. Wooden went on to coach 27 seasons for the Bruins and win 10 national championships, with an 88-game winning streak during the 1971-74 years.
Legendary coach Wooden, who died June 4 at age 99, and Univ. of California-Berkeley basketball coach Pete Newell were great influences on John Caine in his future career.
Both great coaches were motivators and excellent teachers, qualities that Caine sought in his coaches during his career.
"You have to remember that John Wooden was a three-time All-American at Purdue. He was low key, but very intense and competitive," Caine said.
Wooden's coaching methods were grounded in simplicity, Caine said. He said, "You had to be in better physical condition than your opponent, and you had to keep it simple on offense and also on defense.
"He drilled and drilled and drilled until you reacted the way the defense reacted, and you outran your opponent.
"Wooden always had success, but the players who made him a great coach were fellows like Alcindor and Walton. That was the thing about Wooden. He knew what to do with great players. He was able to get great play out of great players."
Graduating from UCLA in 1950, Caine coached high school and college basketball for 16 years. His first administrative job was director of athletics at Cal-State Fullerton in 1968.
For the next 22 years he fought many battles and raised a lot of money during three other postings as an athletic director—at San Jose State, the University of Oregon and Univ. of California-Irvine.
That period coincided with an era of tremendous growth in collegiate athletic programs including the advent of Title IX.
Caine said, "I tried to stand for things that are right about college athletics. It does so much for young people."
Ten years ago, in June 2000, Caine was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).
Impressed with the Sun Valley area during a visit here for a NCAA Tennis Committee meeting in 1987, John and Marilyn moved here in 1992 after his retirement. He became involved in the Ketchum-Sun Valley Rotary Club and as a member of the session at the Bigwood Presbyterian Church.
In 2005, Caine was honored as the Ketchum-Sun Valley "Rotarian of the Year."
A "celebration of life" for Caine will held in the next few weeks at the Bigwood Presbyterian Church, a service officiated by Rev. Bob Henley.
A feature story published 10 years ago about Caine's life and distinguished career is published in its entirety here:
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Athletic director John Caine makes Hall of Fame
(Editor's note: This story about John Caine was published in the June 7, 2000 edition of the Idaho Mountain Express)
By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer
With our media-saturated culture, you hear a lot these days about athletes—often good, sometimes bad.
You don't hear much about the people who make the schedules, pay the bills and provide equipment for athletic programs around the country.
Those are the athletic directors.
John E. Caine, 75, who retired to Elkhorn eight years ago with his wife Marilyn, has been one of the most reputable athletic directors in the U.S.
For 22 years, during some of the biggest growth of collegiate programs including the advent of Title IX, Caine guided Division 1 athletic programs up and down the West Coast.
He started at Cal State-Fullerton from 1968-72. It was San Jose State from 1972-76, the University of Oregon from 1976-81 and, finally, the Univ. of California-Irvine from 1983 until his retirement in 1990.
Caine has been an important member of rule-making committees for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Big West Conference and Pac Ten Conference.
The sport that brought Caine to his chosen profession was basketball.
As a lanky 6-2, 150-pound guard, he played it growing up in Kentucky and going to college in California. He coached the game for 16 years in California, Minnesota and Illinois.
He grew up watching the great teams of Adolph Rupp in Kentucky. First-hand, he has seen the greatest coach in college basketball history, John Wooden at UCLA.
Indeed, Caine was a member of Wooden's first team at UCLA.
Sports have been Caine's life.
He's at that point in life where honors are bestowed.
On Monday, June 12, Caine will be inducted into the Hall of Fame of National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).
Enshrinement will take place at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Fla. during the NACDA's 35th annual convention.
Caine will probably play a little golf and renew many friendships. He is a people person, like many athletic directors who rely on networking, and he appreciates the honor.
"It's a darn good way to finish a career," he said last week.
A great sports town
There are towns in America, and there are great sports towns.
Growing up along the Ohio River in Ashland, Ky. was a matter of growing up in a great sports town in a great basketball state, Caine recalled.
Ashland was a hard-boiled railroad and factory city, fifth-largest in Kentucky at one time, that was surrounded by farming and tobacco growing. It's a southern city, upstream from Cincinnati, where Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio meet.
John Caine's father, a World War I veteran, was a railroader for the Chesapeake & Ohio.
In 1924, the year John was born, Ashland Oil was founded as a small, eastern Kentucky refinery. In 76 years since, it has become a $13 billion diversified energy and chemical company. For 51 years it has owned Valvoline, the oldest brand motor oil.
The industries gave stabilization to Ashland, so its people could concentrate on their first love—sports.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Caine's high school went undefeated in football for five or six years. It won the national high school basketball championship in 1928, which at that time was held in the University of Chicago field house.
Winning became a tradition.
"You were supposed to carry on," said Caine. "All we did was go from one sport to another. The town was very receptive to sports. We had practically no delinquency problem."
Caine, a righthanded contact hitter, played baseball in the spring and enjoyed patrolling the outfield. "I loved baseball because it was so much easier than basketball," he said.
Basketball was much harder, and more was expected of Kentucky kids.
It was Kentucky, after all.
Caine said, "I wouldn't go as far as saying that basketball is a religion in Kentucky, but it's close. People are extremely interested in the sport."
He was an average high school basketball player on a good team his senior year. But the country had other things on its collective mind in 1942, when Caine graduated from Paul Blazer High School.
Caine entered the U.S. Army in March 1943 and served in France and the European theater through Feb. 1946, in the armored division.
He returned to the University of Louisville and played college basketball for Peck Hickman in 1946-47. "Louisville's success as a college basketball program all started with Peck Hickman," he said.
Basketball was quite different a half century ago, said Caine.
"It was more of a passing game—screening and blocking, more organized and less individual," he said. "I saw the great Rupp teams of the day. On offense, once the ball went in, it didn't come out that often. The big guys didn't want to give it up."
Where a man ends up living is usually determined by his heart.
That was certainly the case with John Caine.
His Army buddy Herb Bergen had a sister named Marilyn who lived in Fullerton, Ca. John transferred to UCLA to be nearer to Marilyn, and they've now been married 52 years.
At UCLA, Caine was a redshirt basketball player on the first Bruins team coached by now-legendary coach Wooden. It was an education.
"You have to remember that John Wooden was a three-time All-American at Purdue. He was low key, but very intense and competitive," Caine said.
Wooden's coaching methods were grounded in simplicity, Caine said.
Caine said, "You had to be in better physical condition than your opponent, and you had to keep it simple—keep the offense simple and the defense simple.
"He drilled and drilled and drilled until you reacted the way the defense reacted, and you outran your opponent.
"Wooden always had success, but the players who made him a great coach were fellows like Alcindor and Walton. That was the thing about Wooden. He knew what to do with great players. He was able to get great play out of great players."
Great coaches are always motivators and excellent teachers, Caine said. He got to know Pete Newell, the legendary Univ. of California-Berkeley basketball coach, and Caine met Bobby Knight of Indiana Univ. when Knight was visiting Newell.
"Newell's stuff was simple, particularly offensively. His system was sound. Knight is a good teacher as well. It's his technique and style that have gotten him into trouble," Caine said.
Back in his first year at Louisville, Caine thought he might go into business education. By the time he finished his undergraduate degree at UCLA in 1950, he decided he wanted to be a teacher and coach.
He earned his Masters degree from UCLA in 1952, shortly after taking his first coaching job (head boys' basketball, assistant in baseball and football) at Bellflower High School in Bellflower, Ca.
"I was a World War II veteran and married. I had to get out and go to work," he said.
Caine coached basketball for 16 years—seven at Bellflower in the Long Beach area, then another seven at Cerritos Community College in Norwalk, Ca.
"At Cerritos we had very competitive basketball teams. We were playing good, strong community college programs and it was tough," Caine said.
He obtained his doctorate in education from the Univ. of Northern Colorado in Greeley in 1966, then coached basketball for two more years—at Lea College in Minnesota and at Eastern Illinois Univ.
Getting the doctorate in education was one of the most important moves in his professional life, he said.
"It opened up new vistas and challenges," Caine said. "I had coached for 15 years, and I was getting to the point where I couldn't relate to the players as well as I once had. The kids were younger. There was more and more of a gap."
Caine's first administrative job was director of athletics at Cal State-Fullerton in 1968. For the next 22 years he fought many battles and raised a lot of money.
"If you're the athletic director or the president of the university, your number-one job is to raise money. It's always a struggle. You have a budget and you try to meet it. It's a heckuva challenge every year," he said.
Having a background as an athlete and coach helps in the competitive world of financing college athletics. Caine said, "You take every edge you can that is legal and legitimate. It's every bit a 365-day-a-year job."
Caine added, "I tried to stand for things that are right about college athletics. It does so much for young people."
His work in professional organizations includes Big West and Pac 10 long-range planning committees and basketball committees, as well as Caine's membership in the NACDA, dating way back to 1969.
Caine is the only two-time member of the NACDA executive committee. He has chaired numerous convention sessions and panels at the annual NACDA conventions. Next week he'll receive the group's top honor—Hall of Fame enshrinement.
Florida is always a desirable destination, but it will be tough to leave Sun Valley's beautiful late-spring weather. John and Marilyn Caine have become very fond of Idaho.
He said, "Marilyn has always been interested in it, since seeing the movie It Happened in Sun Valley.
"I was on the NCAA Tennis Committee about 1987, and we met at Elkhorn. We liked it. After I retired in 1990, we were living on the campus at UC-Irvine, and we decided to have Christmas in Sun Valley. We got condos out at Dollar, and liked it so much we decided to return.
"We've been here since 1992, living close to Elkhorn Village."
Caine has stayed busy with volunteer work in the valley.
He's a member of the Ketchum-Sun Valley Rotary Club. For the past five-and-a-half years, he's been on the session at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood in Ketchum, helping to manage and guide the church.
Caine is also a member of the citizen's committee involved in the proposed public golf course up Quigley Canyon east of Hailey.
In September, he'll return to his roots, traveling back to Ashland for a reunion of the 1941-45 wartime classes at Paul Blazer High School.
The Caines have three children and two grandchildren.
Cinda Caine Wight, a Colorado College graduate, is a lawyer in northern California near the Oregon border. Her daughter Lindsey is a senior in high school.
Nancy Caine Kreisler, a 1974 University of Redlands graduate, is a college professor in southern California. An animal behaviorist, Nancy specializes in monkeys. Her daughter Alison is a sixth-grader.
John Chipman "Chip" Caine followed in his father's basketball footsteps, playing backcourt for UC-Davis. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology and is branching into the cyber world of technology in the Bay Area, at San Mateo.
